The brief: bring me sunshine

Nate had recorded a proper summer anthem.

Chasing The Sun was upbeat, infectious and absolutely crying out for a music video filled with sunshine, beaches and that carefree summer feeling.

Under normal circumstances, the obvious solution would have been to fly somewhere warm, find a beautiful beach and start filming.

Ibiza would have done nicely.

Unfortunately, there were three fairly significant problems.

1. It was April.
2. The UK was in lockdown because of the Covid pandemic.
3. Nate was living in Scotland, more than 300 miles from me in Essex.

So I needed to make a video that looked as though it had been filmed somewhere hot and sunny, without leaving Essex, while Nate remained in Scotland.

What could possibly go wrong?

Finding our own little Ibiza

Scotland has some spectacular beaches. Granted, the temperature doesn't always encourage you to strip down to your shorts and order a cocktail, but visually there are places that can rival almost anywhere.

The trick would be finding the right location and, more importantly, the right weather.

If we could get a clear morning with beautiful light, there was a chance we could make the whole thing look considerably warmer than it actually was.

Of course, that still left the small problem of filming it.

I couldn't travel to Scotland, so I needed someone local who could capture the footage while I directed the project remotely.

Fortunately, Nate knew a wedding photographer called Austin Mitchell who also worked with video.

Austin and I met over Zoom and began planning the shoot.

I put together a rough storyboard and a wish list of shots, but directing a music video this way meant accepting that I wouldn't have the same control I'd normally have on location.

I was relying on Austin to interpret what I wanted, find the best shots and deal with whatever the Scottish weather decided to throw at him.

It could have gone horribly wrong.

An early morning on Silver Sands Beach

Nate and Austin chose the beautiful Silver Sands Beach in Aberdour.

A friend of Nate's came along to help with make-up, and with my shot list in hand, they arranged an early morning shoot. Then we waited for the weather.

And, rather miraculously, Scotland delivered.

They were greeted by a gorgeous sunrise, giving Austin the opportunity to capture some beautiful footage of Nate performing on the beach.

He also captured some lovely drone shots that gave the video a much bigger sense of scale.

Back in Essex, I waited for the footage to arrive.

And that's when my part of the real work began.

Finding the video in the edit

Editing footage you've directed yourself is one thing. Editing footage someone else has filmed, when you weren't even there, is a different challenge altogether.

Before I could start putting the video together, I needed to go through everything Austin had captured and work out how the individual shots could fit the music.

It's a bit like being handed a box of jigsaw pieces without knowing exactly what the finished picture is supposed to look like. Thankfully, Austin had done a brilliant job.

I had some lovely performance footage, beautiful scenery and those sweeping drone shots to play with.

But I wanted the edit to do more than simply cut between attractive images of Nate on a beach.

There was something in the song that had caught my attention.

A little inspiration from The Cure

When I first heard Chasing The Sun, I was immediately drawn to the handclap rhythms.

They reminded me of Close To Me by The Cure, particularly the way the percussion gives the track its character.

I thought those rhythms would make a great visual motif.

So I began experimenting with short, sharp edits that picked out the handclaps, cutting between shots in time with the music.

It gave the video a playful, rhythmic energy and helped break up the longer performance and landscape sequences.

But there was still one rather important problem.

Despite the beautiful sunrise, the footage looked cold.

Because, well, it was.

Bringing Ibiza to Scotland

Colour grading is one of those parts of filmmaking that most people probably don't think about.

But it can completely change how a scene feels.

Austin had captured some gorgeous images, but the natural colours had a distinctly cool, blue appearance. Left untouched, the video would have looked exactly like what it was: a man singing on a Scottish beach in April.

Not quite the Mediterranean summer fantasy we were going for.

So I set about warming everything up.

I introduced richer orange and yellow tones, adjusted the colours across the different shots and worked to give the whole video a consistent, sun-drenched appearance.

I also took some sections close to black and white, creating a stronger contrast with the warmer footage and giving those handclap edits a little extra punch.

It was easily the most time-consuming part of the edit.

But it made an enormous difference.

Suddenly, Scotland was looking rather Mediterranean.

Not bad for a morning when Nate was probably wishing he'd brought a thicker coat.

Did we really film this in Ibiza?

When I showed Nate the first edit, his reaction made all the effort worthwhile.

He couldn't believe how warm and summery the finished video looked.

And since its release, I've had people ask whether we'd managed to travel somewhere hot to film it.

Which is about the best compliment I could have hoped for.

There's just one tiny giveaway. If you watch closely, you can occasionally see Nate's breath in the cold air as he's singing. Apparently, even colour grading has its limits.

The result

Chasing The Sun remains one of my favourite videos I've made with Nate so far.

Not because it was the biggest production or involved the most elaborate equipment.

Quite the opposite.

It was made during a lockdown, with the artist hundreds of miles away, a local filmmaker capturing the footage and me directing and editing everything remotely.

The project depended on good planning, trusting the person behind the camera and knowing what could be achieved in the edit.

And it reinforced something I've always believed about music videos.

You don't necessarily need the perfect location, an enormous budget or a huge crew.

You need a strong idea, people who understand what you're trying to achieve and the ability to make the most of what you've got.

Sometimes that means finding an extraordinary location.

Sometimes it means getting up at an ungodly hour to catch the sunrise.

And sometimes it means convincing people that a freezing Scottish beach is actually somewhere in the Mediterranean.



Just don't look too closely at Nate's breath.

Every music video has a story.

Some involve big ideas. Others involve tiny budgets, happy accidents or problems nobody saw coming. Here are a few more stories from behind the camera.

Nate James – 1Kind

Making a music video from 300 miles away with a phone, a bedsheet and a big idea.

EM Kane – Wasted Time

Three scenes, three shots and a freezing barn. How simplicity became the video's greatest strength.

Anthony Hughes – Body Sayin'

A nightclub, a cast of dancers and the decision to throw away an entire opening sequence.