Normally, a video shoot involves some pre-production meetings, storyboarding, lots of discussion over concept and content, a small army of people on-set, and a well-defined goal.

With Mitch McVicker, all of that is condensed into a quick text that goes something like, “Hey man, I’m going to be in town on Thursday.  Can we do a video?”  And with Mitch, that’s all I need to know.  We’ve worked together since ’09, and my first music video (ever) was with him in Northern Ireland in 2011.  From day one, we’ve been a run-and-gun pair that lets our environment determine our course of action and circumstances become opportunities rather than obstacles.

I designed his new website this summer (mitchmcvicker.com) and the background image is the perfect representation of our working relationship.  It downpoured in the middle of our first shoot together, and rather than calling it a day, we leaned in and got some incredible images.

“In Other Words” was no different.  The few plans I had for it went quickly out the window, but I expected nothing different.  The location for 85% of the video was pure happenstance that came about because Mitch had a small rash between his eyes – the story for that is just too long to tell.  We had 6 hours to do the video, and we took an hour break in the middle to grab a bite.  And, like clockwork, it started storming an hour before sunset, cutting our day an hour shorter than expected.

Even still, before we called it a night, his new music video was already halfway through a rough edit.

I love working on the fly with Mitch because I can trust him to bring his own flavor to the shoot, and he trusts me to spin that haystack into gold.  He gives input where he has vision, and listens when I have reasons.  The result is always something different than I could have planned, and at the end of it all, I look back and wonder how we got from start to finish.  It works because neither of us have expectations going in, and the product is simply the result of what the day brings.

I’m looking forward to the next one.  It will happen sometime, for some song, and it will stretch me even further.  And it will be good.