Vintage Video: Director Remembers Shooting U2’s “New Year’s Day”
All is quiet: the boys of U2
What better way to celebrate the arrival of 2013 than a few words from the music video director responsible for U2’s “New Year’s Day”? Meiert Avis, who directed quite a few U2 music videos, told us a little about the snow shoot for this perennial favorite.
“Landscapes and epic music go together well,” Avis told us. “Ireland is an epic landscape to grow up in. Shooting outside is generally cheaper than inside, you don’t have to light much or build sets, etc. I has its drawbacks, of course, as the light is really only good for a couple of hours, and then there is the weather, of which there is a lot of in Ireland.”
Avis also said the environment supports the U2 sound as well.
“The Edge’s guitar always reminds me of the romantic poets and painters, it has an inherently choral and mystic tonality. Bono is obviously a Romantic poet so naturally landscape resonates with U2 music.”
“I can’t remember the early budgets, probably mostly less than ten thousand, enough to shoot the band performing but not much more. But videos have never been about the money. It is an art form, not a taxi ride, though believe me, a taxi driver earns far more per hour worked.”
Check out the U2 “New Year’s Day” outdoor shoot, as well as the studio video version.