A Tale of the Unexpected

I’ve surprised even myself this year.

First, I quit my well-paid job without having something else lined up.

Second, without any prior knowledge/experience, I filmed and edited five music videos within the space of three months.

I’m now learning how to be a “digital nomad”, while temporary part-time work pays the bills. I have a lot less money, but a lot more time, and I’m a LOT happier.

Like the career downshift, my entry into the videography arena was entirely unexpected. My good friend singer-songwriter Andy Gower was back on the music scene (also unexpectedly) after a prolonged hiatus, and needed someone to make his videos. Within 48 hours of figuring out that we could probably do it ourselves, I’d edited the first one – for ‘Three Chords and the Truth’. Not perfect by any means (my laptop was woefully inadequate) but the response was phenomenal.

Keeping up with Andy’s songwriting prolificacy is a challenge, but over the next three months I managed to film and edit another four videos (still with the same laptop) for ‘Girls Don’t Cry’, ‘Back to the Moon’, ‘Small Town Boy’ and ‘Good News’.

My proudest achievement is ‘Back to the Moon’ – most of which (along with ‘Girls Don’t Cry’) was filmed in Talacre and Prestatyn. I thought, why not re-enact the Apollo 11 “moon landing” on the beach, and pretend the lighthouse is a rocket? It worked – and in two months has generated a total of 7K views across various platforms.

It’s amazing to see how much my humble endeavours have helped to drive engagement with Andy’s wonderful music. Two of the five gigs he’s played so far this year – with Marcus ‘Fox’ Barker – have sold out and their performance on The Narrowboat Sessions last month has so far generated almost 100K views on Facebook alone. Here’s the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-B2BLVFDxg

I feel immensely privileged to have played a part in Andy’s incredible comeback and will be eternally grateful for the opportunity.

To (almost) quote Billie-Joe Armstrong, it was something unpredictable but in the end was right. I’ve had the time of my life.

Thank you Andy x

(All videos are available on Andy’s YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/@AndyGower-s3k – attached is a selection of screenshots)