Adele debuted the music video for "Send My Love (to Your New Lover)" Sunday, and although it may seem like a fairly simple video, it's anything but.
The video features multiple layers on top of each other singing against a black backdrop, but given the variety of Adeles, if you will, it took quite a few takes to nail down—but not as many as you'd think! Director Patrick Daughters opened up to Entertainment Weekly about the project and revealed several fun facts.
1. It took only 12 takes to film the entire video. "After we had a few that we were really happy with, then we started to play with the emotions, the prevailing emotion in the take, and also a different reading," he explained. "As we went along, we really built it together in terms of, we got it this covered this way. Let's cover it this way on a different path."
2. It wasn't choreographed, but Adele had to remember what she did in the previous take. "There were certain suggestions of what would look good when repeated many times over. After a couple takes, once everybody was a little bit looser in term of us on the camera side, she just really let go," Daughters shared. "Towards the end, we were doing takes that were more about the movement and less about the emotional performance."
3. Adele chose the dress! No costume designer or stylists needed.
4. Daughters was suffering from a migraine when they had to film, but it didn't affect too many decisions. "It was an unusual curveball. I mention it just because I remember having a migraine and kind of sitting in the dark and they're bringing photos over: 'This is her first choice, and this is her second choice, and this is her third choice…' I was like, this first choice, that looks great," he recalled. "That was the only bit of directorial decision-making that was required during the migraine."
5. Editing was minimal. "But in a way, as you watch the video many times, you start to make your own edits because you focus on different layers of her performance," he noted.
What did you think of her new video? Sound off in the comments.