Donovan Woods: Next Year Music Video

Agency: Westside Studios  /  Client: Fontana North and Meant Well
Director: Matt Barnes
Camera: Brent Kore
1st AC: Matthew Parrish
Editor: Brent Kore

Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods closed out his 2018 album Both Ways with “Next Year,” a straightforward, urgent message about the myriad ways we tend to put things off until it’s too late. In the song’s new video, there’s no distraction from that message — just Woods performing straight to the camera without any smoke and mirrors.

“The idea for this video felt right. Even for someone like me, who wants to appear in a music video for about seven seconds, tops,” says Woods. “We felt like it should be a plain performance of the song, so we can focus on the story. We all feel that nagging guilt about putting things off. And we all know life is short. ‘Next Year’ is an acknowledgment that the gap we feel between our intention and our action, that nagging feeling, is just part of being human. We all feel that way. There’s no call to action here — just reassurance that we all can’t quite find the time, but we do our best when we can.” - Rolling Stone Magazine