World's Beautiful Women : Collection

The narrative quality of the music video accentuated the epic nature of the song. The video (directed by Andrew "Andy" Morahan)[9] entailed Axl and then girlfriend Stephanie Seymour being wed, interspersed with a live performance in a theatre. Particularly, it can be noted for its large budget (about $1.5 million, including a dress worn by Stephanie Seymour worth $8,000) and stunning cinematography. It is one of the most expensive music videos ever. Lead guitarist Slash is prominently featured in some of the video's most memorable scenes, including an epic sequence of helicopter shots swooping around him as he plays the first guitar solo and a later scene where he plays the third solo while standing on Axl's piano onstage. Casting co-ordinator Mark Roberton observed; "the camera-man had a lot of responsibility, as the crane-cam was so close to Slash, precariously stood atop a piano that was near the stage edge. One wrong twitch and the guitarist would've had a long drop!". The video for "November Rain" uses the full version of the song as opposed to an abridged version. A theatre in downtown Los Angeles was acquired for an evening shoot that went several hours into the night, and, unlike usual common practice, they didn't mime for any of the takes. Between several differing versions of "November Rain", while the cameras on cranes that swooped close to Slash's frets were reviewed and set up for the next shot - the band entertained the 1,500 extras by playing more of their songs.
This was the first time they had played augmented by an orchestra, something the band were especially pleased by (other earlier examples of strings used in rock music were by Deep Purple and The Moody Blues).
For the outside shots of Slash while he is playing the first solo, Axl had originally envisioned it taking place in a "cool field" of sorts. However, since the video was shot in winter, there were no good-looking fields around, and eventually the band decided to use a church in New Mexico. Coincidentally, this was the same church used in the movie Silverado.
Brad Hartmaier art directed the New Mexico sequences at the Silverado Movie Ranch. Working from sketches he made while sitting in the hotel bar, Mr. Hartmaier managed to build and dress two church sets. The Exterior church set was a dilapidated old church that he trucked out to the middle of a large prairie. Multiple crews worked for 24 hours straight building a duplicate church complete with fly away walls, hand made cathedral windows and decorations befitting the southwestern region where it was shot. In an interview Mr. Hartmaier described the journey as both mysterious and magical as he was lucky enough to spend time with both Axl and Slash. Brad was in the church with a walkie talkie with Slash as a helicopter circled above for the big shot. Slash asked Brad what he did and Brad replied; "I'm the art director slash prop man, slash painter, slash mad scientist" who built all this stuff, Slash quickly replied with a chuckle..."Ha ha, I'm just Slash". "It was the best experience of my life - Brad Hartmaier Art Director Production Designer. Nigel Phelps was the original Art Director and Brad Hartmaier took his place when Nigel moved onto a feature film during the later part of the making of the video.
The priest in the video, an Italian man (named Gian or San Antonio — the first part of his name is unclear), was a friend of Axl. Unbeknownst to the band, the church used for the interior shots was where the priest had performed some of his last services, eight years prior to the shooting of the video.
"November Rain", "Don't Cry", and "Estranged" music videos form an unofficial trilogy of sorts. While never specifically confirmed by the band, Del James and Axl Rose have made statements supporting this idea. The similarity in production, style and plots can be considered evidence of this intent.
As it's stated at the end of the video, "November Rain" is based on the short story "Without You" by Del James, available in James' 1995 book The Language of Fear. That short story would have an obvious appeal to Axl Rose, as it describes the misery of a former multi-platinum blues-influenced rock star, who reminisces over an on-and-off-again relationship ending with the woman's suicide via gunshot (inspired by Rose's troubled relationship with Erin Everly). It is notable, however, that in the short story, there is no mention of a wedding or marriage of the couple.
While much speculation exists about how Seymour's character in the video died, the relationship between the video clip and James' short story strongly suggests that she is killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. During the funeral sequence, a mirror is visible, covering over half her face, a technique used by funeral homes to allow victims of head trauma to have the appearance of a full face in the event of an open casket funeral. Also, during video, Axl is seen walking past a store with the name "Guns", though this may be an in-joke reference to the band's name.
The video's popularity continued throughout the rest of the decade. At the end of 1992, MTV placed "November Rain" at #1 on their top 100 videos of that year. Subsequently, it often appeared at #1 or in the top 10 of several future all-time MTV countdowns throughout the '90s.