Music Videos: General Tips!!

[Bart Straman]

heey

ehm, realy use your own imagination 🙂
every music video has it’s own styl. some like to switch scenes very fast (you just shoot on like five different scenes and then blend them together so it matches). or you could use a virtual world which you build and you capture the actors on a greenscreen.
what i always like is to put some heavy Soundsystems in the back with the cones of the speakers pumping real hard. most of the time i make them in invigorator pro for after effects.

it is realy up to you what you would like, and what kinda song it is realy.

you can also make a little story between them. some music video’s have that. but most of the time they doesn’t make any senses. quite cool to fill up the frames though.

Important is to sinchronize the music with your video and if actors playback, make it as reals as possible. (by realy let them sing it with a little stereo on the background playing the sound).
nice expansive cars are always fun. and sometimes you can choose a theme for a music video, which makes it easier to think what you wanna shoot.

you have to ask yourself: what would the viewer like to see with this particular song. then you get there.
for examples. just watch MTV, TMF(Netherlands), VIVA(Germany) or any other music program for the clips. (or search youtube or whatever). and just look what kind of elements they use. how fast they switch scenes etc etc

good luck

[Darren Edwards]

Bands like to look cool in their videos.

Keep them occupied on set – a games console normally
does the trick.

Expect the video shoot to be as tedious and time consuming
as any other short film or corporate shoot.

Don’t expect to make a lot of money for a couple of
years.

Don’t expect the band to like the video as much as you
do, especially if it’s a low budget but you did the best
you could.

View some of our videos at: https://www.myspace.com/xgfmedia

One example of how to pitch for a video is linked at
the new UNKLE competition website: https://unkle77.com/

The pitch (which won, BTW) for Kaiser Chief’s ‘Ruby’ is
here: https://www.filmaka.com/unkle/unkle.pdf

To me it reads like an over-excited under-grad media
student wrote it. Childish hyberbole. Then again, it
won.

In the end of the day, though, it’s a better life than
making a living from making business profiles.

Darren.

x-gf.com

[James Purdie]

Those are really great music videos and great musicians too. I hadn’t seen them before. Are they from the UK?

I really appreciate the advice. My friends’ band is getting quite popular in Canada and so I made him a simple video on a bluescreen with a bunch of animation. Actually it was just for fun….but I later I decided to put some effort into it. Anyways….his producer really liked it and asked for more. I’m quite the amateur, but I love the arts.

This is the one I did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1m3sSUEAF0

How much does it cost to get a decent green screen these days? One that rolls down nicely and extends outward on the floor 3 meters or so?

thanks,

james

[Darren Edwards]

Hi James,

Most of the vids at the myspace are British, yeh,
although our music vid director, Nick Small, used
to have an office in LA and so dealt with all kinds
of folks.

I thought the ‘Time…’ video was quite charming.
Cool song, too.
I imagine the compositing must have taken quite
a while. A great site to check out the latest
oddities in the music vid world is industry
favourite, Antville: https://videos.antville.org/

Re green screen: it’s probably worth shopping around.
I could link you to places in the UK I trust but
the shipping costs would be counterproductive.

Aside from colouring a few white bedsheets and lighting
them properly, or even typing ‘DIY Green Screen’
into Google, there are alternatives.. A posh one
is a chromatte curtain. We’ve got one of these in
our TV studio. It’s quite easy to install, and a
lot more durable than the material
they use to make green/white cyclorama rooms.
https://www.reflecmedia.com/

There’s also the classifieds over at Mandy where
you might pick up a bargain or two, or even some
work.
https://www.mandy.com/1/class.cfm

Cheers,
Darren.

x-gf.com