General Approach on a Music Video

Dillon Novak

Dillon Novak

Well-known member
Okay so a band has approached me to produce a music video for them. i have a treatment written for them, but i can't really start pre-production until they finish mixing their album and they give me the final song. but

Regarding the performance.
Do i make the outline of all the shots i want. Film those. And then in the editing process edit it what looks best with the shots that i chose to shoot from the outline so i have freedom to cut together what looks good?

the trouble with that is i have camera transitions where the camera will move rapidly to the left/cut/into concept shot that came from the left for a smooth transition. so do i just move the camera around as usual and just see if there is a good cut opportunity on that movement.

or

do i storyboard exactly how i want each individual shot, cut and the exact timing of each and edit exactly from that in post?
by having an idea of where i want that transition to be
for example: if the camera transition between intro and verse i would plan to move the camera while film which ever member

what should i do?
because i would usually go with storyboarding every shot but i want the freedom to edit what looks good for the performance?

any help would be appreciated.
 
Storyboard the concept shots.

Shoot your WS and then plenty of coverage of CUs of the band during the performance.

Get some off speed stuff as well.

Do all of the "camera moves as transitions" effects in post.

Post the clip here.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Storyboard the concept shots.

Shoot your WS and then plenty of coverage of CUs of the band during the performance.

Get some off speed stuff as well.

Do all of the "camera moves as transitions" effects in post.

Post the clip here.
Click to expand...

Thanks matt,


i'm still open to opinions from other people
 
Yeah I think Matt is right. Otherwise you're going to reduce your freedom too much in editing, like you said.

For my last music video, I had a shot list for every story element, but I didn't even bother making a shot list for the performance. Heck I didn't even write down how many takes I wanted to do, or what they'd be. I just called 'em on set, it was easy, the DP and I had already talked about it so much he basically knew what we were doing anyway. It had all been thought through, it just didn't need to be written down. Plus, sometimes at least, what good is that? If you hated the first dolly run-through and think it'd all look better if it was handheld, then you're going to say so anyway. If you loved it and want more coverage, you're going to change your mind. So rigid shotlists like "Get 2 dolly passes of the song, 2 jib passes, one tripod with zooms and movement on the lead singer, two handheld on the leader," blah blah etc. are often just not very useful at all. Because if you're not satisfied with what the shots looked like, you're going to ask for another anyway. I think it's just important to have a good idea what you want on the whole, like what style, and then you can figure out how many takes you need on the shoot.
 
JonathanLB said:
Yeah I think Matt is right. Otherwise you're going to reduce your freedom too much in editing, like you said.

For my last music video, I had a shot list for every story element, but I didn't even bother making a shot list for the performance. Heck I didn't even write down how many takes I wanted to do, or what they'd be. I just called 'em on set, it was easy, the DP and I had already talked about it so much he basically knew what we were doing anyway. It had all been thought through, it just didn't need to be written down. Plus, sometimes at least, what good is that? If you hated the first dolly run-through and think it'd all look better if it was handheld, then you're going to say so anyway. If you loved it and want more coverage, you're going to change your mind. So rigid shotlists like "Get 2 dolly passes of the song, 2 jib passes, one tripod with zooms and movement on the lead singer, two handheld on the leader," blah blah etc. are often just not very useful at all. Because if you're not satisfied with what the shots looked like, you're going to ask for another anyway. I think it's just important to have a good idea what you want on the whole, like what style, and then you can figure out how many takes you need on the shoot.
Click to expand...


Thanks that was very insightful
 
and grab lots and lots of extreme close-ups (instruments being played, people moving around etc) - they'll be immensely useful when you just need to fill gaps and don't have any 'correct' video footage to go with the soundtrack
 
I see a thread like this every month or so, and it pushes me harder to finish the project I'm working on, actually been working on that actively in the last week. I am creating this "Making Indie Music Videos" DVD project, with behind-the-scenes footage from three music videos, one (the last one not planned yet) will be a small, 3-4 person crew, available light (outside, day, probably) music video shot for no more than the price of the crew basically. Something high schoolers, college kids, or low level amateurs could get together without too many headaches and fairly easily. One is about a $5,000 mid-range video, again most of that spent on the crew some on equipment, that one I film this Sunday. The other was more like a $10,000+ video, high level indie or low level record label shoot. That is the BTS footage I've been editing. The next thing after this is to set up an interview day and get a few established music video directors, editors, and DPs (probably will use my DP, and maybe one director I know, plus others I need to find) to answer a series of questions I have that will make up part of the commentary track on this DVD. The rest is done in voiceover using a script I have about 30% written, working on that as well.

I believe this is something that really needs to be out there. When I went to make my first music video, I didn't know anything, and it was way too hard to figure everything out because I couldn't find any books, DVDs, articles, or anything that gave me what I wanted. Sure, this article had a few bits and pieces, another had a few more, but there wasn't much out there. Then last summer they released "Making Music Videos," a very good book on the subject, but honestly it doesn't help indie filmmakers entirely either. It's basically how $50,000+ videos are made, something a lot of us don't have money for and not to mention the market appeal is limited. Most people who want to know how to do that ALREADY know, they're experts at it.

So I can't wait to have this DVD project finished because I think it's going to be a fantastic resource for indie filmmakers, students, professionals who have done shorts, commercials, etc. but not music videos and want to pick up a few pieces of advice they may not know, etc. I just want to create a project that would have helped me back when I started and that I would have said, "Wow, hey, $20 for this and 100 minutes of my time, to learn all kinds of stuff I need to know! Bargain!" Rather than having to spend seriously dozens and dozens of hours scouring the net, picking up little bits of info here and there, etc.

As for playback, that article was funny to me because it acts like a music video is SUPER low budget if they don't have someone in charge of playback. I've never had someone specifically hired to do playback, that's a waste of money unless you have a ridiculous amount of money to spend on your video and for whatever reason you think there's no way anyone else can handle such an easy task ;) On my last video we had a $10,000 budget, we still didn't have a playback person. We just had the 1st A.D. run it sometimes, I started it once or twice, and the P2 loader started it other times, etc. It's no big deal, someone is always standing around to do that by the time you're ready to shoot. You can have a grip do that easily because by that point they should be standing around anyway, they won't have to be moving anything or doing anything during performances takes. That's where the camera guys get busy and the director is busy.

On this music video I'll probably have the 2nd A.D. run playback, but again it's one of those things where nobody needs to be in charge of just that. If we run playback 12 times let's say, 2 are rehearsals and 10 are shooting (with two cameras = 20 takes of the song), someone has to touch the iPod and literally hit one button 10 times. If a shoot has the money to pay someone besides a PA to do that, IMO they're wasting money.
 
clang said:
and grab lots and lots of extreme close-ups (instruments being played, people moving around etc) - they'll be immensely useful when you just need to fill gaps and don't have any 'correct' video footage to go with the soundtrack
Click to expand...

SO TRUE! Film B Roll stuff, it can be totally cool but it can also save your butt. Film little things like flickering lights on an amp or extreme close-up on a musicians face, not the lead singer, so if you don't have what you want at that point you can show someone just rocking out, etc. This may be less of an issue if you have tons of takes, like on my last video and this current one we should get 20 full run-throughs of the song, and I doubt there will be any point where we don't at least have 2-3 great shots, if not more, but it's a life-saver if you're doing low budget stuff with one camera and you only had time for 10 takes, you will definitely be short at times, and you'll thank yourself for picking up that B Roll stuff. Plus it's just cool a lot of the times, breaks things up.
 
clang said:
and grab lots and lots of extreme close-ups (instruments being played, people moving around etc) - they'll be immensely useful when you just need to fill gaps and don't have any 'correct' video footage to go with the soundtrack
Click to expand...


Very very true. B-Roll will save you believe it or not. When you're editing, you're going to need inserts when you come to a situation like an edit block. CU's are great. Get as many as you can. Pretty much what everyone said here is very true. Take all of their advice.

My only concerns are, move the camera as professional as possible. Do some dolly shots, even if you have to use something cheap. Most of the time, when the camera is moving, you're giving the "viewer" interesting visuals to observe.

Cheers,

Murray

P.S. Post the clips in this forum and keep us posted.
 
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