Music Video tips

tony240sx

tony240sx

Well-known member
I was just wondering if any of you guys have some advice on shooting music videos. What kind of techniques do you use? I shot one a few weeks ago and it was ok but I want to start doing more and get better with each one. I had no idea what I was doing so here was my process.
We only had 2 hours of light and the video had to be uploaded so there was no time to really get great locations or come up with a concept, which i would like to do next time.

Shooting
We just went to a few different places and I had the talent just run through the whole song once in each place, which I played through my car stereo for reference, lol.
In each location I tried to get him in all types of shots at once. I would zoom in and out and try to get different shots while he was going.
I also grabbed a few random shots while driving.


Editing
I layed the track down on the third layer of audio and then found any interesting shots I could synch to it. I just tried to synch by pausing the audio at a certain spot and then just trying to line up the video with that same audio manually. This was a pain but I dont know if there is a better way. After I did that I just muted the audio from the footage so only the track was audible obviously. I also did some color correction.


Just wondering how some of you guys go about doing videos because I have seen some amazing work on here and I would like to build up to that level of quality one day. For now i am just going to do whatever I can but Im sure some of you on here have some great tips for making things a little easier and better quality. Thanks and sorry this is so damn long.
 
For editing, I normally lay down the audio track...then lay down layers of video tracks from start to finish. This way you only have to synch up once. I then watch each video track (making the others invisible) and put a marker at the good parts. When I'm done with that, I now have all the video tracks marked up and I open up another timeline and use that as my master. Then I begin to cut and paste.

That's the way I recommend.
 
Here's some tips:

-For playback, i always add a 4-Click sound before the track actually starts, so the band can count the song in and always start in sync. I simply did this with a bell sound in garageband.


- I notice drummers always have it worse since they are actually playing their instrument loud, so make sure there's a monitor or speaker by the drummer so he can hear himself.

-When i edit performance footage from a music video, i tend to lay the track down, and lay down every take i have and stack them (sometimes it reaches 40 layers). Then i move through the song and pick the best shots for each little second, and razor the rest out.) Everything else i add on top.

Hope that helps let mek now if u need any other tips! Check out my music videos!
 
Thanks alot for the tips guys. I have actually already been watching your videos for a while now Noah. They are Incredible. You have an amazing style and all of your videos have such a great "look" to them. Thats what i hope to get to one day but Im getting a late start and just trying to learn as much as I can.

Van, your work is great too. I didnt recognize the name from the spyfest contest. imprint was sick and i watched two of your videos after reading your post and they are awesome too.

Thanks again for your tips. Its really cool to get some advice from you guys cause you are definitely doing amazing work. I really want to get some more experience and just do whatever I can to learn.
 
cool, basic strategy

cool, basic strategy

Hey ,glad i came across this thread. I've done a few narrative shorts but am a music video virgin...and this'll really enable me to plan my first one. And maybe actually storyboard to some degree.
 
If all local broadcasts are done in 4:3.
HD is 16:9-only.
Would it be better to shot a music video in 4:3 for the local stations?
 
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