What are some music video (fake live) examples?

[Fluoro]

I've got a gig making a music video for a band that want me to make one of those fake live music videos (they are putting on a normal gig and then lip synching to their forthcoming single at the end). They gave me this example to go for:

Can people think of fake live music videos that they like or think are good examples? Maybe ones that have something a bit different happening in them?

I'm just looking for inspiration and to try and break open my mind to different possibilities beyond the video they sent me.

Thanks!

 

[paulears]

They're not fakes, they're pop videos. The difficulties of live recording have made this the standard technique for years! All you need to do is plan what it needs to look like? So good candidates in the crowd is important, no uglies, no people outside the band demographic, and they need lighting. Same with the band. Good angles good lighting. Lip sync, sadly, isn't taught in college courses, and some people are frankly lousy at it. The bands that struggle often do the clock solution. The drummer and maybe bass get the click and then this can be tight enough for the edit. If the sound people are doing digital, then you can get stems from them to use for the bus where they deviate from the track, just dropping in a phrase or two just where it's needed. With live stuff, so much depends on what their stage presence is. The music is almost irrelevant if they put on a show. Sadly many don't, one headline band at t in the park might as well have had one band member less. He hardly featured because he just stood there and wasn't interesting! If the crowd are brought into the video by good description, and prompting during the show, it works well. If the band start miming and it sounds different and haven't explained people switch off and it looks bad, and they get bad Facebook stuff. The good ones hype it through the show, and then when they do it, the audience take off. Sometimes you can even do two one after the other with the second being even better.

 

[Spartacus]

Well, this "scene" seems to either go for crazy-cut live-footage videos or crazy-cut abandoned warehouse videos.

Crap core and crab core.
I abhor this kind of music, but taste differs.

Both flavors of performance videos are popular because they`re cheap:
Bands will have gigs anyway and abandoned warehouses are most of the time free.
Aesthetically there might be reasons too, but I think seriously talking about this is just candy-coating the lack of creativity those vids have.
But to be honest: They don´t need to be creative anyways, just sell a product.

One of the best performance videos I know (by a band I also don´t care much for) still is this:

A lot of videos try too hard to break up the band performance with some (often ridiculous) storytelling, supposedly adding meaning to the song.
The Pretender video at least manages to connect performance and story part of the video.

 

[Fluoro]

They're not fakes, they're pop videos.

I just meant fake as in pretending to be live. I'm talking about where the video is shot in a way so that everything about it looks live. I'm not talking about where the band pretends to play but it's in an odd place like an aquarium, factory, airport etc

The difficulties of live recording have made this the standard technique for years!

Yes it is is a standard and I can't think of a single "fake live" music video that I think is great and was hoping people might point me in the direction of some.

All you need to do is plan what it needs to look like? So good candidates in the crowd is important, no uglies, no people outside the band demographic, and they need lighting. Same with the band. Good angles good lighting. Lip sync, sadly, isn't taught in college courses, and some people are frankly lousy at it. The bands that struggle often do the clock solution.

Good points. But what is "the clock solution"?

The drummer and maybe bass get the click and then this can be tight enough for the edit. If the sound people are doing digital, then you can get stems from them to use for the bus where they deviate from the track, just dropping in a phrase or two just where it's needed.

I'm not really following all this. I was simply going to have the actual track play completely and the band plays along with it. Is there a better way than this?

With live stuff, so much depends on what their stage presence is. The music is almost irrelevant if they put on a show. Sadly many don't, one headline band at t in the park might as well have had one band member less. He hardly featured because he just stood there and wasn't interesting! If the crowd are brought into the video by good description, and prompting during the show, it works well. If the band start miming and it sounds different and haven't explained people switch off and it looks bad, and they get bad Facebook stuff. The good ones hype it through the show, and then when they do it, the audience take off. Sometimes you can even do two one after the other with the second being even better.

Yes I was thinking of them doing the song twice. And you are so right about performing skills. I've shot this band before and they are not great but not the worst either. One problem is the lead singer is on guitar so he's stuck standing at the mic on a stand for most of the song which sucks.

thanks for all your comments

 

[Fluoro]

Well, this "scene" seems to either go for crazy-cut live-footage videos or crazy-cut abandoned warehouse videos.

Yeah there must literally be ten thousand music videos made of bands performing in a warehouse. I shot a hip hop act on top of a roof top once so I guess I can't talk. Usually it's the band's fault for not wanting to put the time or money into making something interesting.

That Prom Queen video is certainly the kind of thing I'm thinking of. I think I might have to go b + w too because I'm not sure pub lighting is going to look all that good. The advantage that video has and the one I posted is that they were shot at big outdoor events mostly during daylight so I think that helped a lot (the place where my band is performing is a cosy pub at night so the ability to get good shots is diminished I'm thinking as most of the pub will be in shadow). Also the singers are free to roam the stage unlike my guy.

That foo fighters video is great but alas I need to keep the video pretty similar to the one I posted. I'd love to be able to shoot something completely insane like that.

If only I had the budget and imagination to make something like this:

It really is brilliant.

Thanks for your thoughts and posting those videos.

 

[ugafan]

 

[paulears]

I remembered this one I did over ten years ago. Long gone, but I found the old preview version, despite it has a few final edits missing. I don't really like stories in music videos, but this one seemed to work.

https://vimeo.com/1732769

 

[Michael Carter]

Shot this one last year. Main thing is to get a crowd. The singer of this band runs a local "school of rock" so we shot it there. He's a legitimately awesome, nice guy so it was easy to get 20-30 kids, which are the bands core demo. They were into it 110%.

We did takes with a crane out front (Ac-130) and the rest was a T2i, shoulder mount, 35-70 2.8 Nikkor, from different sides of the stage. Maybe 5 takes total and then a drum take. Do a take or two of just drums when the crowd's through.

Main thing is to know the song very well, so you know when the big moments are, solos, stuff like that.

 

[Fluoro]

Thanks for posting those videos guys and some good advice Michael. I think what is freaking me out a little is that this video is being shot as part of an actual live gig so I have very little control over lighting etc And the song will only be played once or twice at most. But it is a fast song so I should be able to make a very fast edit with lots of abstract moments of the crowd. Hopefully I'll be happy enough to post here when I finish it.

 

[paulears]

The real killer is that on a music forum their quest is to spot the musical errors the editor didn't. Wrong fingers, wrong chords. That kind of thing. Lip sync on the main singer and the drummer are the really obvious errors when the band are a little loose.

In the first post I should have typed click! To make life easy click is useful to let the band play along with the track rather than just mime. Some can mime brilliantly while others suck. Havering the drummer play along with a click is often easier than trying to play to a track as the drummer HAS to make noise, and once he does he might lose the track, sticking the track in his monitors or IEMs may confuse. So if you have their track available with the song on one channel and a click on the other, he can lock in better if the first version, just the music falls apart.

 

[Andrius Simutis]

I think what is freaking me out a little is that this video is being shot as part of an actual live gig so I have very little control over lighting etc And the song will only be played once or twice at most. But it is a fast song so I should be able to make a very fast edit with lots of abstract moments of the crowd.

A couple thoughts...
Can you shoot the song during sound check too? That might be a good way to get the kind of close up shots on stage that you wouldn't be able to get during the performance.
Can you shoot during the rest of the performance? You could get crowd shots then and also some other angles that don't have to line up exactly like shots from behind and other B-roll details. These will be helpful when you're editing and need to cover shots that don't synch.