Image by Gamma-Ray Productions via Flickr (Creative Commons License)
So, you want to be a music video director? After wading through what little help is out there, Media Match pulled together some of the prime pieces of advice to help you with your entertainment industry career, and avoid some of the pitfalls made by new music video directors.
Writing
John Dowdle tells The Art of Manliness ?I do think it?s important to learn to write. Having a good sense of story is invaluable. I believe nothing is more important than that.?
Crew Selection
Jeff Clark at MV Wire advises about working on a tight budget: ?A small crew travels fast, so use as few crew members as possible. Hire those that are diverse in their talents and can work several jobs simultaneously. A good example is a Production Assistant who does craft service or a makeup artist who handles wardrobe.?
Shooting
Some solid ideas from LA Video Filmmaker: ?Instruct the singer to sing properly ? no half-hearted singing or, worse, miming. If they mumble or mime, it will not look right when you lay the shots against the song, because the tension and movements of the face and body will not be consistent with the sound of the song. They must sing as if you were making a real recording of the song.?
Organize
Video director Arthur T. Flegenheimer wrote a step by step guide on About.com: ?On the day of the shoot be prepared and organized. Keep a record of shots you?ve made; it?ll make editing much easier. Always allow plenty of time for shooting ? the finished shot may only last 10 seconds, but could easily take several hours to set up and shoot. When you?re happy with a shot, if you have time, shoot it again. You can never have too much footage, and the retake may capture something that you hadn?t noticed first time round. You?ll have your plan and storyboard to follow, but remember that some of the best moments in a video can be unplanned. Keep the camera rolling ? these days tape is cheap.?
B-Roll
Roy Sallows authored a page on music videos here, and says: ?You really have two choices when it comes to B-roll for musical performances. You can mix multiple camera angles and show various shots of the performer performing, or you can cut away to show shots of images related to the theme of the song, like ocean waves or snow-topped mountains. These related images can be full-motion video, but they don?t necessarily have to be. Still photos often work well in music videos. Search old photo albums to see if the images you want are already there. You can use still photos to create a video montage, with the music in the background. Try cross fading from one photo to another or slowly scanning across an array of photos.?
Stock Footage
Jeff Clark chips in with another budget idea: ?Short-ends or buy-back (leftover film stock from other shoots) are good ways to purchase film stock cheap. You can purchase such stock directly from shoots that are nearing completion or from film brokers such as ShortEnz or Dr. Rawstock. Sometimes Kodak and Fuji will donate film or give discounts to students and young filmmakers. A little begging may be involved, but you may find their generosity to be quite rewarding.?
Editing
More expertise from LA Video Filmmaker: ?A nice trick I have used to edit a music video efficiently is to place all the selected clips on the timeline, one above the other on stacked video tracks. They must all be in their correct positions relative to the song, i.e. they must all be synchronized ? except, of course, for the cutaways, which can be placed wherever you like.?
Stay Green
Adam Powell gave an interview with Sound on Sound last year and said: ?If I was starting now I?d approach everything in the same way; I?d put my heart into it. You have to be true in what you?re doing and true to yourself, and don?t put formats and technology before ?soul?. One piece of advice that I always give people is: don?t try and make what you think a music video should be, make what you feel is right. It?s easy to become limited by what you?ve seen already, but with so much out there, doing that can make a video fall by the wayside. If you have a strange idea, go for it with whatever tools you have. Don?t worry about whether it ?seems? like a music video or not.?
Have Fun
Tech site Mashable had some wise words from OK Go?s Tim Nordwind: ?When thinking about making videos, we ask ourselves, what would be fun to do for a few weeks? That?s where our ideas stem from; dancing with dogs, making a Rube Goldberg machine, a dance with time, performing with a marching band, they all just seemed like fun things to try to create.?
Lastly, if you want to take the easy short cut, simply follow comedian Rich Fulcher?s 10 easy steps to achieving your Music Video Director career dream.
Directed by Ninian Doff. Produced by Claw Films.
by Lee Jarvis.
Tags: Advice, audio, Director, editing, music, music video director, shooting, tips, Video, writing
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