Digital Moviemaking 38: No-frills Music Videos

So the summer’s nearly over, classes begin in less than two weeks, and what with gas prices, actor schedules, and location requirements, all those great plans for making that feature-length movie just never came together. And maybe the script needed a bit more work, after all.

However, there are still about two months before the submission deadline for the seventh annual Forx Film Fest this fall--plenty of time to do a short that can be shot in a day or two and edited in another day or two.

Still having difficulties coming up with story ideas? Have any friends who play in a band? Make a music video!

A music video is a project that can let you exercise your photography and editing skills at the same time that it gives your musician friends a visual record of their performance that might help them get more gigs or even some music industry recognition.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you need to clear the rights to the music, which can be very expensive for recognizable cover songs. You are best off if the band is performing its own original numbers. Simply have them sign the appropriate release forms in return for providing them with copies of the completed video.

The next thing to decide is whether the video will have some sort of visual narrative that reflects the song lyrics, will be a more abstract visual representation of the music’s mood, or will simply be a visual record of the performance. The latter will be the quickest and easiest to do, and very likely will be preferred by the band members.

But making a music video does not mean simply setting up the camera (or holding it) and recording a song from beginning to end while the musicians perform. There may be numerous examples like this on YouTube, but they do little to enhance the reputations of either the bands or the moviemakers.

Unlike regular moviemaking, the sound for music videos is not recorded live or dubbed over the picture after editing.

Except in the case of live concert recordings with multiple cameras, songs in movies and music videos are always shot with the musicians performing in synchronization to “playback"--listening to a previously made recording that will be used in the final movie. This means you’ll need to connect a CD player to the band’s sound system or have it off camera somewhere where they can hear it.

The reason for this is twofold. First, your music video will have the identical studio-quality recording that is on the musicians’ CD, and with no need to worry about microphone placement during the shoot. Second and possibly more important, you can shoot numerous angles and takes with the same camera without having to worry about trying to edit together multiple and all slightly different interpretations of the same song.

You will need to consider matching shots, however, so be sure that any flamboyant musicians remember to do the same gestures or choreography on the same beats of the music each time. This will maintain the illusion of continuity when edited together, just as with a narrative movie, where the actors must move the same on each line of dialogue in every camera angle and take.

While it may start to get tedious for the band (and especially for extras, if you’re showing an audience in the video), you will need to shoot the same song many times in order to have a variety of shots you can edit into the music video. The number of camera setups will vary according to the size of the band and complexity of the song.

You’ll naturally want one take showing the entire band in a long shot, possibly even two or three with the camera to the left, right, or directly in front of the band.

You will also want at least one close up of each performer throughout the entire song, allowing you to cut to a vocalist on key lyrics and an instrumentalist during flashy riffs or solos.

Try for some unique angles (low, high, oblique, etc.) and be sure to have some extreme close-ups of hands playing the instruments.

Don’t forget to use a tripod. You might try a take getting a variety of views throughout the song with a moving camera, whether hand-held, using a Glidecam, mounted on a dolly, a jib or crane, or each of the above.

Your shooting session will go much faster if you can use two or three cameras at once, thus requiring only three or four takes to get six to twelve different angles. You must place cameras so that they are not picked up in other camera angles, however, unless seeing the cameras is part of your video’s design.

For indoor locations it also helps if the band has its own lighting already set up, but you might need to raise the level slightly to get a good image.

Once you get the video shot, and all the footage transferred to your computer, you’ll have infinite possibilities for editing them into the finished product. For a basic music video you don’t even need any fancy editing software beyond Windows Moviemaker or iMovie, both of which let you lay down an audio track and edit the video on a timeline above it.

Start by dragging your music recording to the audio timeline. Then drag the first several seconds of one of your video takes to the video/audio timeline and slide it back and forth until it is in sync with the original music recording. Get the next shot you want for the next few seconds and keep doing this throughout the song until you’re done. Then you can experiment adding different transitions between each shot.

It’s good to start and end with a long shot so you can superimpose the title over it later.

A good rule of thumb is to cut or dissolve between shots right on the beat of the music most of the time, and to emphasize whatever musician is dominating the sound at any particular time.

(Note that Windows Moviemaker erroneously labels a dissolve as a “fade” and mistakenly uses the term “dissolve” for what is actually a sort of sparkly pixellation-replacement transition, a kind of elaborate wipe effect.)

If you want to superimpose several camera angles on top of each other, you’ll need better editing software, like Adobe Premiere Elements or Final Cut Express.

After all the video clips are lined up in sync, don’t forget to adjust the audio mix so that only the original CD recording can be heard, rather than any of the camcorder sound. Then export back to tape for your archival copy and start burning DVDs for your friends and to submit to film festivals!