Are you an Australian band or artist wondering what goes in to making a music video? Maybe you're looking to have your first music video produced, but you are unsure about the type of video you want? Well keep reading, I'm here to give you a step by step guide of the ins and outs of music video production.
I want a music video for my song, where do I start? The beautiful thing about film is, you can really go anywhere with it. When delving into the world of music video making, you want to approach your chosen production company with a solid brief. How do you get a solid brief? Watch other music videos. Watch 10 of your favourite artists. Even 100. Keep watching until you find a video or style you really love, and then use that as your base. Do you want a Hollywood storyline with actors? Do you just want one shot of you playing the guitar for 4 minutes? These are all things you will need to think about before approaching a production company.
What if I watch 100, even 1000 music videos, and still don't know what I want? If this is the case, ask your chosen production company for their input, where they think the video should go. As long as you know the meaning behind your song, any great story-teller will be able to come up with a solid idea for you.
Okay I've got my idea, now what? Now you sit back and relax, while the production company goes to work. They will take your idea and break it down logistically, working out the costs, amount of crew needed to shoot, the number of hours/days to shoot, and number of locations. They will then come to you with a rough quote, but please remember there is rarely such thing as a 100% accurate quote in the film industry.
Don't be scared of the initial dollar figure. Did you have the most outlandish idea ever for your music video, and your chosen company quoted you half a million dollars? Well don't stress, the beauty of this industry is you can always dial your creativity back a bit (or a lot in this case..), and work together with the production company to come up with an idea that is more budget friendly. While the production company can accurately quote for things such as cast, crew, and gear, costs can often vary when quoting the unknown entities like filming locations. While your production company will put a rough figure in each line for the initial quote, just be aware that they may vary.
Pre Production
Got your idea locked in? Happy with your quote? Let's get stuck in to pre production. Pre production length all depends on the complexity of your idea. Did your brief involve crash landing a rocket ship into the moon and fighting off hoards of blood sucking aliens? Yeah, you're looking at a couple of months of pre production. Do you want one shot of you singing in your mates garage? Cool, let's shoot that tomorrow. For the purposes of this blog, let's base our discussion below on something in the middle. Why don't we say... a band performance in a barn coupled with a storyline of two farmers falling in love (yeah, I don't mind a good country song).
The first step of pre production, in our examples case, is of course script writing. The script is the most important part of any production, as it influences every single aspect of filmmaking - from acting to overall cost. Now you can either work together with the Writer/Director in developing the script, or let them have at it. Of course if your music video doesn't have a storyline, we can skip this step entirely.
As I'm sure you don't have all day, I'm going to skip through the next few stages of pre production (casting, crewing, budgeting, rehearsals, finding locations, scheduling, storyboarding, shot listing). Through these stages, you can sit back and let the production company do it's thing. For our example, we may be looking at a crew of 4-8 people, 2 actors (maybe a couple of cows and horses as background extras?); locations being a barn, a farm house and a field (but not just any field, a romantic meadow filled with sunflowers on a hill with a view of the sunset). Once all of the paperwork is complete, actors and crew are locked, and all pre production boxes have been ticked, it's time to start shooting.
Production
You've got the time and place? Great, bring your favourite guitar, and singing stamina, and we'll see you there. For our example mentioned above, we would be looking at a 1.5 - 2 day shoot. Our film days are 10 hours long (but always too short), with a 45 minute lunch break 5 hours in.
Shoot Day 1 - Int. Barn (Band Performance)
Let's pretend the crew arrive at 6am (we love early starts) to start setting up, rigging lights, building the camera and getting prepped for the shoot. While this is happening, you as the band or artist can set up your drums, speakers, mic stand etc. If you're a solo artist or the video doesn't require extensive set up of musical equipment, you can sleep in and arrive at 7am once crew are set up and ready to go.
Lights, camera, ACTION! It's time to start shooting. Usually, the Director will spend some time with you rehearsing and getting you comfortable in front of the camera. Be prepared for multiple takes doing the same thing. Don't worry, most of the time it's not your fault. Maybe the camera was out of focus in that important moment of the song, or the light flashed at the wrong time. We will continually do the take until the Director is happy, or the 1st AD says we're out of time. This is a very fast-paced process, so prepare yourself to push through the tiredness.
Shoot Day 2 - Ext. Farmhouse / Farm (Story Scenes)
We made it through the first day, and have all of the footage of me singing.. now what? Now the crew move on to Shoot Day 2.
In our case, shoot day 2 involves capturing all of the written scenes from our script, with our casted actors. Unless pre arranged, you are wrapped. You are more than welcome to tag along on shoot day 2, watching the filmmaking aspect unfold.
Post Production
Congratulations! You're this close to having your music video all wrapped up and in your hands ready for distribution. What's left? Editing and colour grading (and VFX if you wanted those aliens we mentioned earlier).
Editing. For our example, editing would roughly take 3-5 days. During this process, the Director and Editor will work together to bring the most out of the production phase, and match the brief. Once the Director has the video in a place they are happy with, the production company will send it to you for review and sign off. Some production companies (like us) will give you a round of editing changes, maybe we missed that finger bass roll that you want included. Through the editing phase we will also add any sound effects or enhance any audio that may have been in the script.
Colour Grading. The final touch, the polishing. Colour grading not only adds that extra layer of professionalism to your music video, but also enhances the mood and tones displayed. For example, have a sad scene? Cool blues, greys and desaturated. Have a happy scene? Oranges, yellows and warm. Of course it is a little more detailed than that, but as we come to the end of this blog I'm feeling a little bit more exhausted than creatively expressive.
THAT'S A WRAP!
The music video has been safely delivered to you, and is ready to be planted all over socials. Give your production company a solid handshake and we will see you at the wrap party.
Why choose Burning Pictures?
If you stuck around this long, you must be semi interested in what we have to say. We are a Sydney based youth driven team of professional creatives that have dedicated ourselves to learning the art that is cinema. More importantly, we absolutely love what we do and are excited to assist you any way we can. Have a project in mind? Reach out to us at info@burningpictures.com.au
