Music Videos
 

I don't know if this is in the right thread...
but what I want to know is if anyone can give me advice on shooting music videos. I've never done one and I have this friend who's about to release his second album, and wants a music video.

Any tips? Suggestions? Money is kinda tight. I have a xl1s, Premiere 6.5, and vegas video 3. Any help would be cool. Thanks!

You have most of the equipment that I would want to use. In addition to what you have listed, you should have lights and reflectors, and a decent audio recorder. The band should have their own mics... if your lucky.

I used a Korg D12 for all of my event video audio. It has 12 channels, with I think, 4 XLR / 1/4" jacks for input. This way, you can get the vocals on a seperate channel, and adjust them to a better level. It was expensive, almost $1,000, but it did the job fine... unless there was a power problem.

You also didn't mention what kind of video capture set up you have. This can make a big difference.

Everything else is up to your imagination and how creative you are.

I bought this book a while back but I have not gotten to it yet. (So, no review yet) It may be worth a once over if you can find it at your library, or local bookstore.

'Make your own music videos with Premiere"
ISBN: 0764536761

All the music video's I've ever done, we have the group lip sync to pre-recorded audio playback. It makes it easier to cut between scenes on different locations, and know that they are performing to the same track each time.

Playing live introduces a ton of variables.

I have always recorded audio live, as I'm shooting the video. It was always easier for me. Granted, I have only done a few music videos, but they have always synched up perfectly. I guess it is a matter of preference, as well as how the video is to be done.

John- What kind of problems have you run into with live music?

If your doing a music video than they should DEFINITELY be lip syncing to the recorded track. The onboard camera mic is just fine... you dont need any high quality mic just to record the audio used for "syncing." There is no real "advice" one could give... always use the same high production value you would use on any other project. Oh yeah, and theres that one other little thing... try to make it good!!

-Emery

If you are ding a promotional music video or Eletronic Press Kit. Doing the video with the band playing live is no problem, if you are using one location and if you want to get fancy, MoS style cut-aways.


On the broadcast music videos that I direct or work on, we do complex multi-location shoots, with performance at several diffferent locations.

If the group played live, there would always been a difference in the perfomance in cutting together.The song would have different durations, pitches, words, and lip sync.

Therefore, the group has a recording of the song that they want to use for the video, we do playback on speakers from a audio device, and the group lip syncs from that. We slate each shot so that the editor can easily sync up the track to that performance take. Intercutting becomes, in theory, a breeze.


Of course, if there is a narrative element to the music video, than we do record sound. Sometimes there is a framing story, that requires it.