MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR
How to be a good music video director?
Writing
it’s
important to learn to write. Having a good sense of story is
invaluable.
Crew Selection
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.
Shooting
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
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.
B-Roll
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. 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.
Stock Footage
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, Sometimes Kodak and
Fuji will donate film or give discounts to students and young
film-makers.
Editing
A
nice trick I have used to edit a music video efficiently is to place
all the 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
for the cutaways, which can be placed wherever you like.
Have Fun
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.
Some
music video directors are:
- Bill Fishman
A
music video director Julien Christian
Julien
Christian Lutz was born in 1975, better known as Little X, X or
Director X, is a canadien music video director He also has his own clothing line X Fit.
Director
X has been noted for his high-budget, visually distinctive music
videos for popular music singles, ncluding videos for R. Kelly, Usher, kayne west, Jay-Z,
Korn, David Guetta, Sean
Paul, Justin Bieber, Drake, Nicki Minajand the Wanted.
