Thursday 5 December 2013
Project description
My project is about the production of the music video we made for our band last year. As a band we were completely unknown at the time and making a video seemed the best way to reach as many people as fast as possible, since it can contain pretty much anything your band has to offer. If done right of course.
Prior to making the video we had released one EP, but since we got a new guitarplayer, it recalibrated the creativity in the band and it seemed nessecary to present it as a completely new band. Thus we thought about recording a new song, specially for the video. We'd always had a do-it-yourself mentality which we wanted to keep. Plus it really helps to cut down on costs and is a great way to learn new things. So we recorded the song in our rehearsalroom with the equipment we had and borrowed from friends, with the help of a few friends on mixing and mastering. Since the recording process wasn't really a new thing for us, then that went quite as planned and without any major setbacks and we got the whole thing done in a few weeks.
Since it was going to be our first video, we had a few main focal points to keep in mind:
Prior to making the video we had released one EP, but since we got a new guitarplayer, it recalibrated the creativity in the band and it seemed nessecary to present it as a completely new band. Thus we thought about recording a new song, specially for the video. We'd always had a do-it-yourself mentality which we wanted to keep. Plus it really helps to cut down on costs and is a great way to learn new things. So we recorded the song in our rehearsalroom with the equipment we had and borrowed from friends, with the help of a few friends on mixing and mastering. Since the recording process wasn't really a new thing for us, then that went quite as planned and without any major setbacks and we got the whole thing done in a few weeks.
Since it was going to be our first video, we had a few main focal points to keep in mind:
- Keeping it low budget and as DIY as possible
- Come up with a video idea thats realistic to achieve
- Keeping it simple and yet attractive
Getting the ball rolling...
Now as we had the song ready, we needed to start planning the video. First thing was to get over the budget: since it was to be funded only by our bandmembers, then we decided on a humble sum of 1000DKK each, totalling at 4000DKK. One of my good friends, who makes music videos, commercials etc.(a guy called Mart Metsma) was willing to help us out for a cheap price (also since he needed to add more things to his own portfolio) of 3000DKK. To save on the location and transportation costs, we decided to do the video in our band rehearsalroom, which also was our living room (some of us were renting a house together at the time). Also that seemed like a logical idea, since we had many good memories attached to the place and it added to the sentimental value for us.
We came up with the idea of making a video that looks as though we're playing the song in our rehearsalroom to a group of friends while being ourselves amongst them. Hopefully creating a cozy atmosphere and a closeup from the band to viewers, with a feeling of being in the audience.
To realize that idea we needed as many participants as possible, so we organized an event for all our friends with the hope of filling up the room with people. Since we knew that it was going to be a long night and people might get bored or tired we prepared food and drinks to everyone (also drinks to get people more in the mood, since the video should look kinda like us partying with our fans and friends). Also we knew that people were going to hear the same song over-and-over again, thus we had to shoot as fast as possible.
Mart, who was shooting the video came also by a few days earlier and we did some test shooting to see if there was enough lights, if the camera angles were ok etc. We decided to get some heavy-duty construction lights to light up the room better (totalling around 300DKK) and that left us around 700 for catering and transportation (in this case we borrowed a friends car for driving people around and spent around 100DKK on gasoline).
A day before the shoot we also did all the shopping for nessecary catering and spent all of the remaining budget (that of course was a bit risky but we thought that if something does go completely wrong then everybody could throw in a few hundred extra...luckily nothing of the sort happened).
We came up with the idea of making a video that looks as though we're playing the song in our rehearsalroom to a group of friends while being ourselves amongst them. Hopefully creating a cozy atmosphere and a closeup from the band to viewers, with a feeling of being in the audience.
To realize that idea we needed as many participants as possible, so we organized an event for all our friends with the hope of filling up the room with people. Since we knew that it was going to be a long night and people might get bored or tired we prepared food and drinks to everyone (also drinks to get people more in the mood, since the video should look kinda like us partying with our fans and friends). Also we knew that people were going to hear the same song over-and-over again, thus we had to shoot as fast as possible.
Mart, who was shooting the video came also by a few days earlier and we did some test shooting to see if there was enough lights, if the camera angles were ok etc. We decided to get some heavy-duty construction lights to light up the room better (totalling around 300DKK) and that left us around 700 for catering and transportation (in this case we borrowed a friends car for driving people around and spent around 100DKK on gasoline).
A day before the shoot we also did all the shopping for nessecary catering and spent all of the remaining budget (that of course was a bit risky but we thought that if something does go completely wrong then everybody could throw in a few hundred extra...luckily nothing of the sort happened).
The day of the videoshoot
On the day we all met as planned and started by preparing the room. Since it was our living room, we had to get everything not nessecary for the video out and clean the place up. After doing that we did some takes that were to be edited in the beginning and middle part of the video. A small intro with a homeless guys getting annoyed after being awaken from his sleep by our loud music and the quiet middle part were there is only the band left in the room. The guy who was making the video was very fast at setting everybody to the right track and that got done in good time to get ready for all the friends to arrive for the evening shoot. Since not as many people turned up as we had wanted, we had to re-adjust things a little. We had to take a few overall shots from the whole band/crowd and 1-2 shots from every bandmember in focus (totalling at around 10 takes), so what we did was that in the whole band takes we scattered everybody around the band and made them get as close to us as possible and the camera was kept so that you can't really see past the 2nd row of people. On the personal takes with bandmembers we just moved people behind every member and changed it so that who's in the front row with one member, would be somewhere behind with others. Thus if to look at the video closely it's visible that the same member in the audience are in several different locations but it's still fairly diffused and almost unnoticeable.
Since it was the first video experience for everybody in the band then after a few takes we noticed that people are getting a bit tired and in order to keep the spirits up untill the end we also let some people to go out and do something else every now and then. We also tried to do it as fast as possible in order not to have the effect that in some shots people are going all in and in another they might look tired and bored.
All and all, the shoot went quite as planned and everybody had a good time (I guess the drinks we had provided had something to do with that aswell) and to thank everybody we had a party for everybody after the shoot was done.
Since it was the first video experience for everybody in the band then after a few takes we noticed that people are getting a bit tired and in order to keep the spirits up untill the end we also let some people to go out and do something else every now and then. We also tried to do it as fast as possible in order not to have the effect that in some shots people are going all in and in another they might look tired and bored.
All and all, the shoot went quite as planned and everybody had a good time (I guess the drinks we had provided had something to do with that aswell) and to thank everybody we had a party for everybody after the shoot was done.
Aftermatch
Since the shoot itself was very exciting to everybody, then we were all very eager to see the results. It took about 2 weeks to get the first cut from the video which looked about 90% like the final cut. We gave it a bit to settle in and wrote down everything that we'd like to change (some shots that we didn't like or some filters or effects that could be different - mostly quite small details) and after that it took Mart about one more week to finalize the video. The final product you can see added to this blog.
After the video was done and published we noticed a significant growth in interest to our band. It helped us to get more concerts and overall it seemed like a much easier way to get our music across than just releasing an EP or a whole record. Thus I would suggest every upcoming band to come up with a decent video as fast as possible, since these days nobody has time to check out a whole record and people mostly go to YouTube to check on new bands anyway. Also if done right, it can be a very cost-efficient way to do so (which in our case it was).
Unfortunately due to other reasons our band dissolved a few months later and I can't describe any long term effects, this video could have caused but overall it was a very good experience (we recently shot a video to another band and the experience from the first video was really helpful in plaaning for it).
After the video was done and published we noticed a significant growth in interest to our band. It helped us to get more concerts and overall it seemed like a much easier way to get our music across than just releasing an EP or a whole record. Thus I would suggest every upcoming band to come up with a decent video as fast as possible, since these days nobody has time to check out a whole record and people mostly go to YouTube to check on new bands anyway. Also if done right, it can be a very cost-efficient way to do so (which in our case it was).
Unfortunately due to other reasons our band dissolved a few months later and I can't describe any long term effects, this video could have caused but overall it was a very good experience (we recently shot a video to another band and the experience from the first video was really helpful in plaaning for it).
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