I’ll admit: professional video production takes a lot of commitment, and often a lot of expensive equipment. Me being a DIY’er though, I decided to give it a shot with one of my bands a few years ago. We had a new single finished and ready to release, and we hadn’t done a live-action music video yet. Not having a large budget, we decided to produce it ourselves with the equipment we had available. Our vocalist had a vision, now we just have to bring it to life.
Planning and preparation
Considering that I also had project management experience, I was nominated to lead the effort. I started researching all kinds of topics like camera settings, lighting setup, story boards, post-production techniques, and so on. Part of our story included a crowd of people, which meant sourcing volunteers and having them sing consent forms. All the while, I’m putting together our project plan; what days we would shoot footage, timelines for activities, contingency plans, accommodations and refreshments, and creating an outline of our scenes so that I could direct the camera operators and volunteers.
Time to shoot
After we scouted out some filming locations, we set a day and time. We shot the video in three days: the first day was in our rehearsal studio getting solo footage of each band member; the second day, we filmed a mock performance in front of a crowd with the help of two volunteer camera operators; the third day was out in the city with two of my band mates and a helper. On all three days I directed all the camera operators and volunteers, and on the first and third days I did most of the filming.
Post-production
I had some experience using video editing software, yet this was a new challenge. It also gave me the opportunity to explore some creative ideas, one of which involved using an old CRT TV that I purchased from a local seller. I spent many hours learning all about color grading and watching editing tutorials from other video editors. We had A LOT of footage to go through! I think that was the most time consuming part of the process; we captured around two hours worth of footage to end up with around a four minute final cut.
After many days of comping, editing, adjusting colors, and a good dose of self-doubt, I had something ready to show to the band. The first export was pretty close and just needed some minor adjustments. After a couple rounds of edits and previewing with the group, we had one more take to capture: I played back the finished video on that tube TV and recorded that playback with the camera. I then laced in a few snippets of that recording, did one more export, and we were done and ready to publish.
For this project’s “launch”, I secured distribution for the new single and coordinated the release date. The video premiered on YouTube and the song could be streamed on major platforms on the same date. I helped coordinate a social media push with all the band members and our family members, including a pre-launch promotion schedule. Our video had a few hundred views in the first twenty-four hours which might not be a lot by some standards but it exceeded our expectations. I still enjoy rewatching this video occasionally as a reminder of the process and commitment that went into this production.