This isn’t the first time I’ve tried my hand at making a music video, for my visual project I produced a music video for the song “Sweet Dreams” by TRINIX (a remix of the hit song by Eurythmics). For that project, I researched various topics and techniques that I wanted to include in the video and because I want to include a lot of things that I did that made that video so successful in this one, I will include and expand upon that research here.
Music Videos
History of the music video
The first-ever appearance of a ‘music video’ can be traced back to 1894 when sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern worked with electrician George Thomas to project still images during a live performance in order to promote their song ‘The Little Lost Child’. This medium would become known as an ‘Illustrated Song’.
After that there were many different attempts to accompany video with music and vice versa, for example, the introduction of ‘talkies’ with films such as ‘The Jazz Singer’ in 1927, or Vitaphone shorts.
However, Music videos in the form we think of today rose to prominence in the 1980s when MTV popularised the format and based its entire business around the medium. Since then music videos have become one of the primary methods through which people consume music.
Music videos have always been creative and viewed as an art form. Take, for example, one of the first mainstream popular music videos “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, the video is packed full of interesting and innovative visual effects, all layered together to tell a story.
Music videos have become an indispensable form of promotion for music and musicians, in fact for much of their infancy they were known as ‘promotional videos’.
From their first appearance on MTV, music videos quickly became a cornerstone of pop culture, influencing all areas of modern life from fashion, and social culture, to consumer habits. In fact, music videos are increasingly being seen as a way to market towards younger audiences through the use of product placement.
Nowadays every artist’s new release must have a music video in order to be relevant, budgets have increased massively allowing for even more creative freedom and for more adventurous productions, and with the advent of social media and sites such as YouTube it has become easier than ever for music videos to be distributed and reach an audience.
What makes a music video?
Music videos come in all different shapes and sizes from performance-based videos, to artsy or story-based videos. Here are some of the main types of Music Video
- Narrative – a narrative video is a video which tells a story, essentially a short film accompanying the music, the story can either be based on the lyrics of the song or can be completely unrelated.
- Performance – performance-based music videos feature the band or artist performing the song either by lip-syncing or performing live.
- Concept – concept music videos do not have a storyline or narrative but they do often have an underlying theme.
- Lyric – lyric videos do what they say on the tin: they display the lyrics of the song. The lyrics are often placed over the top of either live-action footage or animation.
My Video
I will be producing a music video for the song “A Good Song Never Dies” by Saint Motel.
Saint Motel
Saint Motel are a pop/indie band from Los Angeles in the USA. The band consists of lead singer & musician A. J. Jackson, lead guitarist Aaron Sharp, bassist Dan Lerdamornpong, and drummer Greg Erwin. They are signed with Elektra/Parlophone and have been making music since 2007.
ForPlay (2007–2011)
Saint motel released “ForPlay” their debut EP in 2009 and produced a Music Video for each of the 6 songs as both Jackson and Sharp had attended and met at film school and were therefore always interested in visuals to accompany their songs.
Voyeur (2012–2013)
My Type (2014–2015)
saintmotelevision (2016–2018)
Their albums between 2012 and 2018 continued to develop their unique musical style, they also continued to put great focus on the visuals alongside their music, producing and directing a lot of their own music videos.
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2019–2021)
They’re most recent album containing ‘A Good Song Never Dies ‘ was released in three parts as EPs, each containing 5 songs and the full album contains 15 songs.
“A Good Song Never Dies”
“A Good Song Never Dies” was part of the first EP of “The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”. Whilst in the past they had produced music videos for the vast majority of their released songs they only produced full official music videos for two of the 15 songs. 5 were given “Official Visualizers” but these simply featured dancers dancing to the music in front of a white cyc with coloured lighting.
However, ‘Good Song Never Dies’ was given an “Official Fan Video”.
The video, directed by Ukrainian model Darina Su, follows a kidnapping in a workshop/industrial unit. The video uses multicoloured lighting to create an atmosphere and there are choreographed elements. The music video is well shot with great cinematography and great editing. And although I’m not aiming to beat this video, it would certainly be difficult, especially from a technical perspective.
So, let’s have a look at the actual song…
The Lyrics
The lyrics for “A Good Song Never Dies” focus on the process of making music and how at times it can be a struggle, telling the listener that they shouldn’t just aim for money and fame when making music but instead stay true to themself and create meaningful music.
Below are the lyrics for the song, by clicking on the highlighted lines you can see the meaning as interpreted by ‘GENIUS’ users.
Technical Elements
Lighting
For this project, I want to create a small lighting design for the scenes which are shot in the warehouse. For my visual project, I created a lighting design to be one of the visual elements, drawing upon my pre-existing knowledge and skills, as well as researching new methods and techniques.
The Basics of Lighting
First of all, there is a difference between lighting a scene and creating a lighting design, a lighting design will often include a time-coded or cued sequence of lighting changes whereas simply lighting a scene will involve different ‘setups’ using film lights. For this project I will be creating a lighting design with LED Par lights (details below) but I will also be lighting the scene with film lights as a key light where necessary such as to light the actor’s face.
The Lighting System
There are multiple elements of the lighting system which are required in order to control lights.
- Lights
- DMX Controller/Console/Software
- DMX Network/Cabling
- Dimmers/Dimmer Packs
1. Light Fixtures
There are various different types of light fixtures which can be used as part of a lighting design.
LED Par – General light used for washes, covering a decent-sized area, not focusable. Often allows for RGB colour changing.
Parcan – General tungsten light used for washes, not focusable and requires a gel or filter to change colour – must be plugged in through a dimmer/dimmer pack.
Batten – Generally LED fixtures, they can be used to light up walls, as a wash or as a feature light.
Profile – Used for spot-lighting, profiles contain lenses and shutters which allow them to be focused and directed. They need to be ran through a dimmer/dimmer pack.
Fresnel – Also commonly used in filmmaking, fresnel lights have a Fresnel lens attached to the front, they are soft-edged with a certain level of control over the beam angle. They must be ran through a dimmer/dimmer pack.
Flood/Cyc – Used for lighting up large areas, they can have their colour changed using gels/filters. Must be ran through a dimmer/dimmer pack
Decorative Light – Used (as the name suggests) for decorative purposes, they serve no practical lighting purpose and are often placed behind talent as part of a set design. They may need to be ran through a dimmer/dimmer pack, depending on what type of light it is.
Moving Head
Spot – For spotlighting or effects – they are sometimes fitted with Gobo Wheels which allow the light to be ‘cut’ into shapes to create an effect.
Wash – For washing large areas of the stage/set with colour.
Beam – A happy medium between the two, often used for effects.
2. DMX Controller/Console/Software
There are a few options when it comes to choosing how to control the lights, you can either get a physical controller or console ranging from a cheap knock-off controller (~£20) all the way up to high-end consoles such as the GrandMA3 (~£60,000) which are used in massive productions such as the Eurovision Song Contest; or you can use standalone software such as ‘GrandMA3 on PC’, Avolites ‘Titan’ or Chamsys ‘MagicQ’ with a USB (or Art-NET) to DMX adapter.
For my project I’m looking to go down the software route, and as I mentioned there are a few options:
MA Lighting – GrandMA
- GrandMA3 is an incredibly funtional piece of software that is widely used in the lighting industy for big events such as concerts, conventions, competitions, etc. For example it’s often used on big touring shows and is the prefered option for events such as Eurovision.
- However, whilst it is very powerful it is also quite expensive because whilst the software itself is free, in order to output DMX you have to have a piece of MA hardware on the network – the cheapest of which retails at £1,500 (quite cheap when compared to their ~£60,000 full-size consoles but still more than I’m willing to pay)
Avolites – Titan
- Another option is the Titan software package from Avolites. It’s probably the second most popular lighting software package after GrandMA in the lighting design industry and it’s my personal favourite as it’s the one I’ve used most frequently and have used on previous projects so I feel quite comfortable using it. It is very powerful and is often used for live events and music events although I used it for theatrical shows, which shows how versatile it is.
- And it’s not too expensive – only £170 for the cheapest interface to activate the software.
ETC – Nomad
- ETC Nomad is a piece of software that I have never had the opportunity to try. It is geared towards being used for theatrical performances as opposed to music performances – ETC actually stands for ‘Electronic Theatre Controls’ – and therefore hasn’t really broken out into the live music and events industries.
- From what I can tell from images and videos the software look relatively easy to use and has a lot of features although some from the other pieces of software are missing.
- The cheapest way that I can gain access to the software is by purchasing an ETCnomad Base Kit which costs £549 – very expensive for what is essentially a USB activation key.
Chamsys – MagicQ
- MagicQ is the College’s software of choice primarily because it is cheap – the most basic USB to DMX adapter which activates the software is only ~£30.
- However, I really do not like MagicQ, the software is far too clunky and convoluted for its level of functionality, you end up spending more time looking for what you need instead of actually programming the show. But perhaps this is just a personal grudge as it seems to be increasing in popularity amongst lighting designers especially after they were bought by Chauvet (a well known brand in the lighting industry) in 2017.
Following my research into the different pieces of software available, I have, unsurprisingly, chosen to go with Avolites Titan as it is the software with which I have the most experience (it is the software that I used for my visual project and other previous projects) and I already own an Avolites T1 which allows me to activate the software.
3. DMX Network/Cabling
DMX or Digital Multiplex is ‘a unidirectional lighting control protocol that allows you to run sophisticated lighting sequences from a single source‘ along a 3-pin or 5-pin XLR cable or in some cases through a cat5/6 cable.
Each fixture on a DMX ‘network’ has to be assigned an ‘address’ this is a number anywhere from 0 to 512. Each fixture takes up a different number of DMX ‘channels’, for example a simple dimmer light will use only one channel: dimmer, whilst something like a moving head light will use many more to carry information such as red, green, blue, white, amber, strobe, gobo, shutter, dimmer, and other values. A DMX universe can only carry 512 channels, and one cable can typically only carry one universe, therefore, there will never be an address higher that 512, only a lower address on a new universe and cable.
DMX addresses can be entered into the back of a fixture or onto a dimmer pack. The addresses can be found on the patch list generated by the lighting software.
4. Dimmers/Dimmer Packs
Just to be clear, I will not be using any fixtures that will require a dimmer pack but, just for completion’s sake let’s have a look at them…
Dimmer packs allow ‘dumb’ fixtures such as profiles, fresnels, parcels, etc. to be connected to and controlled by DMX. Fixtures that need to be plugged into a dimmer pack are dimmed by how much electricity is given to them, that is what the dimmer packs control. They take the digital DMX signals and reduce or increase the amount of electricity given to a light to match the DMX dimmer value. They are given a DMX address usually for 2-6 fixtures. And that’s about it. They’re quite simple devices.
Motion Control
Another technique that I want to attempt is motion control. Motion control, as the name suggests involves precisely controlling the camera’s motion so that it can be repeated accurately multiple times to create interesting visual effects.
Motion control is often achieved by using robotic arms which can precisely complete the same movements over and over, such as Milo from Mark Roberts Motion Control.
This arm was used to great effect in this music video from AJR for their song “I Won’t”. The camera tracks Jack along the side of the pool as his shirt changes as does what’s going on in the background. They would have had to repeat the same shot several times and capture the same motion for the clips to line up. It wouldn’t have been possible without Milo.
Another good example of motion control being used in music videos is the video for 5 Seconds of Summer’s song ‘Me, Myself & I’ in which the band members’ outfits change whilst the camera is moving similar to the AJR example. In fact, they used the same Milo robot.
Warning: Contains explicit language.
I don’t have the budget to hire a massive motion control robotic arm to get a motion-controlled effect. However, the college does have a Syrp Genie and a few Syrp Minis that I can use. They are quite slow, however, so if I do end up using them I might want to speed up the footage to give it more of an impact.
Paddy gave us a brief demonstration on how to use the Syrp Genie, however, I was disappointed to learn that because the genie was an older model, it could not be controlled remotely by the app and therefore couldn’t work in harmony with the minis which are controllable via the app. This makes the device more fiddly to use and probably not particularly useful for what I had in mind.
Camera
The camera I’m planning on using is the Lumix G7. It can record up to 4K in 30 fps (frames per second). It’s the same camera that I have used for most of my previous projects.
However, I also want to film some slow motion shots for which I will need more than 30fps and therefore I may ask if I could use a Lumix GH5 as they can shoot 4k in 60 fps and 1080p in up to 180fps – perfect to be slowed down in post for slow motion.
Edit
Aspect Ratio
The standard aspect ratio for online video as well as television distribution is 16:9 and has been since the early 2000s
However, music videos have always been experimental in nature, and as such we are starting to see the comeback of the 4:3 aspect ratio in music videos.
I personally find the 4:3 aspect ratio very compelling. It frames the content well, especially if the subject is a person.
When shooting I will use a ‘frame guide’ built into the camera to show me what the frame will look like in a 4:3 aspect ratio, so I can ensure that everything is in the frame.
Aurora’s music video for the song ‘Cure For Me’ is a great example of how a 4:3 aspect ratio can be used effectively.
the ‘Cure For Me’ music video also has a visual aesthetic with the colour grade and film grain effects that I think looks really effective and I would like to try in my music video.
Colour Grading
I watched this crash course on colour grading in Davinci Resolve after it was recommended by Alex. It is for an older version of the software and the colour page has since gotten a lot more feature-packed, however, it is still a great guide on the basics of colour grading. I took notes on how to apply what was shown in the video for my video.
Primary Research
Test Shots
One of the shots that I wanted to get was a transition going over someone’s head and after the transition the other person has disappeared – as if they were never there to begin with. But before I added it to the shot list I decided to test it out to see how it looked.
The test shot was filmed using a Canon 700D which means that it doesn’t look amazing but it depicts quite well what I want to achieve with this shot, I think that, especially if the actor/actress has dark hair, the transition could work really well.
For the actual shot I will need to stabilise it or use a gimbal as the test shot is very shaky.
Experimenting with Display Delay/Echo effect
Alex, Owen, and I experimented with placing a camera in front of a display in order to create a kind of echo effect. I had originally intended to include an effect similar to the one on the left (which I found on eyecannndy.com) but when I realised the actual difficulty of the shot, I realised I didn’t have time to do it justice and so scrapped the idea.
