My first ever music video

Phil Bennett

Phil Bennett

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Guys

For a few years now, I have been photographing local bands around the NorthEast of England.

Last year, for a challenge to myself, I wanted to have a go at making a music video, not just sticking a camera on a tripod and recording a song, I wanted to have a go at editing, etc. Then, one day, my mates band said "We are going into the studio to record a couple of songs, do you fancy doing a video for us". With the help of a good friend and fellow photographer, we had a day in the studio with the the band, threw a coin, and this is the song I got to edit.

The remit, was to edit the video in a "Dirty Loops" / "Brother Strut" style, add some live footage from gigs that they have done over the year, and keep the Drum / Bass sponsors happy with some footage for them.

Anyway, this is what it turned out like, all comments, good or bad are welcome.

The band are Groovetrain.


Regards

Phil
 
Phil, watched it and have a couple of pointers;

Generally, it's shot and put together well. I feel the 40s of intro could have been cut in half and may have worked better if you introduced the band first, followed by it's individual members (and cut their screen time in half as there was a lot of wasted time that I didn't feel was engaging enough for a general viewer...).

I also would have like to see more arty DOF stuff like pulling focus and definitely some close up of the sax playing which was a pretty big part of the track etc but here are my main pointers to bear in mind that would have added to the production value of your video;

1. ALWAYS steady the shot. Too many shots in there where no tripod/stabilization is used and that is one sure way to make a shot look bad.
2. Zooms. *IF* you are going to zoom, make sure it's slow and controlled. Anything else just looks amateur. The opening shot of Michael shows a short zoom which isn't needed at all for example.
3. Emphasizing point number 1 ;)
 
Phil Young said:
Phil, watched it and have a couple of pointers;

Generally, it's shot and put together well. I feel the 40s of intro could have been cut in half and may have worked better if you introduced the band first, followed by it's individual members (and cut their screen time in half as there was a lot of wasted time that I didn't feel was engaging enough for a general viewer...).

I also would have like to see more arty DOF stuff like pulling focus and definitely some close up of the sax playing which was a pretty big part of the track etc but here are my main pointers to bear in mind that would have added to the production value of your video;

1. ALWAYS steady the shot. Too many shots in there where no tripod/stabilization is used and that is one sure way to make a shot look bad.
2. Zooms. *IF* you are going to zoom, make sure it's slow and controlled. Anything else just looks amateur. The opening shot of Michael shows a short zoom which isn't needed at all for example.
3. Emphasizing point number 1 ;)
Click to expand...


Cheers Phil, for the comments will take them on board.

Phil
 
ImageView said:
Ive always wondered how do you keep the audio in sync when editing/switching shots? Nice video though.
Click to expand...
Im no expert John

The way I did it was, I marked the audio track in Final Cut Pro X on the beats as it were, so the switching was on a beat. Then I added the various video clips from different angles, a bit like layers in Photoshop into the correct places on the timeline, making sure the audio is synced, then its a case of cutting the clip, so you see which one you want (Whichever is on top, then thats the clip you see).

Hope this helps

Phil
 
ImageView said:
Ive always wondered how do you keep the audio in sync when editing/switching shots? Nice video though.
Click to expand...

They aren't all synched if you look carefully - some of the cutaways aren't.

You either shoot multi-camera and the timecode sorts it all out for you (NLEs usually have a multi-cam mode and you just switch back and forth), or you shoot the song from different angles hoping that they're pretty consistent and either spend hours lining it up to the backing track or use software like Plural Eyes.

It's been too many years since I was in the Cluny - although I was more of a Riverside man.
 
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