Pretty much everyone that works down at my studio has a connection to G-Unit of one kind or another, so I’ve been hearing a whole lot of the Young Buck/50 Cent phone call being played lately. This is by far the best and most interesting reaction I’ve yet heard to it.

Posted: June 22nd, 2008 under Internet Video, how-to.
Comments: 2

Evil News Rides Post

I used a generous portion of hyperbole in titling this bit of the series, but not wholly without warrant. You, the director, should do the assembly edit of your music video at the very least. You have all your footage shot and it looks great, but you have inevitably made mistakes. There’s no better way to confront these than by watching all of your footage. Once you confront them you can learn from them and hopefully not make them next time.

Here’s the process:

Remember that second-by-second outline you originally wrote up? That’s basically your music video already edited! Pull that back out and start lining your clips up. The slating you did will come in handy here. I edit in the same FCP sequence I used to make my timecode. I know that when the timecode on the slate matches the timecode of the sequence that my clip is lined up and that the lip sync will be dead on. I didn’t employ a slate on my first video, and I had to spend hours moving clips around trying to get them sunk (synced?). Even with all that work, the sync is soft at several points in the video. I hate that.

So your first step is to simply assemble the footage in order. I really like to just blow through the whole song doing this. Then when I go to play it back finally, it’s like I have a music video! It’s not done, but this is the first look I get at something that approximates the video I had in mind from the beginning.

Once you have done this, I’d say you don’t lose anything by passing it off to an editor. I’ve mostly edited my own stuff, but I pine for the day when I can put that responsibility in the hands of someone who has the same zest for it that I have for directing.

So just to recap: you look at and assemble the footage first. Then begin to refine, whether its you or someone else.

The Post Process as I Have Come to Know It

Step 1: Editing
Refine your edit. Are there swears that you have to cut away from? Would it look cool if you flipped that shot back and forth when the singer says “in out, in out, yeah”? In this part of the process you shouldn’t do anything but the most basic of effects. Maybe a little fast motion. A flipped or scaled shot. Nothing drastic. I use text overlays to describe planned effects shots right on top of the video as placeholders.

You can also spend some time preparing visual elements of the effects. I like to bring a still frame into photoshop and mess with it just so I have a plan to work from.

Then, once your edit is where you want it, meet with the act. Sit down and explain that this is not their finished video. You’re still on step 1, you see. None of the effects are done. This is just footage. Watch it through a couple of times and then write down any changes they want. Be really thorough with them, and explain that you need them to be thorough. The further you proceed into post production, the harder it is to change things. Show them any prep you have done on visual effects and explain how they will work into the overall video. Make sure everything is sitting well with them as you proceed. If they want changes that will take more time than you have there, make a plan to meet again. I guess you’re probably catching on. Do not proceed to step 2 until everyone is on the same page.

Music video was my first exposure to the creator/client relationship, and it was very difficult for me the first time. I didn’t stop and let the artist respond to the video at various stages of the post-production process. I cut it together from start to finish, did tons of composites, added effects, the works. It was taking 12 hours to render out by the time I started showing them cuts, but they naturally had changes they needed me to make. Every time that happened, I would have to remove all my effects and go from scratch on that. I’d never been in a situation as a filmmaker where someone else had the position to tell me how I was going to change my work, and that fresh and unusual sensation coupled with the fact that I was spending every night with my computer screaming away at the other end of my bedroom on a re-re-re-render was no easy process for me to endure. Save yourself the trouble. Understand that they will want changes, and some of them will be ones you disagree with. That’s fine. This is a great moment in your career to learn to collaborate. My friend Andreas Duess, an incredibly creative advertising executive, explained to me that this is basically the condition of being any kind of artist. You will probably deal with it for the rest of your career.

Step 2: Compositing
Apply your effects. Music videos have gotten me using After Effects and Motion more than I ever thought I would. I like AE for some types of things and Motion for others. Maybe you made a music video that doesn’t have any digital effects, and for that I salute you. I’ve been feeling like green screen is sort of a crutch lately, but I end up scheduling a few green screen shots in almost every production I do, but I think real effects are awesome and I want to do more of them. This section will be up to you. If you are an effectsy type of director, you’ll already be on top of this, and if you aren’t it’s of not interest to you. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Remember to show your shit to your artist after this step also!

Step 3: Color Timing
I firmly believe that one of the main things separating an amateur-looking film or video from professional work is color timing. If you shot on film, you would want to do a supervised transfer to DI, and you would be all over making it pop. Video should be no different. This is something everyone needs to learn about digital, be it photography or video: if you don’t adjust the colors of your images, you are leaving a major aesthetic decision to whoever made your camera.

Fortunately, there are great tools lately made available to everyone for this. If you are using Final Cut Studio, you probably have access to Color, which is the big scary un-Mac-like program that came in the box. Color is an amazing program that everyone should be using. If you don’t have that, After Effects and Motion have some okay color correction tools.

I leave this to the last step because I like to flatten my video file and run the whole thing through Color all at once. That way I’m applying the color timing to the visual effects and the regular video alike, without discriminating between them. This unifies the look of your video from shot to shot, and can give the effects an added air of seamlessness.

The aesthetics of this are up to you. I’m a fan of bright colors and rich blacks. Maybe you like sepias or moody, muted colors. Maybe you’re making a music video parody of The Matrix and need tons of green in your skin tones. This is where you make that shine. This is the final step of your process. This is where you put the whipped cream and maraschino cherry on your sundae.

Bring the artist back one last time and show them the finished product. Make a little production out of it. Why not? Put it on your television and darken the room.

They might have tweaks that they want to make. It’s still their money, so it’s still up to them. Explain, though, that this is late in the process now, so making changes is difficult and costly.

A Few Notes on Fonts and Formats
A fun final touch is to put the little chyron in the lower left corner at the beginning and end of the video that says who the artist is and who, naturally, the director is. This is fine for the version of the video you are uploading to YouTube or whatever, but keep in mind that when BET shows music videos, they put the chyrons on themselves. As such, they’re not going to accept tapes with your chyron on them. You need to maintain a version of the video that does not include that.

I have never been involved in the process of distributing music videos to television or the internet, so I don’t have any advice for how to do that. Hopefully your band is on a label or has a manager who can take it around to the few TV channels that still play music videos. The only thing I can speak on is the format. Television is still working from beta tapes, in large part. Find a way to get your video onto some beta tapes and get those to the artist. That will make things easier. Make sure the betas don’t have chyrons!

Now You’re Done!

Now that you’re done, put your video on your iPod or some DVDs that you can carry around. In general, the only way people will consider you for making their music video is if you’ve already proven that you can make a good music video. I got my second gig by having my first video handy. I’ve also gotten non-music video work from it. Keep it handy and have business cards. There will be a pretty bad signal to noise ratio on this. I’ve shaken hands with dozens of people I’d like to make projects with, and only a few of them have come to me and asked me to direct something for them, but the more work I do the more people I meet, so the ratio doesn’t have to be great, just good. It’s your work that should be great.

End of transmission.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Posted: March 5th, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
Comments: none

Video Thrilled the Radio Star

You have a clipboard loaded up with your shotlist, outline and schedule. Your crew is locked in and the call sheet has been emailed to everyone (your producer or, even better, AD should send this out, including a contact sheet and a time and location for everyone to show up). Your locations are a go. You have the song memorized, and tomorrow is the day of the shoot. Get some protein in your meal tonight and go to bed an hour earlier than usual and really relax into your slumber. You want to be the sharpest motherfucker on set tomorrow. The more I shoot the less nervous I am the night before each shoot.

When you get up, put on some clothes. This may seem obvious, but you will have a lot on your mind and it would be a shame to forget, right? I recommend you dress up a little bit. Not so much so that you will hesitate to help lift some gear or whatever, but enough that you will look good and at ease compared to your crew. These are cues to your authority on set and are a friendly way of establishing yourself so as to avoid any awkward moments. I was a PA on a commercial one time and was trying to introduce myself to the other PAs and went up to this bummy guy and said, “hey buddy, my name’s Ben. What’s yours?” Then I found out he was the director. If he’d been wearing a necktie or even a collared shirt I would have approached him differently, but the guy was dressed like a bum and his production was a mess. Coincidence? I think not. If you are a lady this might be a little more difficult because sometimes dressing up for a woman can detract from the practicality of one’s garment. You, however, will have the advantage of having a far better innate sense of style than any boy director. You can probably solve this issue far more easily than I can.

And as an aside, to those of you who are boys and crewing your shoot up, I see boy-run shoots being crewed by mostly boys most of the time, and I think it’s stupid. You get this very fratty dynamic in your crew that can be tough to control. You deploy sexist hiring practices at your own peril, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

So here are Ten Pro Tips on How To Shoot Your Music Video:

1) SLATE YOUR SHOTS! Before you shoot, take the song into Final Cut Pro, put a timecode generator on the video track, and then export that as a quicktime file. Use this as your playback track. Shoot your computer screen playing the timecode for a moment before the shot starts, and your lip sync will be easy to achieve and dead-on. This is far cheaper than renting a SMPTE rig with a slate and a DAT, and will achieve the same thing. If you don’t have a laptop, an iPod or iPhone make a good alternative as long as you can reliably resolve the screen with your camera. I just use the FCP project that generates this as my editing project when the video is shot. It is smart to put a few seconds of timecode at the beginning of this track before the song starts so that you don’t have to tail slate.

2) No faking it. Your singer or rapper should be really singing or rapping, not just mouthing. It will look way better. I shot a video where the act was mouthing, and it looked very strange.

3) Shoot long takes. Even with your shots scheduled as carefully as I recommended in part 4, you will have enough time to shoot the whole song through a couple times. I highly recommend you do this at a couple of different locations so that you have enough footage to make a music video no matter what.

4) Film a concert as backup. If you can get it together, and your act is performing a live show, it can be a nice backup, in the spirit of tip #2, to film the live show. This is easier with a rapper because usually their music is just on a CD and the timing is precisely the same. If it’s a rock band see if the drummer can be listening to the actual track or a click track of the same tempo on headphones.

5) Get a great performance. Your act may be awesome onstage, but it can be difficult to reproduce this energy for video. I’m still learning this, but you really want to get a super-engaging, charismatic performance out of your artist. This should be your focus from take to take. Unless your video only has kittens in it. They will pretty much be great no matter what they’re doing.

6) Communicate with your artist. They’re performers, so they have a really good sense of how they want to appear. Make sure they’re feeling it, and make every effort to help them get to where they need to be. Ask them how they felt about takes. They will often have interesting ideas about how to improve each one.

7) Use a field monitor if you can. I haven’t yet been able to do this on one of my own music videos, but a “video village” is a great thing for a director to have. You will have a better perspective if you can watch your video on the kind of screen the viewer will be watching it on. Trust your DP, but trust yourself too.

8) Drink water and eat fruit. Somehow most of the directors I know turn into senseless wraiths when they’re on set. I sense that this has to do with them subjecting themselves to lack of sleep and basic nutrition. It can be hard, but pay attention to it. I bring a canteen on set for myself.

9) Maintain your composure. Murphy’s law states that anything that can go wrong probably will. I don’t know who this Murphy character is, but he or she sounds like a filmmaker. Making movies is perpetual problem solving. Learn to expect issues to arise on set and cultivate the skill of confidently adjudicating them. A director on set has two jobs, and they’re both sides of the same coin: making the creative vision a reality and incorporating unexpected changes into the creative vision gracefully. It will rain. The lights will break. The bassist will show up with a black eye. A crazy shop owner will come and try to stop your production because they think they have copyright on the sidewalk in front of their business. Do not give in to the temptation to freak out.

10) Know when to quit. Sometimes a take just isn’t working like you had in mind. You have to balance the importance of that take with the overall goal of getting all your shots. Can you cut away from it? Can you re-imagine it? Being single-mindedly committed to your Vision is nice, but don’t do it at the expense of practicality. You aren’t Stanley Kubrick.

And have fun! Don’t forget that. Be serious about your work, but have fun with it. Having fun stimulates creativity.

Next time I’ll talk about what ends up being the longest part of the process in my experience: editing. That’s in Part 6: Evil News Rides Post.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6

Posted: March 4th, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
Comments: none

Plans, Plots and Schemes

So the money is in place, everyone is on the same page creatively, the song is a jam and you’ve got the go-ahead. Now you have to take your amorphous video concept and make a plan that you can practically execute.

The first step is to open an empty text document and put it alongside your rough synopsis. Then, second by second, you listen to the song and write down what will be happening in each part. Literally. Looks like this:

<0:00 - 0:07 Guy in car with CD
0:08 - 0:12 Pinks in studio
0:12 - 0:15 Guy in car jamming out
0:15 - 0:17 Pinks on the streets
0:17 - 0:21 Pinks at photoshoot
0:22 - 0:26 Pinks in studio

It’s tedious, it’s kind of weird, it’s totally going to make or break your video.

If you were making a short film, you would have a script with scene numbers and page numbers. The script is the plan for the film. This document you are creating is like the script for the video, but it’s a little bit less than that (the song contains the dialogue) and a little bit more (when its time to edit, this will be super handy, as I will explain when the time comes). So eventually you have every second of the script planned out. Now it’s time to process that into a shot list. This is, unfortunately, a multiple-step process.

The first step is to write down all the lyrics in the song. You should know them since they have implications on what you’re doing, anyways, but part of this exercise is to ensure that you cover all the lines that you need to cover.

So for this video I distilled my outline into an outline by location. It looks like this:

So let’s go through this horizontally. From right to left like the Chinese do. There’s the lyrics that are covered by that chunk of song. There’s a spot for notes, usually handwritten when I’m on set. There’s a description of what is happening visually in that bit of the song (NOT what the shot is, because there might be more than one). Then there’s the time in the song. Since this list organizes by location, this is not contiguous from grab to grab.

What’s a grab? I called it that for lack of a better term. The idea is that the shot list will reference this outline in a similar way to how the shotlist in a short film would reference a script. The difference is that in a music video you can change locations and time tracks dozens of times a minute, so scene numbers can be confusing and feel inapprorpiate. I employ three number systems. Grabs, Locations and Shots.

Here’s my shot list:

So there’s a compact shot number, which is made up of a location number and the individual shot, which I have lettered. Then in the description column I annotate the part(s) of the outline this is covering and describe the shot technically. Sometimes I will format this sheet with a little more space on each line so that I can draw a little thumbnail storyboard for each shot.

Once you have these two documents it’s time to schedule your shoot. I do this with an excel spreadsheet that I inherited from a short film I directed. My writer/producer pal Ben Joseph made it, and it’s a critical tool I use on every shoot I do. I’m sharing the one I used for the music video I just shot for your downloading pleasure.

Basically this sheet just automates the shot timing. You fill in your shot numbers and how long you are scheduling them for, and it calculates when you need to start the next shot using math. Smart huh?

The first film I made after high school was a 30 minute drama. It probably had a dozen locations, a hundred shots. We shot for seven days. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and we did not have a shot list. I remain amazed that we have anything to show for that, much less a somewhat cohesive narrative (no matter how embarrassing it is to me now). Please make a schedule. On this most recent shoot I realized how necessary it is not only to schedule your shoots, but also to have an AD (assistant director) on set to keep you on schedule and make sure you’re getting your shots. I didn’t do that this time and nearly forgot a critical shot. The actor had to remind me to get it. I was ashamed, and it didn’t make me look very good in front of the rapper’s manager. It didn’t end up being a problem, but don’t make the mistake I did. Have someone on set whose only job it is to make sure the schedule is respected.

One other thing I want to call attention to is the fact that the shoot in this spreadsheet is scheduled for short hours. 10:00-4:50 the first day, 9:00 to 5:10 the second. This video was pretty low budget, so I couldn’t pay my crew the normal day rates they can get. Basically everyone was doing us a favor. I firmly believe in returning that favor by feeding my crew well and by not working them like dogs. I worked on a shitty AOL commercial a few months ago for $125/day and they had us on set for 14-16 hours both days of the shoot. The producers didn’t pay me for any overtime, and they only provided one meal each day. That’s illegal, but it’s also just bad business. I will never work for them again, and I will never let that producer near anything I direct. I never want anyone to leave a shoot that I was in charge of feeling that way. It flies in the face of the whole point of this: filmmaking is supposed to be fun! It just is. Have fun with it and don’t be a cacahead. Being well-organized is the key to that.

Tune in next time for another exciting episode of How to Make a Music Video. Now that you have all your paperwork in order, and presumably you have your crew selected, it’s time to make the sucker! That’s what we’ll talk about in Part 5: Video Thrilled the Radio Star.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6

Posted: March 3rd, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
Comments: none

The Ever Lovin’ Dollar

I would not recommend you try to make a music video for no money. Eventually there are some costs, no matter what you’re doing. Need half a dozen treadmills? Want your crew to eat? Please do not make a video without feeding your crew.

I have only been doing this for a minute, and I jumped right in, so I didn’t have any big fancy career as an advertising director or anything to carry clout with me. I started on a very low budget project, and have had projects of very low budgets so far. If your band is putting up $10k for the video you’re directing, this little howto may cease to be of use to you here.

So here’s the deal: Your concept and your budget need to be having a conversation with each other. If there’s only $500 to play with, you may want to rethink that speed boat chase scene. I was asked to do a video for a rap song about how wealthy the rapper was, but the rapper only had $100 to spend on his video. I told him to pick a different song or find someone else.

Here’s how it should break down:

• Food
You need to have craft services on set and provide lunch every day you shoot at MINIMUM. Don’t be a douche bag. Feed people.

• Crew
Please try to pay your crew. If you can’t, that’s a bummer, but feed them at least. If you can, be fair about it.

• Cast
Are you hiring dancin’ girls? Boys? Actors? Oh shit do you need to deal with SAG? Fuck me. I cannot help you.

• Art
You might need props, set pieces or costumes and if these can’t be gotten for free, you need to find out how much they’re going to cost and tally it.

• Locations
Shooting in a real studio costs a lot of money. They also usually need proof of insurance. If you’re shooting in a bar or anywhere else, I highly recommend you pay to use the space. That means there’s a business relationship, and you can’t be jerked around as easily. It would suck to show up on shoot day and have the location owner change his/her mind, right? Don’t let it happen.

• Insurance
If you’re doing something big you may need to look into production insurance. This is especially true if you need to rent your equipment or are shooting in a studio. Production insurance can be expensive, but it can save your ass. It can be particularly hard to get if your video is for gangsta rappers, as the insurance companies learned a long time ago that some of that gun talk isn’t just talk. I have never made a gangsta rap video, but have sometimes worried that my definition wasn’t as broad as an insurance company’s might be. Something to keep in mind anyways. You might be able to hire a producer who has insurance. That would be good.

• Equipment rental
Need a camera? Lights? Are you staging any dramatic interludes? How about microphones?

• Transportation
I recently crewed on a video that had two cube trucks, two 15 passenger vans and two cargo vans. That costs money, as does the limousine for the band. Har.

I think you’re probably starting to see my point. There’s a lot to keep track of. Here’s some advice: get a producer. If you’re like me, you have a tough time keeping all the numbers straight. A producer’s job is to keep them straight for you.

Fortunately for the little guy/gal, the budgets on most videos are very manageable. Here’s the budget for my next one (with some dollar amounts changed to protect the fantastic deals I get on some of this stuff).

Budget:
• Studio – $50,000 for the day, we will be using multiple rooms and lighting setups.
• Key Crew members – $8,000,000 each
• Production Assistants – $100/day
• Art: $1,000
• Craft Services $200

So that’s not so bad, is it? Not too many numbers. The way I recommend you do it is have the act give you half the budget up front so you can get the video rolling, then the other half when they get the final cut, at which point you pay everyone and such.

A studio will want its money up front. So will equipment rental. I am fortunate enough to have my own equipment. That fact, coupled with how low the real budget is on this video, prevents me from charging my rental rates, which is why equipment isn’t a line item. If you have your own equipment and the band can afford it, you should charge them. Gear is expensive and you risk it when you take it out of the closet.

So once you have an idea of how much money you have to spend, and have that number reconciled with your concept, it’s time to get down to the task of planning the video out in fine detail. That’s next time in Part 4: Plans, Plots and Schemes.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Posted: February 29th, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
Comments: none

Dreaming

The first thing you should do is talk to them about how this process works a little bit. What your plan is. Some acts will want more input on the visuals than others. If your band is a gothic speedmetal act, they’re probably going to want dark, spooky visuals or something. Your job here is to help them sell their band’s image. Music video is like a less douchey cousin advertisement. You’re advertising the band, not Charmin. So lay some ground rules. Get them to tell you who they want to be in the video. Let them know how much you want to share the conceptualization process with them. Just so everyone’s on the same page. Then go listen to the song.

When you’re in this period, you should find ways to just be alone with the music. Play it on loop. The first time you hear it just let it happen. Don’t try to listen too closely to any part of it. Just see how you feel about it. Then pick up a pen and play it again.

What you’re doing here is brainstorming with yourself. You shouldn’t be filtering yet. Just get as many ideas down as you can. Here are some notes I wrote for a song I recently considered making a vid for:

Landsacape portraiture

Push edits

Super colorful, even, glossy lighting

Sense of community: portraits of who “this is for”=>facets on a rubik’s cube? proof sheet?

seasons? represented by costumes

That seems pretty stupid, right? That’s a small chunk from a page of similar nonsense. Most of this will be bad. That’s fine. Here’s a couple of things that I did poorly on: there’s lots of punctuation, meaning I slowed down to type in commas and quotes. This doesn’t need to be grammatically correct. However, it should be comprehensible to you. I have no idea what I meant by ‘Push edits’. Be clear with yourself. Be efficient. I did this one on a computer, but really I should have done it on a piece of paper. I like to be able to put my words anywhere, draw a quick picture, draw arrows between things, &c. What you’re writing are visuals that occur to you, themes and motifs you notice, colors, types of shots, anything else. I find being heavily caffeinated helps this process. I haven’t tried it under the influence of anything else, but I imagine some interesting things could happen. I’m not really trying to have artistic crutches, though. Personal choice.

So you’ve played the song through dozens of times. Written copious notes. Great. Now take a break and spend a couple of days doing other stuff. Your subconscious and occasionally your conscious will address the ideas you have had and do interesting things with them.

Schedule a meeting with your band (and their manager if they have one). Before you go, take your notes and pick the best ideas in them.

Things to consider: some awesome videos are extremely composed. Some are single shots. Some cut every two seconds and have lots of scenes. If there’s one idea that stands out from the dozens and you feel confident that it will an excellent video make, don’t feel guilty killing all the others.

I make a bullet-pointed list for myself and in this second meeting pitch a video to the band. They will generally get really excited because I’m a visual artist and I’m doing something visually interesting with their music. Sometimes they totally hate my idea and I have to take it back to the drawing board. Usually when they hate it they are 100% correct. Recently I had an idea and pitched it to a band, only to see a video with the same goddamn idea a few days later. I called and told them I needed to change it so as not to make a video that was the same as another video. Once there is consensus on the concept it’s time to talk numbers. That’s Part 3: The Ever Lovin’ Dollar.

Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Posted: February 28th, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
Comments: 1

I’m just getting started as a director, and I’ve found that the music video is a terrific sandbox in which to play with the toys of cinema on someone else’s dime. This is the first in a series of posts which will add up to a guide to making a music video from start to finish. THis is partly for anyone who is interested in doing the same, and partly for me to collect and systematize my process. I’m totally self-taught here, so this isn’t The Way to make a music vid. Just the way that works for me.

I’m preparing to shoot my next video this weekend, so this series of posts will largely reference what I’m doing for that, and with the finishing post I’ll show you the video.

The Act

I’ve heard of directors being excited to meet a band because “they’re perfect for this time-travelling vampire music video idea I have”. I guess that’s cool. I have never preconceived a video until I’ve heard the song, but some people do. Whatever your approach, though, finding a song to make a video for isn’t always obvious. Here’s some ideas:

1) Hang around a local music venue
Don’t hang around some huge concert hall that big bands come through. If you’re an untested director and you’re trying to cut through a mob of fans to sell your services to some rock star you’re just going to be part of a mob of fans to him/her/it. If this is your first time you’re going to have to start small. See if you can find a band that is just getting started. Show them something you’ve done or just offer to make a video for them. Getting turned down isn’t the end of the world.

2) Look on Craig’s List
This is how I booked my first video. The rapper’s manager put a post up searching for a director who could work for free. I made a compelling case in an email to him. He called me back. Don’t lie, but talk yourself up. Tell them you’re excited to give it a try. This will be a lot easier if you have some video work online that proves that you aren’t an idiot. Never done anything? Time to get some friends together and run around the backyard with mom and dad’s handycam.

3) Make friends with musicians
Go work in a restaurant or something. Maybe hang out at the music store. Basically, try to find an environment to be in that other creative people will also be in. I have had some food service jobs that put me in touch with cool musicians and that led to us working together. If the musical act knows you then there won’t be as much trouble in convincing them to let you make their video.

Essentially, you need to be outgoing and you need to shake hands without coming off like a sleazy grifter. If you’re a sleazy grifter, pick a different hobby. Make some business cards if you want to. Become your own biggest advocate. It probably won’t happen overnight. Just try to keep making the suggestion to people and sooner or later someone will bite.

Couple of things to remember: You’re performing a service for them, so this shouldn’t be your money you’re spending. You might not get paid on the first one, but don’t turn it around and offer to pay for parts of the production. This is why building trust is important. They need to be able to trust you to make them something dope because they’re taking all the risk. Also, be transparent. They’re trying to make it in a tough industry. So are you. They will either sympathize with you or be assholes. I don’t recommend forming collaborations with assholes.

When that happens, tell them to get you a copy of their song as soon as possible, and then you can start to work on it. Tune in next time for Part 2: Dreaming.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Posted: February 27th, 2008 under Film and Video, how-to.
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