With so many film graduates in the world, I wish there would be better
music videos for those upcoming artists. A lot of the time there is no story,
just behind the scenes footage showing the artist. There are plenty of options
when there is little money being presented and an artist manager should want
the best for his artist and push for this.
A great example of just behind the scenes footage is by the upcoming
artist Allen Stone. In this video, it is 99 percent backstage. The song lyrics
tell a great story and that should have been featured within the video.
This music video however has gone just a step above, the band Metric
with the song 'Breathing Underwater'. Even though most of it is on stage of a
concert, the quality of the lead singer is high quality and there are some
insert shots of her life. Those insert shots create a story in its own that
help guide emotion.
Money is usually a key ingredient to why an upcoming artist doesn't have
great music videos. Usually since the artist is new, people don't want to risk
their own money to help make a video.
Some options are settling on one location during the shoot and not
spreading out to different ones. Also, limit how many extras are present; the
more that are present for a long period of time, the more mouths you have to
feed. The last tip, art direction doesn't need to be as big. Here is a great
video from well-known artist Kid Rock with little art direction in 90 percent
of the video.
*Warning, this is Kid Rock, so there are inappropriate moments.*
This last video by Taylor Swift relies more on the existing location to
tell the story. This is a great example of having a limited amount of extras on
set. This song is from the movie Hunger Games.
Overall I feel that if there is going to be a music video, there should
be some kind of story within it. It will help make the artist more memorable
and the production quality will be better.
So next time you are thinking about making a music video, please sit
down and make a story out of the lyrics.
