NED1: Planning for your Music Video

So – you have your basic idea as a proposal, now it’s time to plan what you need to do. It is vital that you keep records of everything you intend to do and actually do!

So,  you already have a proposal, all your research into the band (Style, fashion, image etc) as well as a script based on an analysis of the song structure – so you know what you want to happen in each bar or line of the song.

Or you are doing the live gig – in which case you will have booked all the cameras, batteries, power supplies, tripods, jibs, track, fig rigs and shoulder mounts that we have in stores. Well done!

So – 1st thing you need to do is a storyboard. This can be a series of drawings or as a photographic storyboard – either way, you need to visualise all the shots and sequences, noting shot sizes and camera movement. Good practice is to get these images into an edit over the track  to test the pacing.

With the live shoot, you can’t really get a storyboard as such – but you can identify the kinds of shots you want based on stills and screen shots from live videos. This can help you identify where you wan tot place the cameras on the day of the shoot.

Once the Storyboard is complete, you need to turn this into a shotlist – basically, what it says on the tin. A list of the shots you need – shot size, description etc. It is best to link these to the script, and have a separate list for each location.

After this, it is basically finding you locations and doing a Recce – Visiting the location, taking photos and making notes about light, sound and power. Then you need to Cast and Crew your shoot,  planning where you need to site your cameras and do a risk assessment.  These are the basic bits of paperwork for any shoot – so, even if you are in an arts centre with a live band playing in 2 hours you can still sketch out the venue and mark the camera locations, and decide who is doing what – and get it all recorded using the same forms, at least only to make sure everyone knows what they are meant to be doing!

You will also need to do some basic lists, such as equipment, Costume and props. I don’t have a form for those, because they are lists and you should know how to make a list by now…

All you need now is a call sheet to tell everyone involved that they are involved and where they need to be, and a movement order that tells them how to get to the location (basically, directions to the location) and as long as you remembered good batteries the only thing you can do to totally mess up is to delete the footage before post production.

So, today’s task is to make sure you have sorted out all the planning for you music video so you can shoot over Easter.  Go. Do it. Now.