How To Make A Music Video With Your Phone [MASTERCLASS]

the footage you're seeing right now was created with an iPhone 7 that's right not a DSLR not an iPhone 10 no additional lenses just a basic iPhone [Music] my name is Dean from the songwriting studio and if you've ever written an original song then my guess is you dreamed of making a music video for that song but then reality quickly set in right how in the world am I supposed to afford a professional cinematographer to come and shoot my music video well there is good news for you because with the rise of technology you now have a really powerful camera on your phone that means you can make epic looking music videos with your cell phone [Music] it's exciting right and that's why I've teamed up with my good friend and photographer Blake Schultz what's up guys and together we've made a course teaching you how to create and shoot really awesome music videos using your phone [Music] in the first part of this course you're gonna learn how to prepare for your music video and set yourself up for a great music video before you ever take a shot then you'll learn tons of creative ways to capture unique and cinematic shots including creative angles motion shots slow-mo videos and more you'll even get some behind the scenes footage of us going on location and taking some awesome shots so if you've ever dreamed of having epic music videos for your original music this course is for you [Music] rollin video wanna Wow rollin video 1 makes me nervous alright guys so in this section of the course we are gonna talk about what you need to do before you pick up your phone and go out and start filming because to make a great music video you don't just grab your phone and run out of the door and start filming a bunch of random shots you need to back it up a little bit and take some time to prepare well for your music video so let's dive into this section and talk about practical ways that you can prepare and set yourself up to make a great music video feeling good good alright video number 2 the first thing you need to do to prepare for a great music video is create a storyboard what is a storyboard well very simply a storyboard is where you write out or even draw out a rough sketch of what you want your video to be about and what you want it to look like now this storyboard can be very simple or it can be extremely detailed it's really up to you but the point is you really need to make a storyboard for your music video when you're taking the time to storyboard here's a few key questions you can ask yourself to help generate those ideas and help really map out where you want to go with your music video really the big question that you're asking is how can I best express my song in a visual format because the point of a music video isn't just to make it look cooler get a bunch of cool shots the point of a music video is to actually further express the meaning of your song through a visual medium so here's a few ways to think about it read your lyrics aloud and ask yourself how would I express these lyrics visually if I couldn't use any words alright next listen to the sound of your song and ask yourself the question if I had to express this sound using a visual medium and no audio how would I express it you're trying to figure out what kind of images would appropriately convey the message of your song is there things in nature that match it I serve things within my city or within my house that match it it could be a certain expression on a person's face or maybe it's even the time that day do these things match up with the sound some is this starting to make sense asking questions like this can help give you creative ideas for your storyboard and it can also help you from making the mistake of creating a really cool-looking music video that actually has nothing to do with the meaning of your song alright the next question to ask yourself is it's there a way I can express these visuals in a unique or creative way this is where you give yourself the freedom to think outside of the box a little bit maybe you share your plot from a unique angle or there's an unexpected twist or humor or something else that really grabs your attention creative elements like this can help someone engage more with your music video which ups the chance that they'll stay watching your video and that's your video and your song can actually make an impact on them now we've created a PDF document with all of these questions so here's what I want you to do actually download it actually ask yourself those questions and take time to write them down and create your storyboard what is a storyboard well it very simply it's a all right so you've got your storyboard it's time to move on to step two now I know you want to run out there and start taking a bunch of cool shots but you asked us to teach you how to make professional-looking music videos with your phone right what to do that you really have to prepare well so don't skip out on this section and honestly I actually like this part of the process this is where I get excited and where my creative juices really start flowing so let's jump into step number two and that is creating a shot list a shot list is very simply a list of all the shots that you need to take and specifically these shots are going to bring to life what's in your storyboard now the storyboard and the timeline go hand-in-hand and they could be one document but I like to split them up and have a separate document that is just dedicated to my shoppers and on this shot list document we aim to detail every shot that we're gonna take the shot list is where you and maybe you create a friend think about what angles or vantage points or movements will best capture what you have in your storyboard now you may not be able to predict every single shot that you're gonna take but it's still worth taking the time to make a shot list a shot list will save you time because you're not just meandering around aimlessly taking a bunch of random videos the shot list will also help eliminate the headache of going and filming all day and then coming back and going we forgot to get this one shot that we had to have that is a bummer that's probably gonna happen to us today lastly if you're working with someone else on this project the shot list can help ensure that you are both on the same Paige it lets you know that you're visualizing the same things and that on filming day you're going for the exact same thing so do yourself a favor and take it from me write out a detail shot list you'll thank yourself for it later now the the book mastery I was blowing on going good you've got your storyboard together you've even got your shot lists together you're so awesome now the third thing you need to do in preparing for your music video is to test your shots testing your shots will help you answer a really important question and that is does this shot actually look like I thought it would in my head because there's definitely times when you go out and film a shot and when you watch it on camera you go that didn't look quite like I thought it was going to and honestly it just looks pretty lame testing your shots is also a great time to experiment with different angles or vantage points and really find the very best one for your video and sometimes if you're doing a very technical shot the shot tests can help answer the question is this shot even possible can we even pull it off for instance if your subject is going to be riding a bike and you want to film that subject using a gimbal in the back of a car the shot test and tell you if it's possible yep sure I keep the husband's on great yeah get to the middle all right there are days I'm gonna fit so in conclusion shots don't have to look perfect you don't have to spend times of time on your test shots but it's definitely worth taking some time to go through those test shots and make sure that you're capturing what you want to see at the end of the day don't stop to do Hickey check it check check one two [Music] so here's a quick but very useful tip when it comes to preparing for your music video the tip is all right that's crazy man's got crazy hair get inspiration from other great music videos it's really simple just take the time to watch a few other music videos that you think are really awesome and while you're doing that take some notes draw in some inspiration from what you're seeing and it's really helpful if you can find a few music videos that really match the vibe that you're trying to go for in your music video it's not that you're trying to copy something else that's already out there but watching other great music videos can help give you creative ideas that you wouldn't have otherwise come up with just on your own so go watch some awesome music videos and take some notes that's all for today class so here's a quit quit first line jacked it up let's move on [Music] you are a pro you've got your storyboard you've got your shot list you even took the time to test those shots before you go out and nail this thing here's one last suggestion phone-a-friend that's right if possible find yourself a friend who can help you tackle this project yo are you filming me yeah I'm filming you I'm filming you oh we got that son we're back oh we're getting work it working oh yes that was magical bro it is extremely helpful to have someone else working on this project with you and it's even better when that friend is creative or specifically visual this person can help give creative input in the preparation phase when you're storyboarding or creating your shot lists and then more importantly they can help you film when it comes time to test your shots or to film the music video because it's pretty hard to be the guy on camera and the guy behind the camera at the same time right Blake right so this person could be a fellow band member a friend or a family member and maybe they volunteer their time just because it's fun or maybe you supply some delicious foods for their generous efforts or Bacchus the greatest place on earth or maybe you even pay this person for their time and skill however you work it out I would highly recommend that you find a partner accomplice to help you make this music video not only will your music video look better but honestly I think you'll have a lot more fun making this video with a friend in this section of the course we are gonna talk about how to capture high-quality unique and cinematic looking shots for your music video this is so fun as we get into the juicy stuff on how to get killer shots I want you to keep a concept in mind here skill is more important than gear creativity is more important than gear I say this first of all because I want you to spend your time and effort going after the stuff that really matters and that's honing in your skills that's using a creative lens to look at things and I'm also telling you this because we are going to look at a few pieces of equipment that can enhance your filmmaking process but I don't want you to get fixated on these pieces of gear thinking that if I get this piece of equipment then I will make amazing music videos value your skill and creativity above the gear and then when you get the gear it will serve its true purpose and that is to be a further extension of the creativity and skill that's inside of you and with that my friends let's jump into this section of the course where we're gonna talk about how to capture an amazing awesome cool-looking footage for your music video this video we are gonna talk about 20 ideas for creative unique awesome shots we're gonna look at how to think outside of the box to get some sweet looking footage I'm really excited about this video so let's quit talking about it and jump right into this thing the first group of creative shots have to do with focusing on different parts of the musician like their hands and of course if they're playing guitar the guitar stands their feet that's not something you see every day third focus on their face this first concept says instead of having the performer in full view at all times film them in sections think of an upper section and mid section and a lower section the next group of shots have to do with unique angles normally we look at things straight on but when you approach a shot from a unique angle it can have a killer effect like from the side you can shoot from behind the subject it's a really unique angle that you don't see very often and it gives you a lens for what the performer is seen or from below the performer looking up or the opposite from above the performer looking down but you might need a stepladder for this warning make sure that your flip-flops are out of the shot before filming thank you and speaking of creative angles try shooting at an angle the third group of shots have to do with filming actions that you're not used to seeing like walking into the room turning on a light picking up your guitar clips like this help capture what happens before the music like talking to your cameraman putting on headphones plugging in your guitar and adjusting the microphone all of these scenes can create a really cool build-up that leads your viewer into the song the fourth group of shots are capturing scenes that are not necessarily musical but they help tell the story of your song like striking a cheesy pose walking around capturing some of the cool architecture around which helps set the scene riding a bike and doing a half-decent wheelie and capitalize on unexpected things like a fire truck going by the moral of the story is capture elements that you don't commonly see you're bringing things into view that aren't normally the center of attention and it has this really cool effect and it's a powerful way to paint the picture of your song hey Levi can you shut that door for me bud thank you this video is about motion movement the next creative technique we're going to talk about deserves a video all its own that technique is motion oh yes beautiful motion my friends you see motion screams cinematic motion screams professional motion screams there's no way that shot was made on a phone so in this video 15 creative ideas for motion shots motion shot number one is panning across your subject shot number two have the camera moved towards the subject third do the opposite have your camera move away from the subject [Music] [Applause] number four and this is so cool have the camera circle around your subject warning this technique could cause labored breathing and sweating sure five have your subject move across the camera [Music] six have your subject move towards the camera [Music] number seven of course have your subject move away from the camera number eight follow a moving subject from the front if you're doing something that's high speed you might need a vehicle of some sort to help you accomplish this shot but please don't try and be the one to drive the car and take the shot that's seriously a bad idea get an awesome friend like Jeremy to drive the car for you Jeremy I got newsy up here oh come on dude follow your moving subject from the side and then of course follow your moving subject from behind number 11 is something unique followed your moving subject but only capture the lower half of their body 12 have your camera and your subject converge on the same point pan from the bottom to the top of your subject [Music] and of course from the top to the bottom of your subject 14 pan from your subject up into the sky [Music] fifteen hand from your subject down to the ground really the possibilities are endless but know that motion is a really powerful tool for making your music videos look more cinematic and alive and cool the videos already done and I'm just going on now we all know how cool motion shots are right class well there are actually a couple of tools you'll need to capture smooth motion shots because if you just hold your phone with your hands and try to do a motion shot you're gonna get some shakes and it'll just look a little lame to avoid camera shake there are a few tools that you can use some are relatively cheap and others will cost you a decent bit of cash money so let's talk about it number one is a stabilizer for your phone now you can get a stabilizer for your phone for about ten dollars and it helps eliminate some of those wobbles and shakes that you'd normally get if you were filming by hand this can be helpful if you want to get shots from the unique angles or especially if you're trying to film yourself the next option is a bit more expensive but it does a fantastic job of capturing really smooth motion shots that is a gimbal bro are you filming me yeah I'm filming you a gimbal allows the cameraman to move all around while keeping the camera steady which can have a really cool effect but gimbals are not as cheap and they'll run you anywhere from ninety to $300 the gimbal that we've been using recently will cost you about a hundred and fifty dollars but that may be worth it to you to have this tool in your tool belt especially if you're making a music video where your subject and your cameraman are doing a lot of movie [Music] now remember [Music] whichever route you go the gears still not going to make the shot happen for you so there's a few techniques you need to keep in mind when you're capturing motion shots technique number one walk very carefully as if you were sneaking through a den of hibernating bears ah don't wake me up walking softly or tiptoeing can help eliminate some of the shakes that would still make it into your footage even if you're using it gimble I feel it's still bouncy tip number two would be to get creative and find an object you can use to help aid your motion like a rolling chair a skateboard or a bike or even a car Wow now obviously be careful about what you do and some of these will even require another person to drive you or push you a third tip is a lot of movie editing software's like iMovie for instance have a stabilized feature which will help automatically stabilize some of your shots but do take note that it usually trims off some of your edges and zooms in just a bit to create a stabilized to look so there you have it guys how to get beautifully smooth and cinematic through motion shots so here's a comparison of the same shot one with mm-hmm so here's a comparison so here's a comparison so here's a comparison of the same shot so here's a comparison of the same motion shot one with so here's a comparison of the same shot buttery toast all right another creative element you can use in your music videos slow motion slow motion Clips can bring a very unique and creative feel to your music video and they can also serve as a great way to change up the pace of your music video [Music] now you probably don't want to film your whole music video in slow motion but splicing in a few slow motion clips can have a really awesome effect and filming and slow-mo is pretty easy these days because most phones come with a built in slow motion function and slow motion can be a very powerful storytelling tool because it brings into view details that we don't normally get to see most phones have a built-in slow motion have how you say most phones have a built in slow motion capability most phones come with a built-in slow motion come with built-in capability most phones come with a built in slow motion function hey kids when you're trying to make a really cool music video with your cell phone your background and your scenery are really important we're not your moment but if you're like me you don't live in the Pacific Northwest and so your options are a little bit limited when it comes to scenery get it right get that shot well we're gonna talk about how to get some awesome unique shots in everyday locations now before we talk about how I want you to keep in mind one really important filmmaking fact and that is your audience only sees what makes it into your shot they don't see what's outside of your shot and why is this important well sometimes when you're out searching for different shots you may look and go this parts really cool but over here is gonna undesirable well it doesn't really matter if that doesn't make it into the shot so what you need to keep in mind is they are only going to see what makes it into the shot all right so now that you have that fresh in the old brain let's talk about how to fish for some good old shot spots number one let's start with your place that's easy enough you're already there walk through your house or your apartment with your phone out and start looking for some of the best spots and use your phone to see what the shop might look like next add some tasteful props don't make it busy but don't leave it boring this might include getting rid of some of the things that are already there to clean up the shot of it next if your scene is backed right up against the wall you might consider pulling it out a little bit to give a bit of depth behind your subject after that consider your lighting make use of natural light by windows and use other light sources like lamps to light your scene and your subject you want to aim for something that leaves your subject evenly lit in a warm and inviting way and yet you don't want to over expose your subject and let in too much harsh light [Applause] next grab your subject and test your shots it looks cool except I don't like the door beam I said that's what you say you might find in testing that there's a few adjustments that you need to make and once you've done that you should be ready to film so start taking some shots and see what you can come up with [Music] now in this video let's talk about finding awesome shots in your city or in hard case your town number one do some thinking think of spots in your area that would match the mood of your song number two do some driving go drive around your city or your town and see what you can find you might make some really cool discoveries and find some spots that you didn't even know we're there [Music] number three do some walking take your camera with you test out what some of these shots look like up close and personal [Music] then as usual do a bunch of filming and see what you can come up with [Music] you might be surprised by how certain locations that you drive by everyday actually look really epic on camera [Music] well let's get a cinematic shot of the trash oh yeah oh yeah radical in this video let's talk about lighting now lighting is really important because it can make or break a shot not to scare you so let's talk about a few pointers for getting great lighting for your shots first we'll start with shooting indoors and number one be sure to take advantage of natural light that floods in through windows natural light almost always looks better on camera than man-made light but if a window is letting in too much light then try softening it up by using a curtain or a sheet next consider using ambient lights like lamps we love limbs lamps not only give great soft ambient light but they also become a great prop combining lamps with natural light help you accomplish a very important lighting technique and that is to have multiple sources of light you typically don't want to try and use one big bright light to light up your whole scene you want to have multiple lights shining on the scene from multiple angles because it creates depth and intrigue and warm next let's talk about shooting outdoors number one you need to consider the time of day in which you're shooting you would think that shooting in the middle of the day and the brightest light would be a good time to shoot right well generally it's not because like we've mentioned before you don't want too much harsh direct light [Music] so if you are shooting in the middle of the day consider finding some shade from trees or a building Oh next in shooting outdoors let's talk about one of our favorite times to shoot and that is called the golden hour the golden hour is the hour around dusk or dawn that just lights up the sky in a beautiful colorful way if we're doing lots of shots outside we almost always wait for the golden or just kind of we're kind of losing the glorious golden hour light so we've got to go quick or we're gonna run out of time it gives you warmth and color and dynamics in your lighting that you just simply can't get at a different time of the day and some of our very favorite shots have been taken during the Golden Hour here's the fun little experiment you can do while filming during the Golden Hour and that is to play with light rays in your shots you can do this by aiming your camera in the general direction of the Sun and typically putting your subject in between the camera in the Sun it just has a really cool effect so again lighting is really important but don't let it overwhelm you and don't think that you have to spend tons of money for a great light setup if you can learn some of these foundational light concepts then you'll be able to capture a well-lit scene nearly anywhere you shoot I just look up in the sunset along [Music] all right so this is the post-production process do I need to ensure this so in this section of the course we're going to talk about the post-production process basically this is everything that you're going to do after you're done filming we're gonna start out this section of the course by talking about how to maximize the quality of your phone settings I forgot what I was supposed to say how to maximize the video quality on your phone tip number one shoot in 4k this is the highest resolution that your phone can capture so here's how to do it so in the settings on your phone you'll scroll down to go into your camera settings then under record video you can click into that and you can actually change your resolution to be 4k so you can change to 4k at 24 or 4k at 30 you'll see different options depending on the model of your phone shooting at 4k is the highest quality you can get on your phone this is actually pretty amazing that they have the capability and technology to put this into our phones so I encourage you to use it but remember 4k will take up a lot more space so make sure you have the room cleared out on your phone tip number 2 use grid lines to turn on the grid lines you'll simply go into your phone's general settings click on camera and then right here you'll see you have the option to turn on the grid doing this again will pull up gridlines when you go to shoot footage on your phone now note these grid lines won't make it into your footage you just see them while you're filming to help you keep things balanced hello yes no I didn't we're filming oh that's excess any chance you'd be up for changing I think he pooped his pants let's talk about how to get that footage that you've been working so hard to capture on your phone and import it onto your computer so I'm here in my videos and I want to send one over to the computer I can hit select the tap on the video I'd like or I could select multiple at once but I'm just going to do one for now hit the arrow button to share select airdrop and Deen's Mac and it's gonna wait you could be waiting for a little while it's okay just get a good book so it popped up here on the desktop I'm gonna hit accept and save it to my downloads so now it's gonna be in my downloads folder so say I was building my project and I'm movie I could just come down to my downloads where my video was saved and drag it into the project [Music] so another option to use this image capture image capture looks like this if it's not re on your dock you can come up to the finder and type in image capture so here under my devices I selected Dean Davis's iPhone I have all these options to choose from I can select multiple at once if I'd like then I can also select where I want them to import to then when I've made those things I can hit import and they'll start loading and then once it's imported you just drag it into your project like I showed you before so there you have it guys that's how you import footage from your phone to your computer when you're trimming your clips here's the big thing we want you to keep in mind generally you should be changing shots every three to five or six seconds you don't want to hang on one shot forever because it can just get a bit boring and you'll lose your viewers attention changing your shot every few seconds or bringing in a new angle or a new scene can really help the flow of your music video and here's one creative idea before we close out this video you can actually change your shots in line with a beat and the tempo of your song [Music] it creates a really cool connection between the audio and visual elements so that's it for trimming it's pretty simple just make sure to keep things moving you may have been wondering how do people get those cinematic black bars onto their footage here's how to do it so if you're working in iMovie there's actually not a built-in way to do it so I'm going to show you how to do it by going to the Internet and downloading a simple tool so you're going to go to know film school calm you can scroll down and there's a bunch of templates there but we're gonna choose for K two five five right here so it's a PNG it's downloading alright so I downloaded that from the website and I'm gonna drag 4k 255 in then I'm gonna make it for the length of my video so you can see now that those black bars are there except it's gonna actually automatically try to add a Ken Burns cropping effect to it so we want to click off as Ken Burns and click talk to sue a little bit to get those we work so now we can see our clip with the letterboxing [Music] you [Music] all right we can't finish this course without talking about how to get good looking fonts and text in your music video because here's the deal sometimes I see music videos or lyric videos that are made in iMovie and they use one of the classic stock fonts that iMovie gives you and to me it's just a dead giveaway then it was done on iMovie now this looks kind of cheap so here's what you can do you can go to dafont.com and you can find millions of awesome looking fonts and then you just click and download the font that you're after then when you make a text box in iMovie that's so hard to say text box this font will show up as an option for you to use if you have one that's specific to your artist or band name and go with that or you can get a unique text for every video that you do if you feel like it matches the feel of that video so this isn't that hard it doesn't take long to do and please do yourself a favor don't use the cheesy stock bonds in iMovie I want to show some of the like that the sparkly text where it like comes across and sees us so here in iMovie we have our clip after we've trimmed it down to the portion we want and I'm gonna show you how to color grade it and I want to show you how to make it look better by making three simple adjustments so if I click here on the clip then I go up here to the top right I can click on this color pallet looking tool and this area right here is going to affect our exposure and contrast this is going to affect our saturation and this is going to affect the white balance which means it's either gonna be warmer or cooler alright so the first thing we're doing that address is exposure here you can control your darkest areas of the image you can also control the highlights of your image and then here in between you can control the mid-tones of your image so for this image here's what I might do I might pull back the highlights a little bit I might bring up the mid-tones just a little bit and then I might darken the darkest areas just to bring back in some of that contrast ok so secondly moving on to saturation we have this knob which either makes your image more saturated or d saturated saturation basically is referring to how intense the coloration is so here on the right it's more saturated than here on the left it's more muted so for this clip I'm actually gonna increase the saturation just a little bit alright so our third knob over here brings us to white balance so a warmer image has yellow and orange tones the cooler image is more on the blue spectrum like this so really depends on what you're going for but for this one I might make it just slightly warmer do there we have it here's our image after the adjustments and a bonus tip is how to make your image black and white a simple way to do it is simply to bring your saturation all the way down like this then once you've done that you can adjust the exposure and contrast to make your image either have a more matted and faded look or a more sharp vivid contrasted look so for example if I want it to be more contrasted I'll pull down the black the darkest blacken images and I boost up the highlights like this so there's one version or I can make it more matted looking more faded kind of bringing up some of those lowest parts something like that so there you have it a simple way to make your footage black and white okay is it rolling right now yeah yep this is cool just a standard right in the middle this is sick all right deduces Andrew what's up guys all right sir back in the studio coming in from Dean's house but we got some bad news so broke a lamp my wife loves interior design so she gets these really unique cool looking lamps and so I just want to ask who's gonna tell Andrea um probably all right watching footage from the lamp breaking incident dude I was the only Turner up for like two seconds like it's always half going pro if you're making a course you've got to have like your one-stop shop your lunch this slice the chicken sandwich you know to you this is the key right here this is the key yeah yeah successful day all right we're rolling out was a tough time but I think we got some shots that'll be worth we took it when he's nine thousand shot so surely there's at least five to ten decent ones in there so it's gonna be awesome

Channel: The Songwriting Studio

Views: 130,447

Keywords: music video tutorial, How to make a music video, How to make a music video on your phone, How to make a music video on your iPhone, How to make a music video for free, How to make a music video for YouTube, Music video effects, How to make music video on iMovie, budget music video, diy music video, diy music video iPhone, diy music video tips, diy music video ideas, diy music video lighting, homemade music video, how to make a music video on a budget, low budget music video

Id: SF-HsCF6m3I

Length: 45min 45sec (2745 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Eredhel]

Saving this. I’ve been working on some songs for a while and when I’m done I’d like to do something simple video wise. But I’m a musician not a videographer! Thanks for this.