Music Video Tutorial For The Beginners - Complete Filmmaking Guide

music videos are a hot market and can be a great source of income for filmmakers in 2021 if you're new to filmmaking or making music videos i'm about to teach you everything you need to know to take on your first music video we're going to be getting extremely in-depth with this video so be prepared for guaranteed confidence in taking on your first music video let's get started let's kick this off with camera settings this is the most frequently asked questions should i be filming in 24 fps 60 fps what variable frame rate should i be filming in for slow motion and what color profile should i be using for music videos so let's start with frame rates so every dslr camera that's in this day and age used or new will come with 24 fps and 60 fps these are two key frame rates that you will need to film your music videos so let's start with 24 fps so i want you to take your hand out right now and start waving it in front of your phone screen like this as you can see there's a natural motion blur when you're waving your hand in front of your face so 24fps will basically give you the most cinematic and natural look so exactly what you would see if you're just you know looking at someone or seeing a moving object in real life so 24fps will just in general give you a very cinematic look which is why a lot of people preach that you should film majority of your music videos in 24 fps unless the shot calls for 60 fps meaning that you're going to slow motion the footage which we're about to get into so one thing to keep in mind when you are filming in any frame rate let's say you're filming in 24fps for example you're going to want to double up your shutter speed so you want your shutter speed to be 1 over 50. so you basically just take your 24 frames per second times that by 2 and that's what your shutter speed value will have to be set at so timing 24 by 2 is 48 but dslr cameras shoot at 1 50th of a shutter so you're just going to round up to that number same goes for 60 fps which again we're about to get into but when you're shooting in 60 fps times that by 2 that's 120 it rounds up to 1 over 125 for dslr cameras so let's expand on 24fps for music videos so generally when i film my performance scenes which if you don't know what a performance scene is a performance scene is when the artist is singing along to the song while you're filming the artist this will allow you to sync up the audio in the real time from the camera to the master version of the audio when you go to edit the music video so when i film my 24 fps shots i always film that one over 50 shutter so this is just a general rule of thumb something that you should just stick to we're going to be talking about nd filters a little later on if you guys are having issues shooting in 50 shutter in broad daylight i'm going to explain to you guys how you can actually achieve this with a variable nd filter but again we're going to get into that in the camera equipment uh part of this video 60fps for music videos when do you use 60fps and how do you use 60fps to its full potential for music videos when you're just starting out cameras such as the canon t3i as cheap as the canon t3i will be able to shoot in 60fps sure it's downscaled to 1080 but that's fine especially if you're just starting out and that's the only dslr camera that you have access to at the time so in order to film proper 60fps footage that's going to come out nice and smooth you want to make sure your shutter speed is set to 1 over 125. so make sure that shutter number is at 125 when you are filming in 60fps that's very important now expanding further on 60fps i'm going to only use 60fps when i'm going for a slow motion shot so when i am filming or wanting some clean slow-motion b-roll shots i'm gonna film it in 60 fps and when i'm editing the music video in post-production all i'm going to do to slow motion this clip is slow-mo the clip by 50 this is going to give you really nice smooth b-roll now one big mistake that i see up-and-coming filmmakers do is film their entire music videos in 60 fps we don't want to do that it's going to take away from the natural aspect of the video when you only shoot in 60 fps and you don't tie in the 24fps scenes i see a lot of people do this and it just there's something off about the videos it just it just doesn't seem right so what i like to do for my music videos is i film majority i would say about 90 of my performance scenes in 24 fps and then all my b-roll shots i'm gonna film in 60 fps or a higher frame rate such as 120 150 or even 180 fps for those extreme slow motion shots so rule of thumb if you have a dslr camera that doesn't shoot variable frame rates maybe you're an up and coming filmmaker and you only have access to 24fps and 60fps yes you can pick up a dslr camera and shoot your first music video 100 now another question that comes up is should i be filming my b-roll in 60 fps or i'll have variable frame rates such as 120 fps it really depends on what your treatment calls for if i feel that a certain shot in a certain environment will look best at an extreme slow motion such as 120 150 180 fps i'll shoot at that variable frame rate but maybe i'm in a low light situation and i could use a lower aperture setting at that point i will for sure run 60 fps now i filmed with the lumix gh5 and now i film with my main camera which is the lumix s1 and those actually can film 60fps up to 4k quality so i like to keep my entire videos at 4k quality for the 60fps slow motion there's just no better look than that extreme sharp 4k look but in slow motion essentially so i personally like to keep all my clips at 4k 60. um it again just makes everything look super sharp and i don't have to down scale down to 1080p when i do go to a variable frame rate such as 120 or 150 fps so really it just comes down to the shooter it comes down to your environment and whatever you think will look best on set i personally like to stick majority of the time to 4k 60fps now because i touched on performance scenes a bunch in the camera settings section here i wanted to expand on performance scenes in general so this is another frequently asked question people ask me all the time do i film the song from very beginning to very end for the performance scenes which the answer is yes i always do that reason being is because then i have more footage to play around with let's say and i'm going to give you an example of when this might come to bite you in the ass when you are editing a video and let's say you filmed a performance scene of the first 30 seconds of the song and then maybe you weren't recording for and like you cut the camera off and you weren't recording for maybe 20 seconds and then you picked it back up at like around a minute and then you record it for another maybe minute and then the last 30 seconds of the song songs cut off so what happens when you go to edit the video and you have to fill all these little sections where you didn't have performancing clips with b-roll and the artist comes back and says oh i didn't like these b-roll shots i really wanted performance scenes for these areas and then you say i actually unfortunately wasn't recording so that kind of leaves you in a weird situation where you just don't have the performance scenes you didn't film the performance scene so this is a reason why from the beginning ever since i started shooting music videos i just always felt that shooting the song from the very beginning to the very end just leaves me with so much footage to play around with and i feel that i'm just a much quicker editor in post when i'm not surfing around for b-roll clips to fill in areas where i wasn't filming a performance scene now before we get into the aperture and iso settings for music videos i want to quickly shout out my 59 page music video ebook guide so this ebook guide was created by myself rosette production so i put a lot of time and effort into this ebook guide so i could really give up and coming filmmakers who want to get into the music video niche a really good understanding of what to expect when taking on their first music videos and even if you are somebody that's maybe shot you know 10 or 20 music videos you will for sure pick up a thing or two from this music video ebook guide it is not tailored 100 percent towards just the beginners of filmmaking not to mention as well in this 59-page e-book guide i have taken years and years of music video knowledge and packed it all into one place i've been filming music videos now for four years the channel has over 1.5 million views from my behind the scenes music video tutorials just alone 1.5 million views so my videos have mentored a lot of people in the music video area when they are up-and-coming directors so definitely go check that out link for the music video ebook guide is in the description of this video so what aperture setting should you be using for your music video sets so to dumb things down the lower the aperture number the more blurry background that you're gonna get behind your subject so this is called boca so personally i like to sit at around the f 1.8 to f 2.8 mark i just feel anything more than f 2.8 you really start to lose that blurry background which gives off a really nice cinematic look now when you're filming with a gimbal with a wide angle lens i highly suggest that you sit at f 4.5 to f 5.0 this will just allow for everything to be in focus essentially especially when you're using a wide angle you typically aren't going to be trying to blur out the background so when you are shooting with a wide angle lens such as a you know sony 16 millimeter tokina 11 to 20 millimeter f 2.8 you're gonna want to sit at around f 4.5 4.6 to f 5.0 personally that's just work what's worked best for me and if you're using something like a 35 millimeter focal length and that's where you're going to want to get those blurry backgrounds so even when you are using a gimbal that's when i'll turn down the aperture to f 1.8 to f 2.8 so your iso value will basically determine how much noise is in your footage so that really annoying grain that you'll see in your footage is due to your iso setting being too high so something like a lumix gh5 which has a really tiny micro four thirds cropped sensor it's really difficult to get to not get grainy footage over 1250 iso for a camera body like a full frame lumix s1 with dual native iso built into it i don't really see much grain until after 4 000 iso for a full frame versus like a micro four thirds the less grain that you're going to have at higher isos now typically when you're shooting anything it doesn't even have to be music videos any type of video you're going to want to be shooting at the lowest iso value now i wouldn't recommend going more than like 800 iso depending on your camera i try to stick lower than 800 iso for any of my shots now this is where lighting comes into play and this is where you really got to experiment with different lighting techniques external lighting techniques and whatnot but when you're filming your first music videos i highly suggest just shooting everything in daylight pick yourself up a variable nd filter and it's going to make your life a lot easier and you'll just be able to get through the motions of getting into the niche of music videography alright so picture profiles for music videos so picture profiles can range from s log for sony c log for canon v log for uh lumix and so on and so forth so log profiles are basically they look very desaturated as the best way to explain it now these camera companies have built in these color profiles for a reason so basically they will give you the most dynamic range out of your footage now dynamic range what do i mean by that to dumb things down again let's say you're filming outdoors on a broad daylight sunny day and let's say you're shooting an artist doing a performance scene rapping outside and the artist is in perfect exposure but the whole sky is blown out and super bright this is because you're maybe filming in a natural color profile so try to stay away from the natural color profiles however shooting in you know c-log s-log v-log it's going to require more color grading because it's going to look very bland right out of the camera when you shoot it raw now if you're very new to custom color grading i suggest just starting with luts now we do actually sell log luts on our online shop which i will leave a link in the description of this video for we sell a pack of four log luts and we actually have a free lut on there as well if you go and check that out luts are just a great way to start with color grading it's the most introductory way to color grade your footage it's gonna take a little bit of quality away and you won't be able to really dial in and customize your own look for the colors however i almost feel like shooting in a log format of some sort whether it is c log s log v log and then slapping a lot on it is almost better than shooting in just a natural color setting now if you guys are looking to up your color grading game dyson actually made an awesome color grading video using final cut pro 10 he's an awesome colorist so go and check that video out i'll leave it in the hover cart up here all right guys so the most annoying part for me at least for music videos is location scouting and maybe that's because i'm from a smaller city and i've kind of used up majority of the locations around here it's kind of difficult for me to find brand new locations for artists so with that being said the tips and tricks that i have for people that may live in smaller cities as well is let's say you're not a full-time filmmaker you have a nine-to-five job when you're driving to and from work location scout literally just keep your eyes peeled look around and see if you guys can see any locations that could work for a music video whether it's a back alley in front of a cool looking building maybe there's like graffiti on a wall just keep note of these places and when you're done driving write that location down on your phone or that approximate location and maybe go and scout it on the weekends when you have time and see if that location will work for your up and coming music video now tip number two is google earth or google maps so using the street view on google maps is super clutch especially if you do maybe live in a bigger city and you don't want to be you know driving an hour away from home to go in location scout for an area that might not actually be worth the locations code what i like to do is go on to google earth now i'll even do this if i don't live in a city maybe i'm shooting a music video outside of my own city and i don't know the area that well location scouting through google maps on street view is super clutch so definitely check that out as well and it's as simple as finding a dope area to shoot and pin dropping the area so you know the location you can just type it in on your google maps or you can also take a screenshot of that location and send it to the artist when you are sending them a written treatment now if you do have budget for this you can hit up airbnb and check for indoor locations assuming that the airbnb host will allow you to film music videos on their location or in their house or condo apartment whatever it may be airbnb has been awesome for me i've used up a ton of airbnbs here where i live and it's just always been super clutch because you get a really good visual representation of what your set could look like with the photos that they post on airbnb now the most obvious one i feel is obviously renting a studio space so a studio space will give you a very controlled environment which a lot of artists do like whether it's an infinity wall or a green screen or having really cool lighting on set and just a cool different location now if you live in an area like me where there isn't a lot of studios to rent then this isn't really an option for people like us however if you live in a place like la where there's you know an abundance of different locations that you can rent for the day for a half day full day so next up we have how to film in a studio environment this is something that when you are up and coming you are going to end up in recording studios with the artist artists just love shooting in recording studios because there's just so many different vibe shots that you can get whether it's the artist pretending to you know mix or track or you know in front of like the deck and everything or they're maybe putting the headphones on and they're singing into the mic and pretending to record the song live so this is something that when you do get heavier into music videos you will 100 end up in a recording studio and i'm gonna give you guys some tips and tricks on how to get different shots and how to be very aware of what to film when in a recording studio with an artist so tip number one straight up just be aware make sure that your hand is hovering over that record button at all times and you're just analyzing the room just straight up analyze your environment when you see that an artist is maybe or an extra is about to tell a joke or is telling a joke have the camera rolling wait for those organic emotion shots where people are gonna start laughing um in front of the camera and not faking it so it'll look a lot more natural tip number two smoking shots a lot of different recording studios will allow artists or people to smoke inside of them try to capture this in 60 fps they always look really dope especially when the artist is smoking and wrapping into the mic in the booth looks really dope or when they're in front of the recording panel in the chill or like lounge area you know recording the extra smoking or the art of smoking it just looks really dope and adds to it and artists love those types of shots now tip number three this kind of comes back to tip number one of being aware but when the artist is sitting there let's say they are playing the track and they're you know bobbing their head they're moving their hands or something you know try to catch that raw emotion again guys like um you can even tell the artist to like sit in front of the mic and like bob their head just to get those b-roll shot chances are 99 of the time this always happens where the artist will be you know bobbing their head and just totally vibing out with the extras or just on their own be sure to capture this this raw emotion is something that is very difficult for people to replicate because a lot of artists aren't actors they're artists they're rappers they're you know pop singers they're not actors so try to catch this raw emotion whenever you can so tip number four how to get performance scenes when you're filming in a studio environment so i typically like to shoot three different performance scenes in studios so all three of these performance scenes i'm going to use examples of the artists singing into the microphone so they're inside of the booth and assuming that you have enough room to film the artist in the booth what i like to do is i like to back up from the artist and shoot from their waist up and i'll just do a simple 24fps performancing shooting in 50 shutter and i'll just sway back and forth i'll put some natural handheld movement into it and i'll just simply sway back and forth and shoot the artist doing the performance scene performance number two i'm gonna get a shot from the top of the shoulder to the top of the head now this is gonna be a more close-up shot in 24 fps and again same thing i'm literally just going to be tracking the artist's head and their mouth of like where they are in front of the mic i'm trying not to do too much motion here i'm just really trying to capture that performance scene from very beginning of the song to the very end of the song so performancy number three that i'm gonna get i'm actually gonna shoot in 60 fps so when the artist thinks that they're doing a performance scene i'm actually shooting in 60 fps now i have the option to use this as a performance scene or i can take any of the clips within the entire song and use it as b-roll so i can use those slow motion clips so this is a great opportunity just to get you know slow motion singing shots of the artist spinning into the mic another little b-roll shots that you can do in the studio now this just comes down to your creativity as a director but you know you can tell the artist you know walk into the booth you know put on the headphones i'm gonna get a slow motion from you know two different angles of you putting on the headphones i can get a slow motion of the artist you know adjusting the microphone and getting ready to sing into the mic so next let's go over run and gun music videos so running good music videos is typically something that you're going to film for your first music video basically what i mean is a flex video let's be honest a run-and-gun video is just a flex video so there's going to be little to no storytelling in these little to no treatment maybe you'll have your look like two or three locations dialed in and ready to go but for the most part you're just meeting up with the artists they're doing performance scenes random b-roll shots somewhere outdoors in a downtown area let's just say you're pretty much in and out in three or four hours so there's nothing wrong with run and gun music videos i did them for probably my first 10 music videos to be completely honest but this gives you a really good idea of what it's like to be on a music video set and you really go through the motions of just making a lot of mistakes even when you are filming the run and gun stuff even though it typically is the most easiest type of music video to film because you're not stressed about having a storyline with proper lighting it's just very run and gun so although i don't do too much run and gun stuff anymore some tips and tricks that i have for you if you are looking to do this type of video shoot if you are an up-and-coming director an up-and-coming music videographer i would say just pack light bring a backpack bring a handheld gimbal such as a dji ronin-sc ronin-s zoom crane something that's handheld is always the best for run and gun stuff and then i would look into packing maybe two lens so a 35 mil or a prime lens and then a wide angle lens and then i would look into making sure that you have extra sd cards on set and also a big one is a bluetooth speaker this is something that you're for sure going to want and then you can also carry a external power bank with you in case that bluetooth speaker dies because the last thing you want is for artists to not have upbeat performance scenes when they are doing their performance scenes you always want to have a loud bluetooth speaker on hand bluetooth speaker that i recommend which we're going to talk about a little later on in this video is the jbl clip 3 speaker it's awesome we'll talk about it a little later on like i said let's touch on the unwritten rules of music videos something that you may not be used to if you're used to shooting corporate videos fitness videos or really anything other than music videos rappers run on rapper time i'm not even kidding guys i've been on high budget music videos such as honest to god i've been on an ugly god set and the artist showed up like three or four hours late to set because he was getting a haircut and buying new shoes i'm not even kidding now i've been on the lowest end of music videos where i'm doing them for free i'm up and coming and the artists show up two or three hours late and i've seen this happen in anything in between the high budget and low budget it just always happens it's just a thing it's something that you need to get used to it may be annoying to you but if an artist does show up late you need to be chill about it stay chill it's not a big deal it's not the end of the world this happens to everybody it's not just you it's not just that artist this just always happens now if you are laid back about things you're chill about things keep in mind that this actually in a way passively kind of makes that relationship better and better with the artists that you're working with chances are if you give off a chill vibe they're probably going to feel bad for showing up late on set and if you're laid back about it chances are that these little things will make them want to re-hire you in the future and pay you more money potentially now my tip number two for the unwritten rules of music videos you guys need to make sure to take your deposits if you're starting to charge for music videos take 50 to pause it down now the reason why i say 50 down is that's just a good amount of money to lock in that date so that the artist is actually taking the day of the shoot seriously and chances are they won't rebook on you or in other words let's say you don't take a deposit and you come up with this whole treatment plan and you have everything shot listed and then the artist ducks out on you goes with another director takes your treatment and uses it with another film director that's the last thing you want you don't want to put in all that upfront sweat equity so with that being said take a deposit and make sure that that artist is locked in to shoot that music video with you so how to kind of save your ass when you are you know delivering the final product to the artist what i like to do is i put in low opacity draft like i'm doing right here low opacity draft and ugly letters and the last thing the artist is going to want to do is rip that video and post it on their youtube or instagram pages and essentially steal that video from you they're not going to want to they're going to have to basically pay you the last 50 to unlock the final video edit where you don't have the opacity draft text up above the screen or wherever you place it i like to put it somewhere up here at about 10 opacity just to make it super noticeable once the artist has paid me for the remainder of the music video at that point i will then give them the final edit without the text on screen all right so let's go over what equipment to use on set now this is a frequently asked question that i get all the time so let's start with handheld so when you're filming handheld for music videos let's say you don't have a gimbal yet but you want to invest in a handheld rig my honest opinion just invest in a small rig cage you can type in let's say you own a sony a6400 type in small rig a6400 camera cage and it will pop up they range from 60 dollars to about 140 in my opinion very inexpensive because a lot of them do come with a top handle and adding that extra weight to your camera will actually help with the stability of your handheld shots maybe you do own a external monitor you will be able to attach that monitor with a small rig adapter to the top of your camera cage so then you can better see and expose your shots especially in broad daylight as for the gimbal that i use for music videos i'm an og i've been using gimbals for about over four years now and i use the dji ronin m yes i'm an oldie with that i just love the dji ronin m i feel that having the side grips and the top grip just makes for the most stable shots i will always use the ronin m i think it'll take me a lot to move to a handheld gimbal i personally just don't like the feel of the handheld gimbals i feel they're not as smooth as a dji ronin-m but with that being said if you guys are looking to get a handheld gimbal which again are great for run and gun stuff they're great to travel with i will i will always say that about handheld gimbals that they are really awesome to travel with i will recommend the dji ronin sc if you have a smaller camera body such as the a7s or the a7s2 or maybe any of the sony a6000 bodies those are all relatively small camera bodies that will fit perfect for a ronin sc and the ronin sc price point is just like totally worth it now for a bigger camera setup let's say you have a canon 1dx you have a lumix s1 s1h uh sony a7 iii something just a little bigger and bulkier with bigger lenses then at that point you're going to want to look into the dji ronin s dji ronin rs or the zune crane 2s 3s 3 labs anything in that kind of area any one of those gimbals will work perfect and i highly recommend all of them so we're not going to get too into lighting because again this is made for the beginners for music videos but here's some lighting options that i would recommend for um you guys as up and coming filmmakers i would highly recommend the draycast panel lights now you can get these things for like two or three hundred dollars in packs of two or three i believe a lot of these packs come with newer light stands which is awesome so they're just great all around setups where you can just take them out of the case plug them in and away you go and they are great lights they don't flicker or anything i used to use them when i was up and coming until we purchased the aputure 300 d2s which are amazing but again those aren't very cost effective so for a more cost effective option i would look into the draycast if you have a little more budget than two or three hundred dollars 100 look into godox i have yet to use them but i know a lot of the filmmakers that do use them and swear by them and if you're on a super tight budget for music video lighting i would highly suggest the bowling p1 rgb pocket lights these things come in at around 140 each they are super small super lightweight and they charge via usbc so you can put a power bank into them you can mount them to a light stand and they also have a lot of really cool effects built into them and they're also full rgb spectrum so those things pack a punch for 140 and totally worth it if you are an up and coming music video director next up is in my opinion the most important piece of equipment that you need to invest in before anything even before a new camera lens you need to invest in a variable nd filter so variable nd filters will allow you to film in a perfect aperture and shutter speed value when shooting in broad daylight so whenever you're not using a variable nd filter your footage is just going to look blown out your shutter speed setting is going to be totally out of line in correlation to your frame rate that you're shooting in and your aperture is just going to be all over the place and you're not going to get a cinematic look i will insure you on that now the reason why they call it a variable nd filter is you can adjust it on the fly so let's say you set your camera in broad daylight to 100 iso f 2.8 and shutter speed set to 50 and 24 fps so what you're going to be able to do is you're going to be able to screw on this variable nd filter to the front of your camera and you're going to add shade to your footage so it's going to be able to perfectly expose your footage for the aperture iso shutter speed uh values in correlation to the frame rate that you're filming in so this is a major key i for the record never leave for a shoot that will 100 be in broad daylight uh without an nd filter i always carry nd filters with me for nd filters i would recommend the optex nd filters or the tiffin nd filters are just two really great options i've owned my nd filters now for upwards of three years and i still use them to this day so another very important piece to filming music videos is a bluetooth speaker the last thing you want is the artist to be rapping to the song off of a cell phone you do not want that it's going to completely kill the vibe for the performance scene so you're going to want to invest in a bluetooth speaker if you don't already own one i highly suggest the jbl clip 3 speaker the reason for this is that it has a little clip on the top of it so you can clip it to your belt buckle while you're doing your performance scenes so you always have the song playing full blast right next to your camera this will make for syncing the live performance scene to the mastered version of the audio way quicker way easier it's going to save you a massive headache so i have a few different lens recommendations this again is another frequently asked question for music videos now i did make a video on my top five lenses for music videos which i will leave in a hover card up here if you want a really in-depth look on the reason why i chose these lenses for music videos so the first one we have is the sigma 18 to 35 f 1.8 now this is just like an iconic lens that a lot of filmmakers whether they are a music videographer just regular creative shooter will get and have in their arsenal now the reason why the 1835 is so versatile is because you can get a pretty relatively wide shot at 18 millimeters but then you can get that beautiful 35 mil focal length when you're punched in all the way on these lenses and the nice thing about it is it's f 1.8 so it's a great low light option lens and coming in at just under a thousand dollars totally worth the cop and keep in mind that the sigma 18 to 35 was a lens that i actually used for probably the first two or three years of my music video career and this is just a lens that has always just stayed in my arsenal i don't use it anymore because the next lens i'm about to talk about which is the sigma 35 millimeter f 1.4 l mount so i mount this natively to my lumix s1 has taken over my 18 to 35 i rarely use my 18 to 35 anymore because i'm just so in love with the sigma 35 millimeter prime i think that getting a prime lens is just a must when you're shooting music videos it's going to add so much more sharpness and depth to your footage and the f 1.4 is really nice for gimbal shots when you are circling around the artist while they're doing a performance scene and you can just get such a nice blurry background and the background is just moving really quickly behind your subject if they're staying still the 35 millimeter focal length is a focal length that is in my camera bag for every single shoot whether it is a music video or a corporate video so for a wide angle lens recommendation i'm gonna recommend two different lenses here so majority of the filmers are either shooting off of canon sony or lumix so if you're a sony a6000 user so whether you have the a6000 6400 6600 whatever it may be i would highly recommend the sigma 16 mil prime f 1.4 great low light lens it's super wide honestly the 16 mil is really nice and the f 1.4 is just great for low light now if you have a camera that maybe is a lumix and you have a canon ef adapter or if you're just a straight up canon user i would highly recommend the tokina 11 to 20 millimeter f 2.8 this is a wide angle that comes with me on all my shoots if a wide angle is necessary for the shoot for music videos i use the tokina 11 to 20 millimeter f 2.8 it's super sharp 11 mil focal length is just wide enough to not kind of fish eye and distort your image and the 20 mil is just a perfect amount of zoomed in focal length so next up let's go over camera recommendations so if you have the budget and you're ready to really dive into music videos full force i would highly recommend the lumix gh5 the lumix s1 lumix s1h the canon r6 canon r5 as well as the sony a7 iii so these are typically six camera bodies that i would highly recommend especially to beginners um they just priced they're priced at around that you know three or two thousand to four thousand dollar mark it's a little on the higher budget side but all of these cameras would be perfect for music videos i personally have used the gh5 when it first came out and i now use the lumix s1 now for lower budget cameras let's say you're just kind of trying to test the waters of music videos i would highly suggest the lumix g7 lumix g9 the canon m50 the lumix gh4 or the sony a6400 now in my opinion a camera bag is necessary especially for keeping your gear organized when on set i highly recommend the lowepro fastpack backpack so these backpacks are just padded so nicely they're great i've been using it for about four years now and nothing's ripped on it everything works like new now when i've pulled up the sets i can fit my gh5 lumix s1 up to four camera lenses and my nd filters really everything that i need for my camera equipment can fit into this backpack now if you guys want a more in-depth review on that backpack i'll leave a hover card up here we made a video of top seven must-have items for filmmakers and i did review the lowepro fastpack backpack in that video so go check that out when you're finished up with this video so maybe you haven't purchased a gimbal yet it's all good i'm going to give you guys some awesome handheld techniques that you guys can use in your next music video shoots and to be quite honest i actually shoot majority of my music videos handheld now i've kind of ditched the gimbal and i'm going to explain why so here's a couple high-energy handheld techniques that you guys can use for your next music video so i'm going to be laying over some b-roll shots of me filming music videos as well as shots that i've actually done handheld as well as some raw clips of music video sets where i have been implementing these handheld high energy techniques into so a big one is turning your inbody image stabilization off on your camera now a lot of cameras don't actually have this this is something that was introduced in like the gh5 era so if your camera doesn't have inbody image stabilization you don't even have to really worry about this or having the image stabilization turned on basically what i'm going to do is when the camera's in body image stabilization is turned off you're going to get a lot of natural handheld movements so this will create a really upbeat and hype movement for your handheld shots so basically what i'm gonna do when i'm filming my handheld shots is i'm gonna be tracking the movement of the artist so when the artist's hand goes up in the air i'm gonna actually track their hand going up in the air and then pull back to their face this is just a really cool and kind of fun technique to use for your handheld shots it's something that i always do and it just sets your footage apart from the people that are going out and filming the entire music video using a gimbal try to sprinkle in the handheld shots in there maybe you're not a gimbal user maybe you don't own a gimbal you know you can pull off a music video 100 handheld i do it all the time my past probably 10 music videos that i filmed have been majority handheld like i'm talking 80 90 of my music videos have been handheld for the last 10 of them now a tip for more smoother handheld shots now if your camera body does have inbody image stabilization i highly recommend you turn it on if you don't then you're just gonna have to make sure that you didn't drink a red bull before you shoot and you can keep everything nice and steady and you're not shaking around everywhere so basically what i'll do for these is i'll just keep things chill maybe i'll shoot the artist from the side or even from the front maybe it's not a really upbeat song it's more laid back now the biggest tip for getting smooth handheld shots when you're actually trying to get a smooth shot is you suck your elbows into your ribs hug the camera body to your chest your forearms should be touching your chest like so and what you're going to want to do is not just sit there pointing the camera at the artist you're going to want to put just a little bit of natural motion in there so you're going to kind of sway back and forth transfer the weight from one leg to another is what works best don't just move your upper body actually put the weight into your heels into your legs and move from side to side looks funny with me sitting here but i'm going to lay over a couple shots where i am more laid back shooting handheld type shots this will give you a way better visual representation of what i'm kind of getting at now this is a really crazy technique to do for handheld shots and it's probably better to use with a handheld gimbal such as the you know dji ronin-s run an sc but a handheld barrel roll so what i'll do is i'll attach my camera to a small rig cage now you can do this without a camera cage and what i'll do is during the performance scenes i'm going to twist the camera like so and i'm going to twist into the artist like this and i'm going to keep kind of twisting and trying to keep the camera as steady as possible i'll literally grip the camera from both sides of it from literally from the sides of the camera and i'm going to twist my arms like this and as the artist is performing i'm going to be twisting the camera up to them and then twisting back out twisting in twisting out this will add a natural handheld motion to the camera but will also just look super dope and just kind of different now i wouldn't say put 30 seconds of straight barrel rolling shots in your music videos but you know play around with it get creative with it i find that it's a really fun shot to do and looks really dope a lot of the artists that i've used this technique in their music videos have really liked that type of shot now maybe you have a gimbal but you don't know exactly what types of shots to get with that gimbal i'm going to show you guys some different gimbal techniques that i use on my music video sets okay first and foremost when you guys purchase a gimbal just because you have a gimbal for stabilization doesn't mean that all your shots are gonna look super smooth you actually have to try to be smooth with the camera and not just walk flat-footed when you're getting your gimbal shots so a couple tips and tricks here so let's use a ronin-m for example so the ronin-m has two side handles like so and basically what you're going to want to do is make sure that your elbows are right up against your ribs when you're filming and what this is going to do is just add another point of contact for the gimbal so this is just going to ensure that you get smoother shots so if your arms are out like this and you're just kind of walking around with it you're not going to get the smoothest gimbal shot so you're going to want to make sure that your elbows are tucked nice into your ribs second tip for gimbal operating for music videos is not to walk flat footed so you want to go heel toe this is again is just going to ensure for extremely smooth gimbal shots which is exactly what we want the last thing we want is those little micro jitters that gimbals will give off if you aren't 100 steady with the gimbal so let's talk about different types of gimbal movement patterns so the first one we have is a um just a semi-circling around the artist while they're doing a performance scene this is one of my favorite types of shots to get i personally like filming this one with a 35 mil focal length so basically what you're going to do is start from one end of the artist and you're going to semi-circle around the artist with your gimbal and you're going to want to make sure that you're at about eye level with the gimbal and you're just gonna keep going back and forth so this is awesome to do when you are filming performance scenes because you can shoot the song from very beginning to the very end and will give you a lot of footage to play around with tip number two is doing the exact same thing as tip number one but this time get a little closer shoot from about the chest off to your subject and point the gimbal slightly upwards so you're still doing the semi-circle pattern but this time you're going to be slightly tilting the gimbal upwards and you're still going to be doing that nice panning motion this just gives you a different type of look for your gimbal shots i feel like if you're just always doing the straight on eye level type of gimbal shots it just starts to look the same so what i do is just simply um have the camera at about chest level and then i slightly tilt the gimbal upwards or if you're handheld just slightly tilt it up and then you start doing your semicircle motion now last but not least i swear every gimbal user who just picks up a gimbal for the first time does this motion the push in and push out i swear it's just like weird human instinct that when you pick up a gimbal that's like the first movement that you want to use with it it is used on a lot of professional sets and by a lot of amateurs in my opinion i love using the push and push out with a wide angle lens so again a sony 16 mil or the tokina 11 to 20 millimeter would be perfect for this and these push and push out shots are great for when you want to expose your entire environment let's say you have the artist and like 5 or 10 extras all surrounding the artist you want to be using the push and push out with a wide angle lens and one more gimbal movement that i want to touch on is the 360 around the artist so this is as simple as picking a focal length that you want to literally 360 around the artist with the gimbal so you're gonna be holding your gimbal and you're just gonna be walking around them at a pretty steady pace now the biggest tip for this is trying to stay at one steady pace now you can get pretty dizzy when you do do this but it looks amazing and if you do start to get too dizzy don't cut the performance scene just slow down just start circling around the artist a little slower and then pick up when you're less dizzy but it looks awesome and it just adds a different type of performance scene um to your music videos another tip i will have for this is make sure to shoot in 24 fps at 50 shutter you're going to get nice natural motion blur it's gonna look super cinematic so last but not least we have tripod shots and if you guys are looking to see some of my tripod shots in action and explain super in depth on set my latest music video behind the scenes tutorial actually has a bunch of tripod shots where i go over exactly what types of techniques i use on my music video sets implementing the tripod now as the years go by gimbals have become more and more accessible because they have become cheaper and cheaper whether that is on the used market or the brand new market dji ronin sc's can go for as cheap as like three or four hundred dollars which is crazy so that being said i feel that tripod shots are just overlooked these days and honestly guys they are used a lot of times more than you think on really big high budget music video sets so this is why i want to start implementing the tripod shots back into my own music videos so tip number one for tripod shots slowly keyframing into the artist so basically what you're going to do is you're going to mount your camera to your tripod and in post you're going to literally just slowly keyframe into the artist face which i'll lay over clip right now as you can see i'm just slowly keyframing in it's such a clean and subtle shot and it's really effortless because the camera is just on a tripod you just have to make sure that the artist is in perfect focus now tip number two very similar to tip number one but when you're keyframing in you want to slap on the handheld effect which comes stock in final cut pro 10 and adobe premiere so basically what this is going to do is give you a really cool warpy type of effect which kind of mimics a handheld shot but you're not actually doing a handheld shot so the editing platform does all the work for you and tip number three keyframing in from the top left or top right of the screen and back to the dead center of the artist now another little tip for doing this when you do let's say keyframe from the top right and back into the middle then you can add a slow keyframe back in it looks beautiful guys start using tripod shots for your music videos i always see people that just run gimbal shots from very beginning to very end of this of the music videos but think about adding gimbal shots handheld shots and tripod shots it just makes your video look so much better and instantly increases the production value now i thought about making a post-production section however we have two really awesome in-depth videos on how to edit music videos so it's my entire thought process when i'm going through a music video edit how i edit on final cut pro 10. if you guys want to check out that editing tutorial leave it and hover card up here and i'll also leave a link in description for that tutorial as well if you want to check it out after this video now there is one thing that i do want to mention in terms of post production editing for music videos on our online shop we sell raw files for entire music video sets that i have directed and shot myself when you purchase any of our raw editing files you get the raw performance scenes raw b-roll clips raw slow-motion clips and the mastered version of the audio so you guys can edit music videos without having to shoot the footage on your own and it doesn't stop there we allow you guys to actually take the final video that you create with our footage and put it onto your own highlight reels or portfolios so you can use that final edit to pitch to potential music video clients so if you guys are looking to purchase any of our raw editing packs which we also include not only music videos but automotive videos and fitness videos i'll leave that link in the description of this video filming music videos is one thing but taking a business approach to music videos is a whole other beast here's some business tips that i picked up on over the years of filming music videos tip number one offer your first few music videos for free i know it sucks putting in sweat equity but hear me out so you film your first music video ever you're kind of nervous you go out you film it and it's totally for free and let's say you completely butcher all of the b-roll shots what's the artist gonna do get upset at you just because you butchered a free music video if anything you're just gonna be able to learn from the mistakes and it's a lot less stressful taking on your first music video now if you can get a tip out of it or you know make one or two hundred dollars off of it awesome all the power to you however i myself did my first three or four music videos 100 for free and it was the best decision because i made a lot of mistakes on those music video sets which i didn't make after those three or four music videos so i went into my actual paid client music videos with way more knowledge than if i were to just totally jump into it filming the music videos for free will actually get you paid down the road because you're building a portfolio so let's say you make three or four music videos and you did them all for free take the best clips off of those music videos and make a one minute highlight reel then take that highlight reel and post it onto your youtube channel as well as your instagram platform and promo the hell out of that instagram post this will give potential clients a really good understanding of what you're capable of shooting and if they're going to want to book you or not tip number two is attending live shows now i know this isn't really a thing right now during covet 19 and the worldwide pandemic however when things go back to normal attend live local shows you're basically just showing the artist love at this point you're pulling up to the show you're supporting the artist by paying the door fee which pays the artist to be there and it gives you the opportunity to get face to face with these up-and-coming local artists so i remember once before i really got into music videos i maybe shot a few of them and i want to start branching out and finding out about new local artists who maybe haven't had music videos shot yet so basically what i did was i went to the local show and i offered to do a recap video for free so this got me into the show for free i didn't have to pay at the door and i did a little cool recap which i was able to tag all the artists in the recap video after i posted onto facebook and instagram which instantly showed love to the artist and every single artist that i tagged in the recap video actually hit me up for music videos asking me how much i charge for music videos and that's where i started to charge for my music videos it wasn't much it may be started at 100 200 but it slowly worked its way up to a decent price over the years and not to mention as well this really builds a solid relationship with the client and believe it or not four out of the six artists that performed at that local show four years ago still booked me for music videos to this day so yeah get out there guys once kovit kind of settles down get out there to local shows network and i will guarantee you that you will leave with at least one music video client your social media is your resume when you're posting to youtube or instagram especially instagram because it has become a really uh well-known storefront at this point i i kind of see instagram as like the modern day business card so keep that in mind when you are posting promo videos or music videos you really never know who is watching your content and what potential client is looking at your page so try to keep it professional when you're posting onto instagram make sure to re-post all the music videos that you're shooting and maybe not once but four times over the course of i don't know a few months just keep trickling out content that you're posting that's what i did it 100 helped me get more clients so once you've filmed about 10 to 15 music videos it's now time to look into making an overall highlight reel or director's reel now i urge that every single filmmaker should have a director reel posted to youtube as well as upload it to either a shortened version on instagram or uploaded via igtv this really gives a good understanding to artists or potential clients on what type of shots that you can pull off so let's say an artist approaches you on instagram or via email dm whatever it is and they say hey can i check out some of your work or some of your recent work boom you send them the link to a youtube video to your highlight reel and that will basically say it all a lot of the times when i send my highlight reel artists will book me right away i put a lot of time into my highlight reels because i know that i'm going to be sending that highlight reel off to potential clients who could be potentially paid clients all right guys so that pretty much wraps it up for how to shoot music videos tailored for beginners now my music video tutorials over the years have been a legitimate proof of concept for helping filmmakers take their music video game to the next level or just simply giving them enough confidence to take their first music video shoot a lot of people always ask me you know why do you always give away all your secrets and your tips and tricks now to be completely honest the content is very consumable yes sure you may pick up a tip or two but the chances of most filmmakers actually taking my tips and tricks and secrets and applying it to their films and their sets is actually pretty slim so if you've made it this far into the video i know for a fact that you the viewer the filmmaker the creator are looking to really take your music video game to the next level and with that being said i hope that this video gives you just that extra boost and that extra confidence to you know take your next music video or take these tips and tricks and just better your next music video set now this video helped you be sure to leave a comment down below and smash that like button it really does help the channel and i appreciate your support thank you everyone for watching be sure to check out our online shop again links in the description for that for luts presets raw editing files and more go and check it out thank you everyone for watching make sure to like comment and subscribe for more filmmaking tips tricks vlogs tutorials and more catch you guys on the next one peace hi i'm job d i'm 23 years old and i live in the city of toulouse in france i have been a music video director since september 9 2019 my first clip was released preciously on september 7 2019 i didn't study and i learned everything on my own with online content in particular with the tutorials from royal z how to shoot music video where he gave valuable advice for beginners such as when filmed in 60 frames per second or how to use my gimbal i think creators like wyozi are very important in providing information to people who want to get starts he inspired me so much that i also launched my youtube channel to bring value to the young directors who follow me i would like to thank warrior z and his team subtitle cinematics for the content and values they bring and above all for continuing peace

Channel: Subtle Cinematics

Views: 73,369

Keywords: music video tutorial, how to shoot music videos for beginners, subtle cinematics, how to shoot a music video as a beginner, music video tips and tricks for beginners, how to shoot a music video 2021, how to film music videos in 2021, how to shoot a music video for beginners, 5 tips for making better videos, music video editing tips and tricks, music video shooting tips and tricks, behind the scenes music video, How to shoot a music video 2021 for beginners

Id: u-f5KdN7Ylk

Length: 50min 46sec (3046 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021