How To Make Your First Music Video

You can spend a million or two million dollars on a music video – depending on what the producers are ready for but what’s a more realistic budget for your first one?

If you are not Justin Timberlake or Rihanna, and you are just starting out and going to rock the stage, we will tell you how to make a music video yourself without ultra huge investments and give songs new meaning.

The main thing you need to have is a lot of acquaintances from different fields, inexpensive but high-quality equipment, video editing software, and ingenuity. Whereby the last point is a must.

The starting point of making your first music video

Song selection

The song for which you are filming a video should please you and bring you a buzz. If the soundtrack suits you, then the work on the video will be fun and productive.

Brainstorm

You should come up with a powerful music video idea. What exactly do you want to capture? A love story, abstraction, poetic landscapes, thriller or comedy?

Discuss all possible ideas with your band or a professional film crew. Remember, that complex staging, a large number of filming locations, and even minimal special effects are all difficult things to take on a small budget.

The most cost-effective shootings are diary-format videos, clips showing wanders around the city, beautiful girls in the forest or field, beloved by indie rockers, etc.

By the way, be prepared for the fact that musicians from your band may be afraid of the camera. In this case, you have only two options: shoot a thematic clip without their participation or record a classic live version – a favorite option of alternative rock bands.

Scenario

The script is the cornerstone of a music video. A detailed storyboard and a high-quality script with all the prescribed moments will make the shooting process easy stuff: you will save time, nerves and will not miss any details. 

If you want to make a captivating visual product, try to come up with an unexpected solution. Look for a second meaning in the words of the selected track, illustrate the song frame by frame, or create a resonance between the video sequence and the text.

Shooting

As long as you have people willing to help you for free, it’s important to spend money on a good camera and light. For the first clip, it is not necessary to purchase powerful professional cameras. Many clip makers even shoot with an iPhone 12 or 13.

If you have a friend with a cool camera and a large collection of lenses for it, and you are going to shoot a video entirely in an amusement park on a sunny day, then the first point is no longer necessary – you won’t need a light or a camera.

But if a friend doesn’t have a suitable camera, and the shooting is planned in a bar, in a stadium, and in a night entrance, then rentals will come to your aid.

By the way, there you can take all sorts of technical stuff. Panoramic cameras, quadcopters, and action cameras will help you complete a cool track with an equally cool picture.

When you’re shooting outdoors, don’t forget that the weather is a tricky thing. Sudden rain can wash away your brilliant idea, and a hard frost will cling not only to your cheeks but also to a particularly sensitive tech.

Final editing 

Don’t skimp on effects and some trendy techniques. Explore how professional artists shoot videos – usually, 70% of behind-the-scenes videos from filming are devoted to post-production.

Therefore, don’t forget that in addition to filming, there is also editing. Review your footage regularly to make sure it’s good, and experiment with different effects.

For editing, choose high-quality and novice-friendly software, such as PowerDirector, Corel VideoStudio, Pinnacle Studio.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that you need to add sound to the video separately. In no case should you add sound from the camera.

Let the singers sing in full voice during shooting, so that there is no feeling of a discrepancy between the mouth and the voice in post-production.