Well. A long time has passed since the start of the Indie Funda Project. http://www.indiefunda.com/ For those of you who are not familiar with the Indie Funda Project I'll offer a summation: Indie Funda was my first official online crew. My community. Today, I look at my experience with Indie as a sort of boot camp that prepared me for the things that were to come my way in the future while getting involved with online communities. I met a lot of good people over at Indie. One of which I present to you below. A true comrade of mine. Here recently he'd expressed to me his feelings about Indie. Not surprisingly, his views mirrored the great majority of views that have been coming to me personally in regards to the Indie community. As one of the early pioneers and official representatives of Indie Funda in the past, I take it upon myself to offer every artist/fan who'd gotten involved with Indie and supported the project an apology. Even though I've personally done nothing wrong, I'm apologizing just in case there were any one of you that believed in " me " to hold the fort down at Indie. ( I actually intend to write a post here in the near future explaining in more detail what the current state of Indie Funda is- to my knowledge at least .) After hearing the popular concensus of all the artist and friends who've expressed to me how they felt, I decided to take matters into my own hands so to speak. After making that decision I came up with a solution. Of course, we as artist/fans can never get back the countless number of hours we've poured into supporting a cause which seems to have only served to turn it's back on us at the end- things like this happen in life; and esp., online- however; what we can do is use it as a learning experience, stay true to our craft, dust ourselves off and KEEP GRINDING!! We live and we learn. So, without any further riff raff on my part I offer to you, the work of my dear comrade, Don Cagliostro. Enjoy!
Introducing " The Art Of Making A Music Video " by R (Michal Rutkowski) Find him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/AneMonCaglio
Note: I am not a professional film director. I wish to study film direction, and I have made my attempts in creating music videos. Therefore the vocabulary used in the article may differ from the language used by professionals in film industry. Being a sincere public in person, and someone who filmed a few music videos himself, I wish this article is nevertheless interesting to the reader.
MAKING A MUSIC VIDEO/ article
The making of a video is a kind of songwriting. We are writing a song not with the use of notes, but with the use of picture.
The color scheme used in the video is crucial to the effect of the atmosphere of the video. It is much the beat alike: it becomes the measure for what we put into the frames of the video after, and the design for the scenery, which makes it also the song’s basic chord alike.
The band playing its arrangements is located upon this scene, which is the atmosphere of the video. To choose the instruments, the band, we must measure the scene: in a 4 minutes video there is some 20 cuts, within which we must enclose all the ideas we want to picture. This is in fact a scene. We want choreography, so we must count how much of motion may fit into the frame of our scene.
Best cuts, mostly short in length, do repeat. It is the chorus of the video.
Coming onto the video making, we must first choose if we want a feature film, an illustration for the music, or an impression.
Feature, Illustration, Impression
The feature film is based upon long cuts. The illustration for the music must go along with the song. An impression is a free way of film making, but it appears the most difficult one, because here we work with feelings, and we are therefore to go deep into the atmosphere of the musical track we picture.
In a music video, there cannot be long cuts except. There are some exceptions thought. The exceptions being if the video is meant to be a feature film. It is possible to make a video based on one long cut/scene, one act video. Starting at this point we are choosing from two slightly different ways of film making. The feature must be interesting, the viewer cannot get bored, so the film scenery here is to be a place, where we can move with the camera in different directions, without framing the same landscape. A simple example for this is the ‘Karma Police’ by Radiohead:http://youtu.be/IBH97ma9YiI The car is rolling and we do see the same street, but there is movement. The use of a car's insides is very common in music video making, for there is one scenery (the inside of a car), but the surroundings do change. It is a trick: the viewer gets to focus on a changing scenery, but the whole is possible to be made with one long cut, without changing the scene.
For an illustration, the simplest way to communicate with the song is to picture the band/performer playing. It is to show the energy of the song. This is the most common way to make music videos. Its goal is simple as the video: it is to advertise for the live performance. Advertise not because it is assembled out of live performance scenes, but because the factor crucial to the video is the energy of the music, which is most important in live experience. Example: ‘Beauty School’ by Deftones. http://youtu.be/2bK4aeahcXc
The impression is to go deep into the feelings in the song. Here we do work with the use of symbols, or act a painter alike. The use of symbols is more simple than painting artwork in the video. A symbol must not be a straight visualization for what is in the lyrics or musical feeling. It can be an impression for what we do hear in the song. Beautiful example for this are the videos from ‘Inverta’.
Painting artwork in the video is the most deep and difficult way to present the music with the use of motion picture. It is multi-dimensional. It is more an artist’s audio-visual artwork presented in an art gallery alike. It is to be Arts, not Craft. It is based upon the poetry of the picture. Great examples for this are the videos for ‘Come as you are’ by Nirvana, and ‘Breaking the girl’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The director does act a painter alike: he/she is assembling the frame out of different pictures that come into his mind by feelings while listening to the music.
Arts and Craft
A music video is based upon feelings in its very sense. It is impossible to make a good music video as a craftsman skilled in his work. The skills needed is the use of the camera, the knowledge of the metrics of the clip, the eye for a well composed frame and the graphic designer’s skills for artistic remake of color schemes and effects while editing the video. This is needed for the director’s vision, which is basic before we begin with a music video.
A craftsman would measure the whole thing. He would count how many frames of this and that kind he must use to make the video interesting to the public, what kind of pictures and so forth. This is a failed way to make a music video.
An artist must be inside of the song/music. He must experience the music all around him, surrounding him, so that the pictures
appear. Inside of the music he becomes 100% responsive to what is in the sound and lyrics. This response will turn out the pictures for the video.
A shaman alike, the director is to trade his vision.
First step:
The director’s vision.
End of part one. Here is my work in action. Enjoy.
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