Music to Your Eyes

The hills are alive with the sound of music. Why not make a video of that music? Whether you want to join the MTV Generation or just show relatives how the budding Beethoven in the family is doing, making videos of musical performances is not as hard as you might think. Here are a few tips to make it easier.

Script it Out
A music video, like a drama, should be planned, even scripted, before you shoot. Flying by the seat of your pants isn't going to get you where you want to go. Do a little homework. Study music videos and performances featuring music of the same genre and note techniques that impress you. Try to figure out how and why the directors took the shots and made the cuts that they did. You don't have to duplicate what you see, but it won't hurt to borrow some ideas from the pros. Every song and dance that has appeared on film or video has had someone making decisions about what goes where. And, with a little thought, you can usually figure out why that particular image was shot for that bar of music.

You'll find it helpful to get a copy of the song you'll be taping on cassette or CD so you can play it and listen to it before the shoot. As you listen, identify pictures that the music suggests to you. Every song has a story and the goal here is to find and visualize it. To help you decide on the pictures you need, make a simple storyboard. Don't worry that you can't draw. All you want to do is make sketches of the shots you need. Stick figures and visual shorthand are fine. After all, who's going to see these pictures ex…