If you’re an artist , showcasing your music in a visual format is an amazing way to let your audience into your world. It’s another layer of creative expression, and is a great way to market and promote your work to grow your brand and audience.

Problem is most artists don’t know where to start when putting together a music video. The fact is it’s a lot of work. 

At Dreamvision Media we have been fans of the music video since the MTV days. We have studied 1000s of music video edits spanning all types of music videos over the decades as well as made some ourselves. As content creators and editors, we try to break down what makes them great. Down to every detail.

We have found that great music videos of all genres have many similarities. In this article we will take you through our step by step method to making a legendary music video, going over the tried and true things you’ll need to consider before you shoot one scene. 

If you’re looking to film your own music video, or you’re filming one for someone else you’re in the right place….. this article will answer all your questions.

So how do you film a Legendary music video?

1) Visualize your ideas on a mood board that becomes your treatment . 

2) Assemble your team and shoot locations considering your budgets and limitations. 

3) Schedule your shoot days and execute the plan. 

4)Edit the video and create all marketing assets. 

Follow our table of contents on this Ultimate Guide

Table of contents:

1. Preplan your vision for the music video
   1. Vision Board
   2. Directors treatment
   3. Define the Aesthetic
   4. Plan your shots
2. Assemble your team
   1. Consider your limitations
   2. Consider your budget
3. Equipment
4. Choose your locations
   1. Minimum 3 locations
5. Make a Plan
   1. Shotlist 
   2. Logistics / shooting schedule
6. How to add Production Value
   1. Car tracking shots
   2. Adding drone footage
   3. Projector & creative imagery
   4. Visual effects
   5. Create a storyline (movie like aesthetic)
7. Execute the Plan: Shoot the video
   1. Video in desert example.
8. Editing the video
9. Making marketing assets for promotion

Preplanning your vision

All good video productions begin with great planning. With video being a collaborative medium , it’s important that all people on the team understand what the end goal is. In general, the more you plan…. The better. In the pre planning phase you’ll need to create the vision for the video, as well as wrap your mind around how to logistically get each shot.

To properly pre plan you’ll need to Create:

• The Vision Board
• The treatment
• The shot list

STEP 1: FINDING THE CREATIVE DIRECTION

The first thing to decide is what direction the video will go in. Will it be a performance? A movie with a storyline? A visualizer with text overlay of the lyrics? 

What type of video will it be?

A great way to get inspiration is to watch movies and other music videos and create a vision board of inspirational frames to draw from. In the art world we call this gathering references.

The easiest way to start is with a VISION BOARD.

A Vision Board is a collection of references and inspirations that you would like to use to refer to when putting it together. This can help pinpoint color palettes, moods , shot types and so much more when filming.

After you have collected a few vision boards of ideas , it’s recommended to consolidate your favorites into a DIRECTORS TREATMENT.

This is a short 1- 4 page document that has a clear direction for your creative video. It is also important in the director’s treatment that you define your aesthetic. Does the video have a bright and commercial feel to it? Or would you like it to be dark and moody?  This is the overall color palette and look of the finished edit. There are so many editing styles, it’s important to know what look you are trying to achieve. 

PLAN YOUR SHOTS

Look through your references and find frames that you would like to emulate. Specifically focused on composition. It will help you decide lens choices and frame the day of shooting.

Assemble your Crew

Once you have decided the creative direction for your video it’s time to assemble your team.

Based on the ideas you put together in your treatment, you can start casting roles for key people to help you put the vision to life.

Common roles you may need filled:

• Producer 
• Director 
• Camera Operator
• Any Actors / dancers / Extras or talent in video
• Grip and Electric Team 
• Drone Pilot
• Production Manager 

A great article on roles of film crews can be found here

This is where considering your limitations will help you hone down what you can pull off with your budget or resources.

There’s a good reason why the first question a production house will ask is  “What’s your budget?” This is because this is usually the most constrictive limitation on our crazy ideas.

Keep in mind that most professionals will cost on average $40-200/hr to have on site helping with your video. So assemble your team with this in mind.

It’s important to consider that most finished videos with a small team cost roughly $1000- $15000/ minute of footage when it’s all said and done. So If your music video will be 4:00 in length you can assume that 4k will be the lowest budget you can pull off to have a team helping. If you don’t have that budget you can always find ways to get help for free or do more stuff yourself.

In general, use the resources you have to keep the budget tight as possible.

Equipment you’ll need

After deciding what people you’ll need to bring your vision to life, it’s time to talk about equipment. There are 3 areas of equipment you should understand in order to capture your video

• Video equipment
• Lighting Equipment
• Props and Camera Support Systems.

Video Equipment: You’ll need to get the gear to shoot on. In a nutshell it’s your camera, lenses and accessories to get the shots. There are hundreds of good options for camera equipment to use, however based on your budget and idea you may find one is better for your needs.

Lighting Equipment: Lighting is the unsung hero of every video. It creates the shape, color and feel of your video. Every seasoned filmmaker knows this truth. So you’ll need to figure out your lighting equipment you’ll need to buy or rent. 

Props and Camera Support systems: Many music videos have cool creative camera movements. This is achieved with dollys and camera cranes, dollies, platforms, and other on-set equipment. 

You’ll need to figure out these 3 areas before your shooting day.

Choose your locations

Your Locations will be the backdrop for your video. It’s one of the most important elements in any Legendary Music Video. 

How do you find locations?

With websites like Peerspace.com and Giggster.com you can find a lot of amazing spots to shoot for an hourly rate. Use any resources you have to get the background you need for the shot. Also consider logistics if an area will be hard to film in like public places.

How many locations do you need to shoot in?

For music videos we recommend 3 locations.

Based on your treatment and overall flow of your video, you may need more. But in our experience 3 is the magic number because it keeps the budget lower but still gives us plenty of flavor to get some good shots. You can also film different parts of each location for more diversity. Read our guide on shooting with 3 locations here

Make the Plan

By this point your vision should be clearer than ever. You have done a lot of planning and have a good grasp on what you need to make this happen. It’s time to plan the shooting day(s)

There’s 2 things you should focus on in your plan:

• Planning your shot list
• Making the Production Schedule

PLANNING THE SHOTLIST

In order for the music video to go smoothly, you should plan out your goal shots in sequence of when you’ll shoot them. This is known as the shot list. They should be sent to all team members in the camera crew before hand & printed out on paper so the day they can be referenced. Your shot list should be batched by location so when you’re on each set you can focus on what you need to capture.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

Logistics will make or break your vision coming to life. This is real world planning that puts all people, places and things together so when the camera is rolling you’re capturing the vision.

This is where you put your vision and shot list into a specific, measureable , realistic, attainable time sensitive production schedule. Break down each shoot location by estimated time. Make sure you schedule travel times and leave extra time for setup.

Pro Tip

If you have the budget to hire a Production Manager, it can be a huge help. It can help your music video stay on time and ensure all shots are set up and executed in the time they need to. Otherwise wasting time on set will cost more money on each location or you won’t get the shots you wanted because you ran out of time. 

Things to consider

Keep in mind a plan doesn’t always work as fluid as you can plan for future events. Plan for things not going to plan. Things will not always go as you want . Roll with the curve balls and make it happen.

Adding Magic:  5 Ways to add Production Value

Production Value is something that a video has that gives it some interesting or expensive element. Making it stand out among the competition. 

Although there are many ways to increase production value in music videos, there’s some common ways that are easy and can be a good checklist for making your video pop.

Some easy ways to add production value to your music video are with:

• Using cars in the production
• Adding drone footage
• Using a virtual set or projector See example
• Visual effects & motion graphics
• Unique camera movements
• Creating a storyline ( movie like aesthetic)

Using cars in the production: Cars have been a staple in music videos for years. Classics, Exotics, Convertibles, Monster trucks, Lo riders… you name it. Having cars in your production can add a lot of interesting elements. They also give us movement which shows the people in the video “going somewhere” which drives the story forward. There are many shots you can get with cars: Driving shots, sitting in car performance shots, sitting on car performing, the list goes on. In general adding a cool car can elevate your production value a lot. See how we shot some cinematic car footage for a music video here

Adding Drone footage: Drone footage can add some unique perspectives to break up the shot up close. As drone technology gets better and better, the dynamic and creative shots we can do will only do well. Adding drone footage is a great way to increase the production value.

Using a virtual set or projector: Shooting a portion of your music video in a studio or virtual set can add some super cool elements to your video. With video walls and projection screens we can let our minds run wild and do some out of the box stuff. See how used a projector in this music video here

Visual Effects: Visual effects and special effects are a cool way to elevate your music video. As computer technology gets better our ability to add epic Hollywood effects will get easier as well. A house on fire, muzzle flares from a gun, all can be added with vfx. Another popular post production trick is to add film effects to make your video look vintage. See our complete guide here.

Unique camera movements: Cool camera angles and movements are another great way to get more production value in your music video. Using a robot arm , dana dolly or camera crane will add something special to your shots.

FILMING DAY

So you have arrived on the day of the shoot! Time to make some magic!! This is where all that hard work finally pays off. If you have planned and prepared this day will go as smoothly as it can. Remember to:

• Follow your shot list
• Communicate with the team 
• Stay focused on the plan
• Have fun

EDITING

After you have done all filming it’s time to go into the edit. This is where we go back to all our original reference material and treatments and see how close we got. Usually the footage, although inspired from another medium, has its own life and unique look (which is what we want) . 

Getting an editor who understands the aesthetic you are trying to get is critical. Go over video references with your editor and let them get to work. After a few revisions you’ll have your legendary music video edited and ready for coloring.

COLOR GRADING

After the sequences are shot your video will need to be colored. Many editors can color your footage but if you want to take your project to the next level you should send your work to a certified Colorist. This is someone who understands color theory as well as how color effects the mood of the video. Although this is another subjective area of art, there are laws to color balancing footage.

Color can help make your project have a cohesive vibe. It can transform your project for the better.

CREATING MARKETING ASSETS

So your video is approved, looking great and edited ……now what? 

The last step is creating your marketing assets. There are 3 assets every music video needs in order to get the most attention for your project. You’ve spent all this time and effort making something amazing , now it’s time to make sure it’s rolled out properly. You need to have a poster for your video, teaser video, and release schedule. 

• POSTER
• TEASER VIDEO
• MERCH & PHYSICAL PRODUCTS
• RELEASE SCHEDULE

POSTER: They say you only have 7 seconds nowadays to grab someone’s attention. You poster has got to do it. It has to reflect your whole project in one image. It has to be eye-catching and intriguing. Something that makes your audience want to watch.

For poster sizes we recommend having 2 assets, A 16×9 for horizontal video and a 9×16 for vertical display. This way you can drop your teaser “coming soon” posts on all channels

TEASER VIDEO: We want to tease the audience before we release the video. This will build up the suspense for your audience. It’s been proven to increase engagement rather than releasing the video right away.

Make them wait a little 

Just like a movie trailer you should use most of your best shots in the teaser. It should be no more than :30 and should display the date it will release in the call to action slide at the end.

MERCH AND PHYSICAL PRODUCTS: making merch or other physical products is a fun way to get more eyeballs and engagement on you music video. You can do a lot of fun creative marketing with physical items for those that buy and consume your video.

RELEASE SCHEDULE: Before creating your online assets, it’s important to lock your release schedule. This way everyone who was a part of the project can share on their social channels and increase the ability to reach more people. Like all marketing campaigns you have to come out of the gate swinging.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, making a good music video takes a lot of work and energy. Today, video productions is more competitive than ever and if you want to stand out as an artist make sure you follow these steps to make something epic. If you are in the San Diego or Los Angeles area and need Music video film production, we offer a full range of services. Click the link below for a quote.

FAQ

How much do music videos cost? 

Quality video production will usually range anywhere from $1200-15000/ minute of edited footage.

You can expect most video professionals on set to be working for $40-200/ hour on average. So usually the more people involved the more money the video will cost in the end.

How to make a music video as a beginner?

When you are a beginner usually the budget is small, you have to get creative with your resources. However if you properly plan and have a great idea, you can still make a smash hit. Limitations can often unlock creative ideas.

How do you make music videos go viral?

Although making a music video go viral is difficult, it isn’t impossible. Usually if your message has a high shareability it has a better chance of reaching more people.