If you’re a musician, a music video is a great way to show your art and build your brand narrative.

There are a lot of ways to make a good music video. But most pros will tell you, regardless of the genre, one of the most critical elements to making a great music video is to tell a great story. 

Story is king. 

A great story will take you through a journey, keeping you watching to see the conclusion.

One easy way to help you do this when filming a music video is to shoot at different locations. Locations can help move the story forward.

A common question we get is how many locations should a music video have?

To create diversity of shots and enough footage to create an engaging edit, filming at 3 locations is the magic number that will make the most of your time.

EXAMPLE OF HOW WE USED 3 LOCATIONS IN A MUSIC VIDEO

Recently we shot a music vid for JJ TANO, an inspiring singer songwriter based in San Diego. It was a 2 day shoot in Palm springs. The vision was to create a story around his song Trouble, where his song talks about a girl who is just that…. Trouble. To help tell this story we laid out 3 locations to carry us through this fun music video. We had 3 spots preplanned out.

1. MOBILE HOME LOCATION  
2. PALM SPRINGS STREET LOCATION 
3. DRIVING WINDMILL LOCATION.

The overall storyline of the music video was that JJ picks up his girlfriend, takes her to his mobile home in the desert, shares some great times only to find she has left him in the morning. Spoiler Alert : But there is a happy ending 

Watch the video here.

So why shoot at 3 locations?

At Dreamvision media we have shot a lot of music videos. Many times our vision is constrained by time and limited budget. So we have found some tips to get the best result out of short time frames and other limitations. Over the years we have found the best variety of shots come from filming in 3 locations. Some stories will work with more, some with less, but 3 is a good sweet spot. 

We feel any good music video needs shot diversity and different shots when arranged correctly 3 locations is just enough to help move the story forward.

3 Filming Locations Provides: Shot Diversity, Moves the story forward, Gives you more footage, Keeps the budget Lean.

• Shot diversity

Today, the average song length is roughly 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Today’s attention spans are short… do the math. For music videos it’s critical to keep the audience engaged. If the shots are too repetitive, most people will bail on the video and not wait till the end. Shooting 3 locations gives you some good variety to work with and keep it changing up in the edit.

• Moves the story forward

When you cut between different locations it gives your video a forward movement as 

the audience travels through time with you. It can help give a video momentum.

• More footage to work with in the editing process:

When you have 3 performance shots with different focal lengths taken at each scene, this gives you a lot of footage to work with. If one scene doesn’t work out for a performance, you have 2 more to fall back on.

• Keeps you budget Lean:

Most music videos are constrained by budget and time. 3 locations will give you the most diversity of shots without overshooting and draining the budget on shots that won’t make the edit.

If you need help finding locations for your music video some great places to start are online sites like giggster.com and peerspace.com. You can also search the areas around where you are located online and find some cool spots to film.

Conclusion

In conclusion, music videos are longer videos by today’s standards and need to be exciting so your audience stays locked in. If you shoot in 3 locations, it can help drive your story forward and add a lot of shot variety. This will help your end result be more engaging & successful in the end.

If you need help shooting a music video contact us today.