Pete Frasers 10 Step Guide

1) Limbering UpCompletely improvise making a music video. Use your own knowledge and minimal time and resources. This will help discern pacing and tone, as well as giving your cast an idea of how to look and act. Through this many ideas will spring up, which can be used when making the final video

2) Choosing a trackWhen choosing a track its important to pick a song that doesn’t have a well known image or obvious connotations hanging over it. To make a truly original video its best to choose something small and not mainstream again, possibly a local indie band. Maybe even make your own.Its also important to choose something that also allows for stimulating visuals, not necessarily fast paced, but sounds that provoke imagery. Length must also be considered. 3 minutes is a good length, to allow for an interesting and engaging narrative, but not too long, to minimise number of shots.

3) A treatment for the basic ideaWrite a treatment that gives the basic concept of the video, is it narrative or performance? Maybe just a raw idea. Make sure its clear, workable and realistic, the more elaborate, the more can go wrong.Get feedback and review your idea.

4) researchLook into real music videos of the same genre and study the conventions and common practises. The style, background and content.Also study how the music is used, the meaning of the lyrics, placement of the video over the verse’s and chorus, the beat and rhythm and use of the star.Also watch student videos, what are the strengths and weaknesses. From this you can gather what's accessible when making your video

5) PlanStoryboard the whole video, shot for shot. Some of the performance aspects may not be needed, especially if its very repetitious, but have a good idea of the camera angles and setups.Any key narrative shots must be drawn up, and followed with the track to ensure the music plays out smoothly with the visuals. You can then take pictures and animate the storyboard.Also know the logistical aspects; props, actors, locations as well as any problems you may encounter.

6) Bloggy timesA place for all your setup. Analysis of other music videos, explanations of genre, as well as all the important aspects, for example casting and location finding, as well as storyboarding the whole video.

7) Gather your equipmentPrepare setting it up and explore every aspect to get the best from your equipment. This includes Cameras, lighting and green screening. But also editing software, and a way to access the music.

8) Shooting the videoShoot the performance with 10 different set ups, have camera angles from all sides and be creative with some of these. You will need coverage that lasts the whole song and include loads of intimate close-upsFor the narrative aspect make sure every transition is clear, ensure the story is legible and characters are easy to relate to, to emphasise the narrative of the video.

9) CapturingLabel everything, use a clapper box to distinguish each shot, sort different shot types into folders so everything is compartmentalised.Collect everything together and pick and choose what you want to use, you can put full takes on top of eache other and strip away, or separately cut away what you need. Using a more professional multi-track piece of software like Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere is preferable to MovieMaker or iMovie.

10) The editSynch up the performances first and get the whole picture, slowly chip away unnecessary video and make the piece as dynamic as possible.Finished up with special effects.Post it on your blog and get feedback, then re edit the video.