And . . . Action!
During the recording of An Ape’s Progress, I knew I needed to do a better job of promotion this time around. Among (many) other things, that means choosing a couple of advance singles, and releasing them at least a month apart during the run-up to album release. Nowadays, it also means creating a strong visual element to go with those singles, hopefully capturing people’s attention for a closer look and listen — and that means music videos! Social-media and YouTube are the go-to video environments nowadays, and there’s a lot of good competition out there. I knew my music videos would be the very first thing people would experience from the album, and as the saying goes, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!” So I knew I had to set the bar high.
We had lots of Igor’s amazing artwork on hand, so at first I was thinking about making relatively simple “lyric” videos to promote each single. Lyric videos are well within my ability as a non-video-savvy audio geek, but once I started putting together the first ideas, I realized that some live footage would help my videos be more effective. This meant setting up to shoot video at home, which meant learning all about lighting, video-camera settings, live-action focus, title and lyric graphics, and green-screen setups for superimposing footage against backgrounds. Oh, and not to mention: acting!
Once I had the singles chosen, I started working on storyboards for each one. Opposable Thumb — a bouncy three-minute song with wry lyrics and a pop arrangement — seemed like a good first single to present to the world. Proud American, a more serious and sarcastic little ditty, would be the second single — kicking things up a notch and making a statement to introduce the album. These two songs have overlapping themes, so I figured there could be some common visual elements to tie them together. Realizing that it was beyond my ability to shoot all the content for two full videos, I looked into stock-footage libraries to complement clips of me playing and singing. This turned out to be a fun adventure, as there are some incredible collections of stock footage available at very reasonable prices.
With storyboards complete, stock footage chosen, and video tests captured with me playing / singing / goofing around, I started assembling rough cuts of the two music videos. It took me a few tries to get the lighting, focus, positioning, green-screen, and acting elements under control, but after a few weeks I started converging on a pair of rough-cut videos that felt pretty decent to me. Then I realized that half of my self-shot footage for one of the two songs was poorly focused, so I decided to re-shoot that one. It’s challenging to film yourself, all by yourself — especially if you barely know what you’re doing in the first place!
Nevertheless, after a few more weeks of editing and fine-tuning, I had two music videos that combined live green-screen footage with fun backgrounds, interspersed with cool stock footage to tell each song’s “story” and lyrics to drive home the message. But something felt wrong. Eventually, it occurred to me that with all the live and stock footage telling each song’s story, the lyrics were distracting and made the videos feel cluttered and messy. So I made a copy of each video project, turned off the lyrics, et voilà — much better! Lesson learned: Lyric videos are an art form unto themselves, and need to be conceived as special productions right from the get-go. We might come back to this topic in a future post, as I have ideas for a third music video produced in a lyric style!
As icing on the cake, I tried a few of my video-editing app’s special effects to create bold “scene changes” and other unique moments in each music video, and by the end of May the first two videos were complete.
By the time you read this, you will (hopefully) have seen both the Opposable Thumb and Proud American music videos — and portions of my preceding prattle might actually make some sense!
As the famous Italian film director Arturo Domingo would say:
“And . . . a-h’action!”
-Pawlie.
Lights…
Compact LED panels made lighting pretty easy, once I figured out how to get the white balance setting into the ballpark. The inexpensive panels I picked up for the project have two types of LEDs, white and yellow, separately adjustable. Our studio has some natural light, so camera settings varied day-to-day. Bottom line: Getting the lighting right for video is tricky!
…Camera…
I don’t have a true video camera, so I decided to try out the video mode on my trusty Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR. This would allow me to use my existing Canon lenses, and hopefully achieve good quality — once I figured out a few critical things that are different for video compared with static photography!
It took some time to dial in the best white balance, exposure, aperture, framing, and lighting. And of course I had to do all of this while performing at the same time! I bought a small LCD display so I could see myself in the frame, and a video head for my tripod so that framing adjusments were easier.
In the end, it took a lot of testing to get everything sussed, but with advice from some kind, video-savvy friends, I was able to climb the learning curve.
…Green Screen…
Since I wanted to superimpose live footage over static and dynamic backgrounds, I needed a green screen. This colored backdrop allows the editing system to perform “chroma keying” and isolate the subject so he/she can be overlaid against a background in post-production. I learned that it’s important to evenly light the screen, and to maintain at least 5-6 feet between screen and subject.
Now it was time for me to perform!
…action!
I’m not an actor! But it was great fun hamming it up in front of the camera for these first two music videos. Since each storyboard combined stock footage with my live footage, I was able to do mutliple takes and cherry-pick without too much struggle. I now have a real appreciation for folks who make a living in front of the camera!
Wardrobe
For Opposable Thumb, I kept it simple. For Proud American, I wanted to raise the bar and incorporate a few wardrobe changes to help convey the message. I ended up using three combinations: simple black + red, Hawaiian blue + white, and a suit + tie for two shots.
More Wardrobe!
Breaking the Proud American shoot into three parts seemed pretty straightforward once I had the wardrobe elements chosen. But working by myself, it was a real juggling act to handle wardrobe, camera, and lighting — then get in the groove for the performances. It was harder than expected, but really good fun!
Post-Production
Once shooting was complete and stock footage finalized, it was time to put all the pieces together. I used Apple’s iMovie for editing, green-screen overlays, titling, and transitions. Since I’m not a real video guy, it took a long time and lots of iterations, but I got the job done. I hope you get a kick out of the results!