a music video being filmed

Cassandra, the main character in The Rock Star’s Wife series, travels to California in Rock Star Mom to watch Nat and Dramatic Sneezer film a music video.  While I won’t give away what happens, I will tell you that they have a great time.

Music videos are both a creative outlet and a marketing tool.  They also are YouTube’s most watched content, and they sometimes are how fans discover bands and solo artists.

“Music videos are an essential outlet for artists and musicians alike, acting as a platform for cross-promotion and rampant creativity,” Rey Film says.  “They are also a fresh breeding ground for innovation, given their liberation from the constraints of realist narrative cinema—often ditching elements like continuity, rationalist lighting, and even, often, photographic representation. Allowing for special effects, cinematographic oddities and whacky ideas to run amok, inspiring millions in their wake.”

How Music Videos are Made

music video on laptop screen

The average music video takes from 2 hours to 10 hours to shoot, edit, and finish per minute of a song

The average music video takes from 2 hours to 10 hours to shoot, edit, and finish per minute of a song.  Like movies and televisions shows, music videos have directors and professional camera, light and sound people.  They may include actors, the band members, or a combo.

Before filming, the director and/or the band will create a storyboard, a sequence of drawings representing the planned shots.  The film schedule is based on the storyboard.  Videos can be completely original material, a performance shot during a concert, a staged performance where the band pretends to perform (this allows the band’s movements to be synced with the audio track), stock footage or a combination.  The focus should be on originality and keeping within a budget.

“You can never have too much footage, and the re-take may capture something that you hadn’t noticed the first time around,” LiveAboutDotCom says.

Once filming is complete, the video must be edited to complement the music.  During this process, the band will be sent a draft for feedback.  After editing completes, the video is ready for distribution by the artists or their record label.

The Top Music Videos

Camera man recording guitarist

Music videos are both a creative outlet and a marketing tool

In 2021, in honor of 40th anniversary of MTV’s and music videos’ television premiere, Rolling Stone ranked what its editors consider the best 100 videos of all time.

The “picks are perfect examples of how pairing sound and vision created an entire artistic vocabulary, gave us a handful of miniature-movie masterpieces, and changed how we heard (and saw) music,” the magazine explains.

The top 10 are:

  1. Beyoncé, “Formation”
  2. Johnny Cash, “Hurt”
  3. Madonna, “Vogue”
  4. Childish Gambino, “This Is America”
  5. New Order, “The Perfect Kiss”
  6. Beastie Boys, “Sabotage”
  7. D’Angelo, “Untitled (How Does It Feel?)”
  8. Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer”
  9. Guns N’ Roses, “November Rain”
  10. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”

Here’s the 4-1-1

This blog is a companion piece to Rock Star Mom available in eBook, paperback and hardcover.  The fourth installment in the Rock Star’s Wife series follows Cassie through her unglamorous daily life in the Chicago suburbs, as she struggles to balance raising a family with the pursuit of her long-held aspirations. Buy now.

To listen to the songs mentioned in The Rock Star’s Wife series, follow The Rock Star’s Wife on Spotify.

For more information on the licenses mentioned on this page, visit https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/.

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