How are music videos made?

Since I am doing a music video, it made sense to look into how they are usually made. I used this great website for reference. http://www.visualartco.com/music_videos_production.html

Firstly, the artist and music video production company meet and work with each other to define a direction for where the video is supposed to go. The concept will be devised here - whether the artist will be performing to a live audience or by himself, whether there will be a narrative or whether there will just be experimental abstract ideas bouncing off one another. This is where all of that and more will be decided. Then they delve into further details. The kind of narrative, the kind of locations, the look and feel, pacing and colours and much more are discussed.

All of this is called 'music video treatment' and is where the general outline is jotted down.

Next, after the video treatment is approved - storyboards are usually created. They give everyone involved in the production get a good feel and understanding of what is going to happen in the music video. Here, the production company and artist might trade input back and forth over what looks right for the direction of the music video, so ideas are still bounced around in this stage of production. This helps everyone in the team, as the website says, 'Having a visual reference of what is being filmed and how it will flow when cut helps everyone work towards a common, organized goal'.

After the storyboards have been created, casting is put in place - this is where actors are hired to be cast as the charaters in the music video (if there are any). If the artist is performing by himself in the video, actors aren't all that necessary but this is rare. It is important when there is a more complex storytelling direction to cast actors who are able to play the role in ways which is representative of the tone and mood that is required in the 'treatment'.

The next stage is location scouting. When you are filming outside of a controlled studio, location scouting needs to be taken as a pre-production step. The directors and photographers and sometimes lighting technicians take part in this step. The right location needs to be chosen for there to be proper access to light that suits the video, whether it be in a house or in the woods - they're all filming locations and need to be scouted.

Next is the filming... no explanation really needed.

Editing and post production is next. The editing is always the most important step of post production - there wouldn't be anything for you to watch otherwise besides a bunch of possibly unrelated clips - most full of bloopers. It all takes a very long time thanks to the amount of cuts that typically need to be done in a music video. After the timeline is complete, colour correction is sometimes necessary to make sure that selected shots don't 'exceed the limits set by broadcasting standards'. Then, effects and transitions are put in to add a bit of extra spark and emphasise meanings and do all kinds of stuff, really.

Production insurance - Equipment can be lost and damaged and dangerous stunts can be performed in a music video, so it is mandatory for the company doing the production to provide insurance to cover for those potential issues.

Lastly there is the mastering. The production needs to be 'flattened' into a format that can be distributed across many platforms such as DVD or 'Betacam SP' (I'm not sure if these are still relevant).

This has been an important research task because I wasn't otherwise going to do the 'location scouting' step, so it has been useful to my production.

Frankmusik - Behind the Scenes at Confusion Girl on MUZU.TV.