10 Steps to success!

Here are the ten steps to success to making an A level music video:

1.  Research: Research what you're making! Researching not only means just watch your favorite music videos but it means having a look at a vary of different music videos even if its not your style of music and analyse what you see and why you think the makes of the video have made that particular video for that song. Obviously, a student video will never be like a real life music video just because of the fact that we wouldn't have a large budget of thousands of pounds. So ideally plenty of research about what kind of videos your wanting to produce, examples, the convention of the different genre you're wanting to produce such as doing a stage performance or dance routines etc.
2. Groups: Who you decide to work with when producing your music video is essential as sometimes you can work with your friends and it works great as you have the same ideas and visions where you want to go, however sometimes its isn't the best idea to work with friends because you might be more interested in having fun then getting the work done. Make sure when you begin working together that you swap phone numbers, be organised, set yourselves deadlines so you can give yourself a specific time when filming needs to start, finish and when the overall product must be in for and leave time at the end in case you need to fix any editing or shoot any extra scenes.
3. Choosing a track: When producing the music video to a song the first thing you have to figure out is what song you're making the video for. Being professional you don't have to like the music that you're using it would be easier if you chose a song which you don't know and doesn't have a music video so you don't have anything to compare to. Also when picking a song think not of a song that you like but locations, performers, shots you could use. Some people use shots of local bands but that can be risky and some people use instruments that can be seen as a 'cop-out' with means people use it because they don't have enough footage to fill the song.
4. The Pitch:The pitch is simple as its a page of ideas you have planned on doing for your music video, what locations you're gonna use, mise-en-scene, lighting, time of day for filming etc. This should create an image of what you want your final production to be like.
5. Look at previous work: As well as looking at professional work also have a look at previous years work that are similar to your vision. When looking at the work you should see some ideas that could be useful in your own video but it can also tell you what to avoid such as...

• Well-known songs
• Over done effects- Don't use effects to hide bad footage 
• Aimless driving around
• Scenes involving drugs, alcohol, fags etc
• Shots of people walking around aimlessly
• Speed-up film footage or reversed footage to cover lack of material
• Zooms
• Found footage- it should be your own material
• Atmosphere-less stage footage
• Over the top stories

    6.Planning & shooting: Time scale! The music industry is very fast past environment as working can be as few as 6 weeks and then you've finished looking for another gig. This means that you should try and spend as much needed time on planning and get filming done as quick as you can to leave plenty of time for editing. During planning you should defiantly storyboard as much as possible of your video to have plenty of planning so during editing you have enough footage and even more. During shooting make sure that you are prepared have your camera bring extra batteries in case they die during shooting, also make sure that the mise-en-scene is how you want it don't just settle!

      7.Editing: When uploading your footage from the camera don't do it all at once this will one slow down the uploading process as the computer may freeze and it may be too much to handle. After you've uploaded the first segment of clips start working on it while uploading more clips so you are using your time wisely and not wasting it (this is another good reason to upload in bits).

Use effects sparingly, we don't want to see hundreds of different clips planning in one every clip playing then reversing different filters of every clip. A little is a lot! Use a small quantity of effects through out the piece this keep your video concise and consecutive this makes your project more professional and an overall better looking video.

The hardest part of this project during editing is trying to sync the music and your lip-syncing so make sure you spend a lot of time making this perfect. For final editing check that lighting is continuous throughout and that your sound is good quality.

       8. Screening and feedback: When you first create your video and feel like there's nothing left to do you should have a chance to get feedback from your classmates or teachers as there's a chance that while you've been looking at it for hours you've missed something obvious which could help your piece become even better. Let people ask questions if you don't know the answer about your own work then there's something missing. Remember, all feedback is good feedback!

         9.Writing: When explaining what you've done and how you've done it don't ramble on blaming on equipment or actors. You should cover the whole process, use technical language, include feedback and how you've acted upon it. Make sure you compare to other videos of the same genre and include a textual analysis of your own video.

        10. Marking: This is for the teachers!