Music video pre-production planning
1) Music video treatment
You may already have a finished music video treatment from your summer project and/or preliminary exercise - definitely use or develop that if it works with your project.
However, you may need to update your treatment or even change it completely now you have finished your preliminary exercise. The original example from the summer for music video treatments can be found here.
2) Mise-en-scene planning
Plan everything that will appear in front of the camera in your music video - and this is vital when it comes to music video and music genre.
Remember CLAMPS: Costume, Lighting, Actors (cast, placement, movement, expression), Make-up, Props, Setting.
Costume
What will your artist wear? What other costumes will be required? What is the costume supposed to communicate to the audience? How does this link to genre or constructing representations?
My artist is going to be wearing casual clothing in all of the scenes such as jeans, hoodies etc.
Lighting
How will you light the different scenes in your music video? Day or night? Interior or exterior? If outside, can you use streetlights, shadows, reflected sunlight or other creative techniques to achieve the lighting style you want? If inside, experiment with creative lighting techniques using windows, blinds, artificial lights, phone flashes, ring lights and more. You may also want to use our professional lighting set-up with a white or greenscreen background depending on how you plan to conduct the interviews.
Actors/performers
The first thing you need to plan is your cast - who will be in your production? The key casting is obviously your artist but you may have other characters too. Try and cast people who are reasonably similar to the character or performer they are playing (both in age and personality). Next, plan their placement and movement in key scenes - how will the audience get to know them? How do you plan to position the audience to connect with your artist?
-I will include my friends and family as my actors in my music video
-Lorde, Ribs
-Saturn, Ribs
Scene 1: -Walking in closeup of shoes
Scene 1: -Walking in closeup of shoes
-Footwear brand
-Lowkey lighting
Scene 2: -In her bedroom
-Reading a book at night with a warm light, lamp
Scene 3: -New location walking with friends
-Potentially in a field
Scene 4: -Repeats lyrics so will repeat scene
-Same location with a notebook and pen
-Candle burning for low-key lighting
Scene 5: -Artist in her bed on her phone
-Candle by her bed
Scene 6: -Friends walking down road at night
Scene 7: -Swaps to artist on her phone receiving text message
-Swaps again to her writing lyrics in her notebook
Scene 8: -Add clips and pictures when the song claps
-At the same time still singing
Scene 9: -Faster verse friends all together
Scene 9: -Faster verse friends all together
-Laughing, having fun, playing games
Scene 10: Me and two other friends recording these lyrics when it echoes onto the same lyric again
Scene 11: -Add clips already filmed as a montage
Scene 10: Me and two other friends recording these lyrics when it echoes onto the same lyric again
Scene 11: -Add clips already filmed as a montage
-Mimics tiktok videos which references the digital age
However, you may need to update your treatment or even change it completely now you have finished your preliminary exercise. The original example from the summer for music video treatments can be found here.
2) Mise-en-scene planning
Plan everything that will appear in front of the camera in your music video - and this is vital when it comes to music video and music genre.
Remember CLAMPS: Costume, Lighting, Actors (cast, placement, movement, expression), Make-up, Props, Setting.
Costume
What will your artist wear? What other costumes will be required? What is the costume supposed to communicate to the audience? How does this link to genre or constructing representations?
My artist is going to be wearing casual clothing in all of the scenes such as jeans, hoodies etc.
Lighting
How will you light the different scenes in your music video? Day or night? Interior or exterior? If outside, can you use streetlights, shadows, reflected sunlight or other creative techniques to achieve the lighting style you want? If inside, experiment with creative lighting techniques using windows, blinds, artificial lights, phone flashes, ring lights and more. You may also want to use our professional lighting set-up with a white or greenscreen background depending on how you plan to conduct the interviews.
-I will include both day and night scenes so lowkey and highkey lighting
-I will also shoot inside and outside as well
-I plan on using street lights for one of my shots
-For inside, I used a candle for some ambient lighting
Actors/performers
The first thing you need to plan is your cast - who will be in your production? The key casting is obviously your artist but you may have other characters too. Try and cast people who are reasonably similar to the character or performer they are playing (both in age and personality). Next, plan their placement and movement in key scenes - how will the audience get to know them? How do you plan to position the audience to connect with your artist?
-I will include my friends and family as my actors in my music video
-I just plan to position my actors very casually. I want them to do their own thing so that I can film it looking natural.
Make-up
Plan any make-up you require - this can be very important for music video.
-Natural, everyday makeup. I don't want any bright/graphic makeup as it won't really match my theme. Most of my costumes are casual clothing so I need makeup that matches that.
Props
What props will you require? Remember, you can't use anything that might resemble a weapon in a public or school location (this is VERY important). Well-planned props can help to communicate genre and narrative quickly - vital in a music video where you can't use dialogue.
-I don't plan on having too many props. I will probably use props like candles, phones, drinks, guitars etc.
Setting
This should already be largely planned using your music video treatment. However, now is the time to specify exact locations. For external locations, try and take pictures of settings or use Google Maps and Google Earth. Spending quality time planning your locations can make a huge difference to the professionalism of your production. AQA also seem to prefer external rather than school-based locations - particularly for a brief like this.
-One of my first locations is a dimly lit bedroom where the artist will be on her bed and on her desk for a scene.
Make-up
Plan any make-up you require - this can be very important for music video.
-Natural, everyday makeup. I don't want any bright/graphic makeup as it won't really match my theme. Most of my costumes are casual clothing so I need makeup that matches that.
Props
What props will you require? Remember, you can't use anything that might resemble a weapon in a public or school location (this is VERY important). Well-planned props can help to communicate genre and narrative quickly - vital in a music video where you can't use dialogue.
-I don't plan on having too many props. I will probably use props like candles, phones, drinks, guitars etc.
Setting
This should already be largely planned using your music video treatment. However, now is the time to specify exact locations. For external locations, try and take pictures of settings or use Google Maps and Google Earth. Spending quality time planning your locations can make a huge difference to the professionalism of your production. AQA also seem to prefer external rather than school-based locations - particularly for a brief like this.
-One of my first locations is a dimly lit bedroom where the artist will be on her bed and on her desk for a scene.
-Another location is going to be London both day time and night time. I would specifically want to film during Christmas with all the lights.
-My third location will be a field either Northala or a flowery one.
3) Shot list
The final aspect of your pre-production planning is to write a comprehensive shot list for every single possible shot you plan to film for your music video. For three minutes of music video, that is going to be a LOT of shots - quite possibly more than 200.
Remember, a shot list is a full list of all the shots in your video with information for each of them (shot type, action/movement etc.) Creative shot choices aside, it’s easy to forget that a shot list is a strategic document. Creating a shot list is essentially like creating a shooting game plan for the day.
Your shot list needs to contain EVERY shot you plan to film for your whole music video AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. Cutaways are important as music videos generally have fast-paced editing so you'll need a LOT of shots.
We advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word or Google Docs to set out your shot list - you can find an example from a short film here. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the promo video in chronological order.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_d0wu38S5i8ycZO_vrF0MsLsH8riiW2UEW4VY7WSSG8/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0
3) Shooting schedule
See our separate post on filming for this.
The final aspect of your pre-production planning is to write a comprehensive shot list for every single possible shot you plan to film for your music video. For three minutes of music video, that is going to be a LOT of shots - quite possibly more than 200.
Remember, a shot list is a full list of all the shots in your video with information for each of them (shot type, action/movement etc.) Creative shot choices aside, it’s easy to forget that a shot list is a strategic document. Creating a shot list is essentially like creating a shooting game plan for the day.
Your shot list needs to contain EVERY shot you plan to film for your whole music video AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. Cutaways are important as music videos generally have fast-paced editing so you'll need a LOT of shots.
We advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word or Google Docs to set out your shot list - you can find an example from a short film here. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the promo video in chronological order.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_d0wu38S5i8ycZO_vrF0MsLsH8riiW2UEW4VY7WSSG8/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0
3) Shooting schedule
See our separate post on filming for this.
-Shoot in London when the Christmas lights come on: mid Nov-Dec
-Shoot in a field during sunset hour on a sunny day
-Shoot during media trip on Wednesday: 13th Nov
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