Develope Existing Ideas

[musicthom]

Having a look at some of the work i have done with the band one of the ways i looked at was making short videos to promote the songs, not having an endless pot of funds was my first hurdle but no way was i letting that stop me

i am placing 3 videos up for feedback and maby some ideas how to develop them more

Video 1 Soul on fire:

This was recorded by a friend who was looking for a band to do some work with for a University project, lucky enough for us it was free exept for the hire of the rehersal studio

Video 2 Take control :

This was my 2nd try at making a video, using my mobile phone and widows movie maker i found this easy if not a little time consumming as i had to convert them to avi first, again having to use an online converter

Video 3 All our yesterdays :

Again the use of a small kodak camera and a mobile phone

So how do we develop or even promote them more ?

How do we get better quality without spending a fortune ?

[Prometheus]

I think the video you for all Our Yesterdays, is much better than the Take Control video. I think the video for Soul On Fire is really good the way it is, I thought that video really caught the vibe of a Scottish working band perfectly.

Incidentally, I think your songs are excellent as well. They have that kind of uplifting good time rock and roll / pop feeling that you got from bands like Del Amitri.

The problem I had with the Take Control video was that it was too abstract and I thought that there was far too much camera panning and effects used on it. I think these kinds of effects and pans are far more effective when used in moderation. I kinda got the feeling that video would have been more at home over some '70's Acid Jazz Prog music or something.

[musicthom]

I think the video you for all Our Yesterdays, is much better than the Take Control video. I think the video for Soul On Fire is really good the way it is, I thought that video really caught the vibe of a Scottish working band perfectly.

Incidentally, I think your songs are excellent as well. They have that kind of uplifting good time rock and roll / pop feeling that you got from bands like Del Amitri.

The problem I had with the Take Control video was that it was too abstract and I thought that there was far too much camera panning and effects used on it. I think these kinds of effects and pans are far more effective when used in moderation. I kinda got the feeling that video would have been more at home over some '70's Acid Jazz Prog music or something.

Thanks for taking a look, I had made Take Control prior to All our yesterdays and you are correct on the types of effects use some folk like it others don't , and i was a little heavy handed with the effects but it was a valuble learning curve

one thing although it takes some time to convert, edit, sync, and generally try and sort the whole set of clips out i like doing it, with some proper equipment and editing software anything is possable

Edited January 10, 2010 by musicthom

[john]

Hey Thom

Thanks for posting these up for critique. Might have been better to keep them as separate posts.

I think music videos should be like songs: have a theme, message, chorus etc in terms of the visuals, effects and action. In general I didn't think your videos had all that in place... but the biggest thing for me is timing. making scenes and transitions change in sync with the music, particularly in regard to the transitions between song sections.

The effects have been used somewhat randomly with little thought to using effects, or shots in sync with the song or the song lyrics. I think if you can work on timing and thinking of the video just like a visual version of the song your videos would improve greatly.

Like Prom i think the songs are great, and you can hear and see a real progression in what you are doing.... alas there is always another level of detail when you introduce a new media or new product!

Cheers

john

[musicthom]

It is defenately food for thought i wuld love to say they were ment to be random but thats not true to be honest i just pasted together what i had available

The idea of having some sort of plan of attack is imperative

a storyline would be good a simple sit down and think about the song and what images could be used to show what is being sung, with a vast interest in viral videos on youtube it needs to be somthing special to ddraw attention to it

need to get my thinking cap on for my next project but as i said its all valable learning

[john]

why not devlop the ideas on the boards, in terms of the viral aspect?

[Prometheus]

Thanks for taking a look, I had made Take Control prior to All our yesterdays and you are correct on the types of effects use some folk like it others don't , and i was a little heavy handed with the effects but it was a valuble learning curve

one thing although it takes some time to convert, edit, sync, and generally try and sort the whole set of clips out i like doing it, with some proper equipment and editing software anything is possable

Absolutely. Learning is the name of the game. One of the best ways I've found of learning was to watch a lot of music videos from the past and present day and steal steal steal... The good thing is, if you're putting stuff up on youtube it really doesn't have to be HD or Blueray or anything like that.

I was lucky that the capture card I bought for the PC came with Ulead VideoStudio 7.0, which is quite a powerful package... It does good crossfades and it can be used to take control of gamma, colour, brightness and contrast as well as having a number of nice psychedelic effects and old school film plugins and stuff like that.

[musicthom]

why not devlop the ideas on the boards, in terms of the viral aspect?

this is a very interesting subject i recently watched a program on this subject, most of the videos had somthing unique about them so i guess point 1 is it has to be different

anyone else wanna throw somthing in the pot ?

[john]

Well I think we are dealing with 3 things, creating video, creating viral content, and creating viral videos. You might create a video to be viral (think Kylie launching her underwear, she did a video wearing stockings riding a bucking bronco) but band promo videos are an art in their own right. Thinking about the viral aspect i think we should do that in a topic in the business board as it is more related to that... if you then decide to create a viral video (as opposed to a flash cartoon or a game or even a picture or sound clip) then we could bring that specific idea into this board and develop it.... I'll start a topic on general viral content where we can discuss concepts etc. We can then create topics to work up specific ideas, and where necessary bring those ideas into this board..