Digital SLR Video and Filmmaking For Dummies

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Ten Steps to Creating a Music Video

In This Chapter

Finding the right song

Planning the video

Discovering the structure of a music video

Back in the early days of cinema, music gave dimension to the silent film by cueing the audience to certain moods. The music played faster when a train approached or changed tempos to help depict a scene, and that compensated for the lack of dialogue. And the music came from a guy at an upright piano playing live in the theater, proving that music has gotten much more portable over the years.

All kidding aside, it seems fitting that video returns the favor by making the songs a bit easier to understand. Think of a music video as miniature feature-length film that has an avant-garde slant.

You can thank MTV for changing the landscape in 1981 with the launch of its 24-hour music video channel. They ushered in a new era with the ironic clip for “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Since then, reality television has become the network’s focus, but it didn’t kill the music video. It’s still alive and well all over the Internet.

Since emerging ...