As
I've been remembering and looking up music videos, I found something that I
loved.
One
of the songs on No Country for Old Musicians is "37", about
monsters coming to take James away for their own band. I already had in mind an
idea of how the video should look, which would be James surrounded by
Muppet-type monsters swaying back and forth on the chorus. I don't know what
they ended up doing, but it appears that a video was filmed, and as a way of
celebrating that Alternative Press filmed this:
Okay,
you would not use this as an official video, but it is delightful on its own. I
feel like Billy basically getting drums has him more relaxed, so it may be an
unfair advantage, but then I enjoy how intense Zach and Cory seem. It's just
fun.
At
this point, I don't think the official video is out yet. Reggie and the Full
Effect is not great at monetization, so I could be missing it. The only video
on the ReggieFullEffectVEVO is "Take Me Home Please". "Get Well Soon"
is on Vagrant Records Channel, the No Country songs are primarily on the
Pure Noise channel, and everything else is kind of randomly posted by fans.
There
is probably a lesson in that, but the reason I bring up the toy performance at
all is because an idea that you would
not think of automatically is magic. There are lots of ways to present songs,
lots of ways to connect with fans, and thinking about the possibilities can be
exciting and full of wonder.
I
keep referencing the unofficial videos because that brings home the point. Yes,
there is a lot of good filmed material and a lot of good recorded music out
there. There are also a lot of people who are passionate about this material.
Even more than that, the technology just keeps getting better.
You
can get good video and audio quality for a much less significant cash investment,
and editing is easier than it ever was. You still want someone with a good eye
and some know-how operating the camera, and you still need a strong vision of
what you want before you start, but there are many things you can do, and it is
not dependent upon budget. Money is no guarantee of quality, and lack of money
is less of an obstacle than it used to be.
One
innovation we touched on with the All-American Rejects "Walk Over Me"
was animation on top of film (do some practice cels before you commit to that)
but there is another option that I think is also worth looking at:
Dark
Horse comics has done some animations based on comic books. Smooth high-quality
animation can be quite expensive, but taking a few pages and slightly altering
them, filming around them, adding some motion, this can work too. And I have an
idea for a video I would like to do for "Disenchanted" whenever I
move past writing and drawing to filming.
Believe
in your band's options. Right now the video I would like to see most is
Farewell My Love's "My Perfect Thing" with footage of the band
performing and being on the road, thus becoming a love song from the band about
being in the band. This is very doable; they tour a lot! Yes, you probably need
to get releases from fans if you include footage of posing with fans, but who
wouldn't sign that?
If
you have a song about political strife, news footage can work, and is often
public domain. If you need animation or a cinematographer, well, bands are full
of artistic people, and it is not uncommon for some musical people to have some
visual aesthetic sense as well. Believe in the possibilities.
So,
yes, I am very optimistic about the ability to do great things when marrying
music and video, and hold on to that, because next week will be about the trite
and horrible.
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