Licensing Your Music

Licensing is a great way to make money by placing your songs in film, TV, commercials and video games. This article explains what licensing is and how it works so that you can join the legions of music artists who are enjoying additional income from having their music licensed.

What is licensing?

Licensing means granting permission for the use of one's music to which you own the copyright.

Certainly the goal of an artist who writes their own music (a la the copyright owner) is to maximize the revenues generated by the musical composition.

When you license the use of your song, say in a TV show, you not only get a fee for the use of the license, but it gives the song and the artist greater exposure to the listening public, which can increase one's fame and fortune. The use of music in the TV program, "The OC," has launched the careers of several previously unknown independent artists, Rooney, in particular.

Before we dive into how to get your music licensed, we need to go over some terms that are commonly used with licensing.

Copyrights

Be sure to file a completed copyright form along with a copy of the music with the US Copyright office before attempting to license your songs.

You can find the forms and instructions at www.copyright.gov. There are two copyrights for a song; a copyright for the sound recording (Form SR) and a copyright for the underlying song (Form PA). For our purposes here, let's clarify that we are talking about licensing original music of an Independent Artist who is not signed to a label or a publishing company and who owns both these copyrights.

Publishing

Publishing is one of the most complex parts of the music business and yet it can be the most lucrative area of income for musicians. Music publishing is the owning and exploiting of musical copyrights. A song is made up of two equal shares: the writer's share and the publisher's share. Songwriters affiliate with Publishers because their main job is to commercially exploit (increase use and value of) songs. Most independent artists/musicians are their own publisher, and therefore own 100% share of the song. If that is you, then this is why you want to get educated on how to pursue licensing for your music.

Licenses

The license for use of the sound recording is called theMaster Use License. The license for the underlying song is called the Synchronization License (aka synch license), used when a musical work is synchronized in time with visual images, either background, theme or feature use in TV shows and Film.

Now we know the basic terms...time to learn what to do next.

Do your research by watching existing TV programs and write down every show you think your songs would fit into. From TV programs including reality TV, types of scenes in movies, video games, and commercials. Learn to think and listen visually; everything visual has a potential sound accompaniment.

Music & Presentation

What you will send will be a CD of your music with the track listing and contact information on both the CD case and the CD label, and a great cover letter indicating the genre, maybe who you sound similar to and which production would fit the music. Do not send a bio, reviews, photo or any extraneous paper because the music is what is being considered, so the rest will just be thrown away and not strengthen your case.

Research & Relationships (DIY licensing)

This side of the business is like all the others, driven by relationships. Start networking and reaching out with purposeful letters, calls or emails to those in the film and TV industry.

A really good start for the Independent Artist is to work with college students who are working on independent films. Although there will most likely be too low of a budget to pay you, you can begin building your resume/reel of having your music placed.

Next, begin researching who the music supervisors are on the programs you seek. Check credits in TV shows and movies. Go to film festivals and conventions such as The Film & TV Music Conference that music supervisors attend and meet them. Other sources to locate them are "The Film & Television Music Guide" (www.musicregistry.com) where you can find contact information for Music Supervisors and Music Publishers specializing in film and TV placement. You can also get leads by reading trade magazines like "Hollywood Reporter" and "Variety."

The Music Supervisor

Music Supervisors are constantly looking for music of independent artists who release their own CDs. Independent artists are willing to negotiate for a lesser amount (with the risk that a TV show may not even survive the season, music supervisors try to keep costs down) and can create new music without having to get permission from a label or have a label delay the time sensitive process.

If you are a fan of a particular show and your music seems to you that it would be perfect, send a letter to the musical supervisor and let them know you are a fan and you have a song that you believe will work for the show & tell them which situation/ mood it would be best for.

The better you know the business of licensing and the terms used, the more likelihood for establishing a relationship with a music supervisor who finds you easy to work with and that, along with your obvious talent, can build a lasting alliance. An insider tip from a music supervisor told me if you
write "all sync & master controlled" or "pre-cleared" on the CD label and CD case, that they will know immediately your music is ready for use which is invaluable to them when time is an issue and that alone can help your song beat out another's.

Negotiation & Getting paid

They want your song! Now what? A good idea when first licensing your music is to have a manager or attorney or someone who really understands licensing to help you evaluate the deal for use of your music. Things to be considered are intent of use, scope, and fee. Once there is a verbal agreement, make sure to get it in writing as well.

It is important not to devalue the song by licensing it for whatever a user offers. But also be aware that music supervisors may let you know their budget constraints give them no room for negotiation; that's when you determine if the exposure is going to make the deal worthwhile. Think of unknown group, A3, placing their song "Got Yourself a Gun" in the then un-known HBO pilot, "The Sopranos."

Walk away from any deal that asks for 1. your publishing 2. exclusive rights to your songs 3. your music in any way they want and for any length they want.

Good Songs in the Right place

There will always be a demand for good songs and music is used in every visual platform, so you, the artist/musician/ songwriter, have a great opportunity to make money in this business through licensing. Continue to educate yourself about publishing & licensing, continue to nurture relationships with people who place music, and continue to write and record fantastic songs.

Law of Attraction - Make Problems Visualizing A Thing of The Past

The law of attraction states that you become what you think about most. Whatever situation you may be in, you have the power to achieve what you want in life.

One of the critical steps to the Law of Attraction revealed by The Secret movie is visualizing exactly what you want in your life. All of the experts agreed that the more precise you visualize, the better the Law of Attraction works.

But the opposite is true as well. The less you visualize, the less noticeable are the results in your life. This is even worse for 95% of the population, who are unable to visualize exactly what they want, the Law of Attraction can give them the opposite of what they desire and they never see the results they want.

What if you are one of the normal folks, who simply cannot visualize effectively? Are you doomed and should resign to your fate?

Fear not. This article reveals two simple visualization tools that you can easily be applied to achieve massive results in your life: -

(1) Vision Board

A Vision Board is a collage of pictures of the goals and dreams you want to attract in your life. In creating your vision board, I recommend that you
- Use the exact image of what you want to attract (For example, what is the brand, the model, the color of the car you want)
- Paste only the images of what you want to attract (you are not going to paste every pictures you can lay your hands on. You must have every intention to have the things you want to paste on your vision board.
- Look at your vision board at least once per day.

(2) Listen to brainwave enhancement music

The brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, which communicate with each other using electrical signals. When these neurons send signals at once, they produce a large amount of electrical activity called brainwave pattern.

Over the past 50 years, brain researchers have been studying the effect of brain waves on behavior. The speed of a brainwave is called a frequency, which is measured in hertz.

Brainwaves can be divided broadly into 4 categories

Beta (15 to 38Hz): Awake and Alert

Alpha (8-12 Hz): Relaxed and Creative

Theta (3-8 Hz): Deep meditative state

Delta (0.2Hz - 3 Hz): Asleep

Researchers have disclosed that mid beta brainwave frequencies is ideal in creating a super focus mental state and create visualization.

Brainwave enhancement music is created and scientifically proven to help people to visualize more effectively. You will just need to plug and tune in your brainwaves to the correct bandwidth so your visualization can be unleashed to soar and bring into your life exactly what you want. For people who have a hard time trying to visualize, let the brainwave enhancement music do the job for you. You just need to focus on putting the correct feelings so that you can magnify the results from applying law of attraction.

The above steps will work if you sincerely want to achieve success in your life. It does not matter if your goal is financial or personal change, your brain will automatically program you for success if this is what you truly desire.

Success waits for no one but rewards the person who takes decisive action. If you have not been able to visualize effectively, what could be more important than you taking advantage of the above 2 simple steps to move ahead in your life

Canonizing the Musical Expression with Video-jockeying!

The enigma of interweaving visual aesthetics to the tunes of a sonic ambience has reached pinnacles of success through Video Jockeying over the last decade. This new genre of culmination of art and technology, planning and spontaneity, imagination and visualization, found its roots in 1966 when Andy Warhol hosted a 'Happening' in New York's New Cinematheque. On that day, for the first time, Warhol projected silent excerpts of his own films to live music played by The Velvet Underground. The trend snowballed with improvisations by Pink Floyd and integration of laser lights by Jean-Michel Jarre. Live music shows were now becoming a scintillating experience with computer graphics and psychedelic affects, juxtaposing frames from different modes of media (films, newspaper, documentaries and magazines). By the early-mid 1980s, every pop album had to be accompanied with a music video to make it to the charts! MTV was born due to the overwhelming number of music videos produced. The term 'VJ' was coined to tag the MTV host, a metamorphosis from a DJ. Over the years, with the wide popularity of this transposition, VJ no longer meant the MTV announcer, but a visual affect choreographer, remixer, producer and performer!

In addition to the creative acumen of the new genre of VJs, technology provided a host of devices/tools to popularize this imaginative form of art. Hallucinogenic experiences were created with the advent of digital imagery, audio-visualizer software and analogue/digital video mixers. Other popular hardware in the VJ's arsenal include the Edirol V4, Pansonic MX & AVE series mixers and Korg's Entrancer effects unit. The Edirol V4 is a 4-channel Video Mixer made for portable or fixed installation use. It is ideal for use in nightclubs, places of worship, theatres, and other live performances. With an enhanced V-LINK feature coupled for the multimedia geeks, the user can trigger clips, and perform real-time video effects and transitions. The Korg PAD entrancer is a completely new type of video effect processor with a touch panel for fingertip control over images and sounds. A wide new range of intuitive visual effects may be created by different motions of the finger over the pad. It can even record the movement of your finger allowing the facility to reproduce complex authentic visual effects very easily. The Chromascope video synthesizer creates abstract 2-dimensional automated colored patterns in full PAL resolution. The Pioneer DVJ-X1 is one of the latest inclusions in a VJ's kit, empowering him to synchronize digital audio and video simultaneously to create an elite musical expression. This device made its debut in spring 2004.

Vjamm, Motiondive, Arkaos, Touch and Smode are some of the trendiest software tools available to create the mesmerizing video affects, where the VJ's creativity has no limits! VJamm, the audio-visual VJ software is a realtime sample player featuring extremely fast response times with MIDI support and 16 simultaneous channels of AV with live effects. Clips can be dragged real-time with the clicks of a mouse for imaginative compositions. The tool also allows creation of personal effects and is compatible with any video cards, limited only by the graphic card's performance. Smode Studio is another complete performance solution for an excellent VJ performance allowing real-time visual composition with 3D objects, pictures and videos with exquisite detail.

With the proliferation of MTV-genre of music channels and its growing popularity, the young-generation in India has found a new avenue to explore their creativity. As per Aditya Dev Sood, CEO CKS, a user research and interaction design firm, "Veejaying is in fact the new avatar of technology, music and video, a jugalbandi of DJ and VJ".

Astronomy Explained to Audiences Through Music and Photography

When Jose Francisco Salgado was growing up in Puerto Rico and deciding on a career, he was torn between astronomy, music and photography. Today he pursues all three in his role as astronomer with Chicago's Adler Planetarium and his worldwide travels to communicate science through the arts incorporating visual artistry and music.

Dr. Salgado appeared most recently at Wolf Trap Farm Park where the National Symphony Orchestra performed Gustav Holst's "The Planets" in HD to talk about the accompanying film he created from NASA images and other visual resources. The program opened with themes from space-related films to whet appetites for the visual treat accompanying Holst's orchestral suite.

"For the past ten years, I've been combining science and art by using art as a hook to get attention, then adding science through astronomical images and photographs I take of the night sky when visiting places around the world," he said.

Salgado is passionate about astronomy and the idea of presenting it with classical music, so when he was first asked to produce a backdrop for 'The Planets,' he decided to create a film to closely follow the music, rather than merely having a slide show.

To begin, he collected images by space probes, from telescopes on earth and animations based on scientific explorations. Then he listened closely to the music to tell a visual story line in a logical order to match visually what was happening in the music. While he was working on the first movement, he was researching the second and teaching himself video editing.

Following that initial project, Dr. Salgado prepared an astronomical version of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" by creating a virtual gallery and using the paintings as portals into space. He has presented both programs since then with major symphony orchestras in more than 50 concert halls in thirteen countries. Last year, the 400t h anniversary of Galileo, his Science and Symphony orchestral films were named by the International Astronomical Union as a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009).

Not long ago, Dr. Salgado was inspired to view time-lapsed images of the night sky while listening to "Spirit," a song by musician/composer Tom Bailey, formerly of the British pop group Thompson Twins. Bailey was so pleased to learn how well his music suited Salgado's project that he is now composing a work of four movements to accompany a film about the night sky photographed from earth.

The biggest thrill for Salgado is starting with a blank page and interpreting what he is feeling and how the music conveys the visual. For instance, Holst's Jupiter movement is very jolly and reminded him of being on a carousel with a circular motions, so he used photographs from a camera placed above Jupiter to show its satellites in orbit. Then he showed one hemisphere rotating, followed by the other hemisphere.

He is thrilled to hear people coming out of the concerts saying they didn't know Jupiter had so many moons. Once the seed is planted, the next step is up to the viewer to get an astronomy book, visit a planetarium, and watch TV documentaries.

Five Tips For Better Visualization

There is little doubt that one of the best methods of reaching self fulfillment is the use of visualization.  It help bring to life your deepest dreams and desires. The problem is that many people have a hard time visualizing their desires.  Some people even believe that they are unable to visualize. That is simply not true.  Everyone can visualize.  Here is the classic example: Don't think of a pink elephant. Well, you just visualized. There is no way that you did not see a pink elephant. Given that you now realize that visualization is possible, here are a few tips to make your visualizations more effective.

1. Sit properly. Find a comfortable straight backed chair. Sit up straight with your feet flat on the floor and your jaw parallel to the floor. Many people will try to lie down while visualizing. Unfortunately, instead of having a good visualization, you end up with a nice nap. Sit up, it is just too easy to fall asleep if you lie down.
2. Play soft music in the background. My preference is Bach, Mozart or Gregorian chant. This music tends to induce an alpha state of mind which opens the subconscious mind.  Instead of traditional music, you might also use bi-neural beat music (headphones required) or isochronic tone music which are very effective in opening up the subconscious mind.
3. If you are having trouble seeing the images, you might want to set up a wish book.  This is just an album filled with pictures of the objects of your desires. It might be pictures of happy family moments, money, your dream house or car or anything else that you are working toward.  By reviewing this album prior to your visualization session, you might find it easier to see the images during your session.
4. Make the emotional component as strong as possible. You are much more likely to achieve your visualization goals if you can turn it into a burning desire. If you find it difficult to add emotion to your visualizations, you might try an association technique.  Think back the the happiest time that you ever had.  For me it was the birth of my first child. I was laughing and crying at the same time.  To this I add a physical component. In this case, I place my hand over my heart. Now every time I place my hand over my heart, it brings back those original strong emotions.  Now when I am in a visualization session and I feel the emotional component is not strong enough, I simply put my hand over my heart to associate my current visualization with those strong emotions from my past. This has been a very helpful technique for me.
5. Add a physical element to your visualization.  This is really easy and it works well for me.  For example, if the object of my desires is a new Mercedes AMG, I will go outside and sit down in my old car, close my eyes and pretend that I am driving that AMG. It doesn't take long before you feel the wind in your hair, hear the rumble of that V-12 engine and smell the leather of those fine ergonomic seats.  If it were money that were my object, I would run down to the local bank and get a hundred dollar bundle of $1.00 bills.  When you enter your visualization, close your eyes and start counting those $1,000 bills. Smell that new money smell and feel that crisp texture. I admit that when I open my eyes, they still look like ones but not during my visualization.

Do these things every day and be open to the opportunities that will present themselves and your visualizations will become your reality. Thoughts are things and if you keep at it, you are going to see all kinds of opportunities to realize your deepest dreams and goals.

Five Ideas For Using Music Therapeutically With Children Who Have Visual Impairments

I have the opportunity to work with many clients with visual impairments in the public schools. These children often enjoy music as a primary motivator and independently seek out music stimuli in their environment. In my work as a music therapist I am usually asked to find ways to help these children and their teachers use music stimuli more effectively to aid students in making progress on non-musical objectives. Many students who are singularly challenged with visual impairments pursue music in a traditional way as a hobby, leisure skill or career. We all know about the success and talent of people like Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, etc., but how do we use music to connect with those children with multiple disabilities?

Children who have visual impairments or blindness combined with disabilities such as mental retardation, autism, Down and other syndromes present unique challenges for using music therapeutically. Traditional adaptations for learning music as a skill may not work with these children. Many of the children I work with may only be able to learn a very short rhythm or melodic sequence by rote and do not read braille due to cognitive impairments. These children also tend to have more acute sensory defensive behaviors towards objects in the environment. Therefore, I often employ music strategies to address non-musical objectives instead of trying to teach music as a skill.

Here are 5 ideas that can easily be used in the classroom:

1. Use braille for song card titles - I use song cards with a picture and title on the front and the lyrics for the song on the back of the card. These song cards facilitate choice-making since they can be presented in fields of 2 or more. Many children with disabilities have limited braille reading skills, but may be in a pre-braille learning stage. Simply having them feel the raised bumps on the top of a song card provides a concrete step in associating a card with a song. Very simple choices can be facilitated by providing one card for each hand. Some children with sensory defensive tendencies may be motivated to feel the braille while they are singing the song for the chosen song card.

2. Instrument playing for the sensory defensive - I have found a number of unique instruments to be more successful with students who are very sensory defensive to touch and textures. Students who recoil from almost anything else will often explore instruments like the African shekere, a cabasa, an ocean drum, and the guitar. The shekere and cabasa offer beads to feel with the cabasa also providing a cool, metallic feeling. The ocean drum has a gentle vibration that permeates through the smooth surface of the drum head as the drum is tilted slowly from side to side. A live guitar fills the air with sound vibrations and the smooth surface of the wood or the rough strings provide many options to explore as the music is playing. Many of the children I work with will try to strum the guitar strings in an attempt to help a song continue.

3. Movement to music - Spatial awareness is taken for granted by those with sight. Children with disabilities have a much more difficult time learning concepts for left and right, up and down, high and low, etc. Songs that use lyrics linked with memorable melodies can facilitate and motivate students to learn these concepts. I also try to choose music that intrinsically teaches concepts like up and down, or high and low, by using high and low notes for the appropriate actions.

4. Drumming - As I have previously mentioned, drumming can sometimes be very effective with children who are sensory defensive. Paddle drums or larger drums that provide more vibration are often good choices. Paddle drums can be used with mallets or played with your hands. In either situation, the vibrations will be passed through the drum handle to the drummer. Gathering drums are also good choices for drumming. They provide much vibrational feedback and can also be used to facilitate sharing and the idea of personal space when a group of children play on the same gathering drum.

5. Social skills - Most gestures as part of social interaction are visual in nature. Actions such as raising your hand, waving, smiling, hand shaking, etc., are difficult to teach to children who are blind. Action songs are a very good way to practice social gestures in a motivating environment where song lyrics can provide instructions and the rhythm and beat of the music can provide timing and structure to the movements.

Once again, music makes sense to use in a variety of settings with many different types of individuals!

Visual Kei As a Music World Vision

Visual Kei appears to be frequently used in videos and grab audience's attentions. Visual Kei followers are characterised by a rather stunning, although freak appearance of a striking make-up and elaborate costumes, causing a shock effect.

To recall, for instance, Merlyn Manson, who is among few to follow the style in the US. The trend is popular among modern bands, irrespective of rumours, suggesting that the style suffered no popularity in the USA and Europe. The Visual Kei style is peculiar of the tradition to wear relevant make-up and clothing always and everywhere.

The style is credited to have started in Japan in late 80ies through early 90ies as a result of the gothic style's influence. The word "visual" originates from English; the "kei" word is what Japanese name for style. The X-Japan and the Buck-Tick are believed to pose as catalysts of the movement. Their followers, including Luna Sea, Melice Mizer, Glay, L'Arc~en~Ciel, Dir en grey, Pierro are engaged in encouraging boom of Visual Kei media culture.

Each band seeks to vary from a similar one through creating gorgeous and insane images. Though a vast majority of the musicians are male, bend members would often give a priority to make-up and clothing, considered as "feminine", which has nothing to do with their sexual orientation, but a combination of visual gothic elements and Japanese cultural traditions. Which is why Japanese gigs often resemble fascinating theatre performances.

Notably, the ancient Japanese "Kabuki" theatre involved actors, among staff, to play women's parts. Thus, a j-rocker, wearing a lovely pink dress and having his hair styled into violet locks, wrapped around with numerous fillets should cause no astonishment.

Presently, Visual Kei remains as a diverse, ever growing music culture.

Visualization and Relaxation

There are many techniques that use visualization to help people free themselves from anxiety, panic- attacks and other problems of all kinds.

One of them is certainly self-hypnosis, but there is also neuro-linguistic programming that uses visualization. Visualization and imagination are two very important supports to helping people release anxiety and many other not related problems. Meditation often also works with visualization and all of these methods are working towards a relaxation of the body, the mind and the spirit.

In fact, what is most needed is relaxation. People are too tense and once they achieve relaxation, every problem can be solved in an easier way. How can we bring these two techniques together? And how can they support each other?

You can visualize a problem, give it a form and a size. You can also give it a color and other physical aspects. When visualizing in this way, the body gets relaxed on its own and once all physical attributes are given to the problem, it dissolves itself. This is the ideal case. Not every person will be able to do this the first time and on their own. It might be better to give them some input. Anxious people feel safer if they are guided in such a visualization. But they are also surprised by the results they achieve.

Relaxation can be reached with the aid of your mind, but also with soft music. Play new age music that takes you into a state of alertness but with less tension in your muscles. In this state everything seems to be easier. The same results can be achieved with baroque music or music by Mozart. In fact, relaxation and also visualization can be reached by listening to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, by Friedrich Händel, as long as you listen to his adagios, by Antonio Vivaldi and by Telemann. All these composers have written pieces that change from adagios and largos to quicker pieces, but only the adagios or largos can be used for relaxation. Certain pieces by Amadeus Mozart are considered to have a healing effect. They are also used to enhance learning skills.

While relaxing with these pieces of music, the person can visualize their problems and therefore see them no longer as heavy and something that cannot be solved. Music and therefore relaxation together with and visualization, help to overcome almost every problem or at least to find a solution to it. They should be used more often.

Mental Visualization Improves Guitar Playing Skills

If you are intent on becoming a professional guitarist of a great guitar player, you need to learn guitar lessons, practice and visualize. You need to learn and understand the elements and symbols of a guitar tablature to actually make music or follow music with your guitar. In learning all the essential skills in playing the guitar as well as the ways of following the guitar tabs, the next thing that you will do is practice. You need to set aside enough time to put everything that you have learned from the guitar lessons into actual practice. With effective and efficient practice activities, you can perfect a distinct style for your guitar playing. But to actually be into the level of professional guitar players, you have to be more. One way of improving your talent and skills and playing the guitar is by doing visualization.

Visualization or mental visualization allows you to come up with images that will put you in certain circumstances of actual guitar playing or actual guitar performances. As your guitar instructor or music coach tells you how to work the guitar, mental visualization teach you how to work your guitarist attitude. Constantly visualizing the possible settings and possibilities for guitar performances allows you to be prepared of the demands of an actual gig or guitar solo performance or band performance. It is very similar to imagining yourself in certain situations that relate your talent, skills and attitude to the actual performance. Visualization also includes taking notice of every detail of the performance.

Mental visualization in turn brings about assurance and confidence to a guitarist's heart. Soaking through a realistic thought of actual performance events on which you will think of your outfit, the image that you project and the emotions and message that you express through your music will help you feel assured of your talent, appearance and performance on stage. This practice also helps all artist dig deeper emotions which significantly help their interpretation of their music. It allows an artist to internalize the range of emotions and feelings that his music delivers.

Aside from working out your attitude towards your performance, imagining yourself in a performance also helps in memorizing the music that you are going to play. In a way, the effect and advantage of mental visualizations is similar to what you get with an actual practice or performance. It makes your emotions strong; it helps bring out the emotions that will make your music more powerful and alive. Doing mental visualizations basically helps bring out the better musician in you. Mental visualizations bring out the better musicians in all of us.

Video Killed The Radio Star - Making The Music Video

Ever since 1981, the television network MTV has been broadcasting all of the hottest music videos for die-hard music fans to drool over, and all the world to see. In fact, MTV's constant broadcasting of music videos was so popular, that the network even came out with a television show entitled "Making the Video" where fans are chosen to emulate their favorite music sensations in a re-creation of the music videos that they love. Because of all the music video madness of the past several decades, you might think that it would be extremely complicated to try making a music video of your own. Actually, music videos are one of several visual communication presentations that are easy to do in D-I-Y style. Here's a list of things to consider when planning to shoot your very own music video.

1. Get to know the song you'll be shooting a video for REALLY well before you begin. Really listen to the song, and pay attention to the lyrics and the overall feel of the piece. From the song, you'll have to come up with a concept to visually communicate through your music video, so don't take this assignment lightly. A vibrant concept will be the most responsible for carrying your video to its audiences.
2. . Prior to any shoot, you must scout for a location to film at. If you're working on a budget, then pick a location that's free to cut costs. Popular free locations are often outdoors, so check the weather before you schedule a shoot. Additionally, it is best for shooting purposes to pick a private location in order to avoid any un-planned interferences. You wouldn't want to waste anybody's time or energy trying to shoot around a million pedestrians that you do not wish to include in your video. Also, the more creative you get with a location, the less money you'll have to spend on any sort of set design costs.
3. On that note, D-I-Y video shoots are often best kept simple. Don't try to build an elaborate set. It'd be best to work with what nature has given you for free. Ultimately, you want to showcase your music, and something over-the-top can detract from the focus on the music itself.
4. Use your lens power. If you are keeping your set and concept relatively simple, then get creative with your camera lenses, filters and gels. You can visually affect a lot through wide-angle lenses or fish-eye lenses, and you can get creative with color and shading using gels or filters over your camera lens.
5. Have fun! Amidst all the planning and technical stuff, don't forget to have fun. If a crew enjoys working on a project, the end result will always convey the enjoyment of the process of making the video. Plus, music is one of the deepest human pleasures. Make sure you stay true to the music and stay open-minded about the various methods of visual communication that you can use to share your music with the world.