Music Video Cinematography Guide. Understanding Techniques and Styles

There are new music videos released every single day. It’s actually only in the last 50 years that they have become mainstream in any meaningful way, but now they are virtually essential within the music industry. Some bands make visuals and music videos for every song they release.

 

For a director or a cinematographer, a music video can either be a fantastic project or something they find a little bit difficult. At Insight Studios, we relish the opportunity to work with musicians in all genres and styles to create memorable videos. We know that a great video can make the difference between hit and miss.

Creativity Within Music Videos

Cinematography in music videos tends to be an opportunity to be provocative and experimental as well as letting creativity shine through.

 

Of course, this should all happen within a brief, after a discussion with the band or artist involved. Like every video project, the techniques need to happen within a structure and a strategy.

 

Some will want a simple video of them performing the song, but others will have an idea of how they want the videos to look and the room within for creative expression.

 

Over the years we’ve seen some pretty experimental music video production techniques. Some of the best projects in photography have been incredibly simple and some have been complex.

 

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan had a video with the artist simply holding up cards with the lyrics on them. “Take On Me” by A-Ha used a story told with pencil-sketch animation and rotoscoping, an example of more advanced cinematography for music videos.

 

If you watch any videos by OK Go, you will see that the band uses incredible choreography within their music videos to great effect.

 

Different directors and cinematographers have their different techniques. Often, these come from an interpretation of the song. Songs with a sad or somber feel often use dark music videos art to reflect the mood within the visuals.

 

Lyrics and Syncing

In the world of music video cinematography and direction, this is one of the most crucial considerations of all. The lyrics, and the way the singing is synchronized.

 

There are also music video directors who will pay huge attention to detail and ensure that every strum of the guitar and every hit of the drums are perfectly timed. This, along with the lyrics of the song, act as your script. While you don’t need to capture the audio (this is usually added in post-production as the video is edited) you do need to ensure that the actions, movements, and mouth of anyone singing the song in the video syncs up with the song.

 

For this reason, music video cinematographers and directors will often let the musicians perform the song multiple times and film this to ensure they have enough footage of each part of the song.

 

Videos don’t have to follow the lyrics, or feature the whole band. The director will usually decide. The cinematographer will then have control of the things like the lighting, shot choices, colors, panning, zooming, and the length of the shots. Often, when the video is edited it will flash between shots of singing and other footage, which may tell a separate story or be totally abstract.

 

If you watch this recent hit video from Harry Styles, you’ll see that the video has sections where he is syncing with the vocals and other sections where he is not. This gives the cinematographer a lot of opportunity to experiment with beautiful cinematography music video techniques, and uses handheld shots and even aerial shots to good effect.

 

Possibly the most famous video of all time, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson has some great examples of dark music image craft. Robert William Paynter was the cinematographer and the dark, gloomy shots and brooding feel to the video were reminiscent of other projects he had worked on including An American Werewolf in London and Little Shop of Horrors.

 

In this video, the director will have had to work out a way to shoot a story, and incorporate both singing and dancing along with the cinematography techniques that are implemented throughout.

Summary

Cinematography is one of the strengths of Insight Studios, and no matter how abstract or direct your dream music video is, we can help to bring it to life in front of your eyes, and turn your song into an impressive visual spectacle using direction and cinematography. To get started, reach out to Insight Studios today.