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Cheap but good (enough) video ideas

bigboy_78

bigboy_78

Jun 1, 2011
1,362
2,089
Coraki, Australia
#1
What are the cheapest & easiest ways to get video for venues? We’ve managed to get plenty of gigs without it, but now we’re aiming higher the venues want to see video.

I’m thinking a few ipads, my Zoom recorder and hours spent syncing it all up. Anyone had success with low budget set-ups?
 
#4
I've compared low cost set ups with stuff done with better equipment, and the difference is very easy to see. If you are shooting for better gigs, I think it is worth the money to get it done by people who know better. Same way you would prefer going to a studio for a demo rather than putting up a mic in your rehearsal room.
 
#5
One idea might be find a local college/university with a good media production course and see if anyone doing that is interested in taking on the band as a project.
I regularly see college students on various Irish facebook musician contact pages offering their services to complete portfolio work.
They'll have access to decent equipment and software and will be motivated to do a good job!
 
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#6
Oddly said:
One idea might be find a local college/university with a good media production course and see if anyone doing that is interested in taking on the band as a project.
I regularly see college students on various Irish facebook musician contact pages offering their services to complete portfolio work.
They'll have access to decent equipment and software and will be motivated to do a good job!
Click to expand...

Great idea.
I was going to post same. A while back, I needed a vid, a well-made one. $$ was an issue based on some quotes received from pro-level production houses.

I contacted a couple local Colleges, and ultimately did find an extremely talented and professional pair (husband & wife as it turned out) who loved honing their skills on stuff like this, and did a great job for about 1/3 the normal price.
There's a LOT of budding talent studying film/video production, and they need work!

And I should also add, that I had one of the greatest vacations of my life in Southern Ireland and consider Dublin one of the coolest cities on Earth, more so than even London!!! :roflmao: (I've been around too!)
 
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#7
Multiple cameras are a must. But do whatever you can to avoid having all of the cameras stationary, or "locked-off" in cinematography parlance. Having at least one mobile camera – even if it's just a hand-held iPhone shooting low-res video – increases your editing possibilities in post-production. Cutting back and forth between only locked-off shots will sap creativity from the finished product.
 
#8
We have taken advantage of local public access television stations. They are always looking for entertaining content. Many of them broadcast a show in their schedule that showcases local talent. For us it's always been a multi-camera shoot. We'll go in and do about a dozen songs for them. The technical team at the station will edit the video from the various cameras while another person mixes the audio. Each audio source gets its own channel during recording. Once the show has been broadcast we can get a copy for our website and the audio in Pro-tools format. I break the show into individual songs on my computer for our web site. We've done this several times with great success. The cost to us is a whopping $0 and stations vary as far as technical capability. Check around it has worked for us. You mentioned that some venues you are approaching have asked for video files. I expected the same thing so I was including a video demo disk in each promo package. Surprisingly, they told me they would actually prefer an audio disc. You can have both available depending on the situation.
 
#9
bigboy_78 said:
What are the cheapest & easiest ways to get video for venues? We’ve managed to get plenty of gigs without it, but now we’re aiming higher the venues want to see video.

I’m thinking a few ipads, my Zoom recorder and hours spent syncing it all up. Anyone had success with low budget set-ups?
Click to expand...

The new little hand held zooms are actually pretty good for recording audio at shows. Even the cheapest go pro cameras work well if your looking to make a promotional video. If anyone in the band has a Mac they come with video editing software that works fine.

We do most of our social media video with cell phones. Our singer will edit some of them for studio updates and stuff like that. I don't know the app he uses off the top of my head but they aren't terrible. We usually replace audio at parts so it's not super distorted and farting out.

For more professional stuff work with a few local NC guys for video. If anyone is in NC and like their work I can get you the contacts for them.

This music video was shot with two cameras; the main and the drone. The label we're on had to pay two different companies that we normally deal with to make this one because we wanted drone shots, three locations in three days. and still stayed well under a grand

This is an old promotional video from our last album cycle with a heavier song. Bad song choice on us but it looks cool. For this we paid a local guy to come to a show and shoot with one camera. He shot the entire show then used the most energetic shots from each song that night. This one was maybe a hundred or two hundred. Been a few years so I can't remember exactly.
 
#10
Oddly said:
One idea might be find a local college/university with a good media production course and see if anyone doing that is interested in taking on the band as a project.
I regularly see college students on various Irish facebook musician contact pages offering their services to complete portfolio work.
They'll have access to decent equipment and software and will be motivated to do a good job!
Click to expand...

This would be a great way to go. Not only will they have the equipment and technical skills to do it right, they are likley to have some creative ideas so your video won't look like every other video out there.
 

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