Picture This!

There are few better promotional tools than a slick video of you or your band in performance. But that takes a huge budget, a big-time producer, and corporate backing . . . right?

Way wrong. Try this instead: A $400 video camera, video/capture editing software like Apple iMovie or Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas 5 (or the “lite” version, Vegas Movie Studio + DVD), Pinnacle Studio, Magix Movie Edit Pro, Ulead VideoStudio, etc., a FireWire card if your computer doesn’t have FireWire ports — and talent. The following tips won’t hurt, either.

Do It Backwards

Big-time movies shoot the picture, then add the audio. For your video, get the music right, then add the video. Trust me, it’s a lot easier. This also explains why you can’t use traditional host sequencers that import video tracks: They’re designed to leave the video track pretty much intact, and let you cut audio to it. You definitely need to be able to edit the video track.

You want the best audio possible, so record a direct feed from the mixing console. Record to stand-alone hard disk recorder, CD-R, MasterLink, Minidisc, whatever. Don’t depend on your video camera’s audio, but leave the built-in mic turned on so it records audio. We’ll see why in a bit.

One Or More Cameras?

Ideally, you’d have multiple cameras shooting from different angles — one dedicated to close-ups, one doing wide shots of the band, one getting audience reactions, and so on. You’d then edit in different bits of video to your audio, thus creating a seamless, award-winning experience. You’d also have a big budget, and Steven Spielberg would direct. Dream on.

If you’re stuck with a one-camera shoot, don’t despair . . . there are ways to give the “look and feel” of a two-camera shoot.

If it’s not a live concert, no problem: Run through the song several times. Shoot wide during one run-through, do close-ups next, etc. Record the audio for each shoot and take the best version (or edit various bits to make the best version). The band should play to a click or rhythmic reference, but that’s not absolutely essential as long as the versions aren’t too different.

A concert situation is more complex. Pick a few songs out of the set for the video. For these, do wide shots that take in most of the band. During the songs that won’t be used, take potential cutaway shots — face shots, audience reaction shots, shots of musicians where you don’t see their hands moving on the instruments too clearly, etc.

After the show’s over but before the band breaks down, run through the songs you plan to use and take close-ups of the lead singer singing the song (always useful shots to have). Not possible? Then shoot the singer singing against any non-descript background (preferably one that looks like the background while the band was playing), with or without the band — it doesn’t matter. Really, you’re just looking for close-ups you can cut to the audio later.

Some Assembly Required

Musicians tend to “get” working with video because it’s like working with audio: You mix video tracks together, splice, crossfade, add effects, etc. (Figure 1). The main difference is you’re using up a whole lot more space on your hard drive.

But first, master your audio recording. Clean up any noise, add fades, cut overindulgent solos, use compression of necessary, apply EQ — whatever it takes to make it the Auditory Experience of the Gods. This is for two reasons. Of course, you want your music to sound great. But also, if there are any rough spots in the video, good music will distract people from them. In a famous study, a test group saw two versions of the same video, but one had much better audio quality. When asked which version had better video quality, they chose the one that sounded better. ’Nuff said.

Now import the mastered audio track into your video-editing program, then the video with the wide shots (include the audio stream too). Next, monitor the camera’s audio and the mastered audio track, and slide the video track (with its audio, of course) until the two audio tracks line up. SMPTE sync? Who needs it? If you made any cuts in the audio track, then cut the same places in the video track and line them up with the audio before proceeding.

Odds are the two will line up very closely as long as the tune isn’t too long. But let’s say there’s a little drift, and by the end of the video, the audio track is behind by 15ms or so. Slide the audio track so that it starts 7.5ms ahead of the video track. Now any timing error will decrease until the middle of the song, then start to increase. Don’t worry about it! You’re monitoring the camera audio only as a reference; you’ll mute or erase it later. And if the visuals are off by a few milliseconds compared to the audio, believe me — no one will know.

The Magic Of Cutaways

Video is all smoke and mirrors, even more so than audio. Anything goes and usually does. So, let’s learn how to fake reality.

Play the video, and consider where you’re going to add variety. Let’s say that after the keyboard player finished a great solo, you panned the camera back to the lead singer but shook the camera a bit while panning (next time, use a tripod). Is the video doomed? Of course not! Right after the keyboard solo, cut in a shot of the audience clapping and cheering. It could be from a different song, or even from a different concert. But, you say, they didn’t clap and cheer after the solo? That’s why sound effects CD were invented. Mix in a little applause, but be subtle.

And don’t go back to the wide shot of the singer. Cut away to some of the footage you recorded of the singer singing away while the band was breaking down. Match up the video as best you can to the audio. Let’s suppose worst case — the singer sang without a reference, and rushed a bit. That’s when you apply a “velocity envelope” to the video clip, and slow the motion down. Not even the singer will notice. Then to add more interest, crossfade from the close-up back to the wide shot.

And remember the face shots you took while the band was playing other songs? Let’s say the guitarist is about to take a solo and you’re zooming in from the wide shot to frame the guitar a bit better. Throw in a face shot to cover the transition. As with the audience reaction shot, it doesn’t need to be from the same song . . . a grimacing guitarist face is going to look pretty much the same anyway. As long as there isn’t a close-up of the fingering, you’re probably okay.

Now it’s confession time. I’ve not only used close-ups of hand motions from players playing different songs, but even different players. If you’re zoomed in or out enough, and the part is short, no one can tell.

Special Effects

One other great way to cover up glitches is with special effects. For example, suppose you miss the first few bars of the keyboard player’s solo — you still had your camera on the drums, because the drummer was spewing fake blood and it looked kind of cool.

No problem! Certain effects, like pixellation (where you can change the pixel size to make the video “blockier”), “glow,” and “light rays” remove detail from the shot (Figure 2). Use any clip of the keyboard player when the solo begins, and if you process it enough, no one will know you missed the solo’s real intro. Then return to the original footage when it’s past the point where there were any problems. Special effects can look cool, but they can also help gloss over inconsistencies.

Ready For The Big Time?

Just like politics and the music industry, videos are all about deception and trickery. Remember that you are not shooting a documentary. Your job is to provide a pleasing, and hopefully exciting, visual experience. If the audio is great, you’ve already won two-thirds of the fight — get the eye candy right, and you’ll have the audience in the palm of your hand.