Usually, you should firstly talk about how to film when discussing a style – not go straight into editing. But we are dealing with found-footage, existing footage, fan-footage. The footage is already there. It’s now a task to get hold of it and re-fashion it into something else. I discuss later on another page how you could actually film footage for yourself: Filming Mixed Performances.
I will begin here with just some examples of the kind of videos under discussion;
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FKA “Drunk” (Studio filmed) |
FKA “Drunk” (Mixed footage) |
Above, with the two videos for “Drunk”, you have a traditional performance music video filmed in a studio, and, a montage of mixed footage filmed either in the studio or by friends and fans at different gigs the band has performed.
Below, are two videos for “Prince of Darkness”. One is another mixed-footage music video, but is entirely made of fan-shot footage. The other video is the same footage, but re-edited to act as a compilation/montage showing the song’s development from demo to finished track.
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FKA “Prince of Darkness” (Mixed footage) |
FKA “Prince of Darkness” (Footage compilation) |
What makes a good mixed-footage performance video?
These are just some observations I make from my own productions, some of which are shown on Mixed Performance Footage and Work Completed. The above examples should be enough to demonstrate what I discuss below. I don’t hold them as universal truths, but you may find the following useful if you want to make your own videos in this style, or want to hire someone to see what they can do with your footage…
Have at least 4-5 different ‘locations’ of footage for a 3-5 minute music video. It really depends on how good the videos are. Are they all long shots from the back of a venue? Cutting between them will be dull. Are they all really fuzzy and blurry? Again, that’s going to be hard to watch. You can cheat and take a full HD video (1920×1080) which may be a wide shot and crop it down severely to create a medium shot or close-up of band members. In this way one good video at one location can provide one good source of shots. You can then ‘roughen’ up the wide shot with fx to match the cropped version – this is meant to be a rough-and-ready fan-made video, not a professionally staged concert film. You also don’t want to rush through each location when you visit it. You may find spending around 10-15 seconds at each ‘location’ feels right, and if you have at least 4 location clips, as you cycle through them, it will feel like you have a good variety of performances. You can have more than 4-5 videos, but you should really try and get 4 videos of good quality (not blurred, shaky, under-lit, etc) before considering any more.
You can have too many videos. If 4 or 5 videos are the minimum – then consider that maybe 10 or more videos, for a 3-5 minute song, is maybe too much. Or, rather, by trying to stuff so much in, your creating a lot of work for yourself without getting something interesting in return. It is good if: you have 4-5 locations, and at each location you have 2-3 clips filmed by fans from different angles, distances, etc. Since you should be spending at least 2-3 shots at a time in any one location, if you have a group of shots with different qualities (different framing, different angle, etc) you can cut between them more easily during a performance before you need to move to another location. If you find yourself with 10 or more videos of your performances, then it may be time to sit down and cull a few. Select the best 2-3 videos that are wide shots; select the best close-up videos, the best medium-shot videos. And so on. Video of the same angle/framing – get rid of the one with the poor quality resolution or framing. In this way you should be able to come up with a core of 4-5 videos that can be the basis of your music video.
You can spend around 2-3 shots per ‘location’ before moving on to another ‘location’. The main problem with having ‘too many videos’ is that if every time you cut to a new shot, that show is a new location, a new angle, a new time of day and a new band line-up – it may not be enjoyable: it is jarring and you can’t settle down and go with the performance of the song. This may not be so bad if on a shot-by-shot basis you observe conventions like cutting from a long shot to a close-up, reversing angles, or following the eye-line, but when everything is changing, from lighting to facial hair, such editing will be distracting. On the other hand, if you can have at least 2-3 shots per location/clip (around 10 seconds) before moving on to another location/clip, these makes the experience of looking at multiple locations/times to an audience easier and they enjoy the variety of footage on offer.
Having multiple clips of the same location is great. If a performer or group has a favourite venue (or there is no choice – it’s the main one in town), then fans will end up filming them again and again at the same ‘location’. They will end up filming from different angles, different distances. Separately, they may not hold your interest. However, they mimic what you might do with a professional crew: place someone at the back, someone close by the right of the stage, etc. In this way, if you do have a good variety of footage from one venue (they are not all long shots from the back), you can actually make an interesting video just from that footage. It depends on what you want: do you want to try and create one decent performance at one location – or showcase how you generally perform at multiple venues?
Having clips from different eras of the performer or band is great. Modern performers and bands need to tour constantly. You may find over the course of just a year the performer or band undergo a lot of changes. If a song has been in the repertoire for a year or more, you may find that fan footage shows a remarkable range of difference over that time and adds a lot of variety to the video.
Lack of continuity in location (dress, performance) is covered by the performance of the song. You may think that the different locations, the different styles of hair or dress the band go through, may make the editing harder. Also, the performer or band may have very different renditions of the song over time. However, part of the charm of watching such a video may come from cutting between different lo-key or energetic performances, showing how a band changes over time. Usually, when moving from shot to shot, the actual look or actions of performance of that clip at that moment, as long as it fits/syncs with the lyric, tends to override most problems in continuity. It’s then up to you if you want to try and match performances between locations/shots (e.g. a singer singing a verse with closed eyes).
Don’t be too bothered by poor quality footage. Obviously there has to be limits – maybe a 1990s Nokia ‘phone footage of 160×90 at 12fps? But in a mix of different types of footage, even bad footage adds. If you have a core set of 4-5 decent clips, occasionally cutting to other poor quality clips adds variety – and charm. These videos are offering different views of the band from different members of the audience; the editing may need to be professional, but the footage can be from anyone, and so the footage can range in quality. What seems to be annoying is spending too much time with poor quality footage; the experience of such videos seems to work best when moving constantly between different types of quality footage. Also, as ‘fan assisted’ video, made for your fans, you want something rough-and-ready and not overly polished. In this way, poor-quality footage is as much a badge of pride. As a balance, you then need to concentrate on good editing; variety of shot, consistent rhythm, appropriate cuts to support the song, etc.
Use a good quality audio master to edit to. Most performers and bands usually stick to a set style for each song. Song parts, lyrics, etc, remain consistent. The odd verse or chorus may be dropped; a song rushed occasionally. But even when a band alternates between an electric and an acoustic version, the structure and timings of the song are usually consistent. Finding the structure of the song in one video will allow you to find it in other videos. However, you need to pick one as a ‘master’ and use that as your reference for editing other videos. It helps if you get a studio-recorded master, with lyrics from the band, to start you off. If not – get the band to choose what fan video has the best audio and to provide lyrics for that version. Even if the video is of poor quality – you have an audio track that is the basis for your video.
If you haven’t already, look at: Filming Mixed Performances for more general discussion. For more examples, look at Mixed Performance Footage and Work Completed.