One way of making music videos is to use existing band or fan footage. This means, depending on how big a fan-base is, or, how long the band or performer has been active, there is potentially a very large, mixed collection of footage available. The footage can be from a wide variety of recording devices. Footage from cheap phones, cheap or old camcorders, expensive smartphones, expensive tablets, and semi-professional video cameras. If the band has been active for years – a song may have a variety of videos, from different angles, of the same song being performed at the same venue. A lot of bands and performers might not be able to afford a fully professional music video made for their favourite songs, but they probably have fans and friends around them taking a lot of footage and sticking it on YouTube or FaceBook. The footage may not be of the best, broadcast quality, but when properly combined, they make something well worth watching.
To begin, I will discuss some examples of what I think make decent mixed-footage performance videos, and then later (here: Editing Mixed Performances) I will discuss some things I learnt while editing my own examples. If you are thinking of filming your own footage I have some rough notes on how to film footage for this style of music video (here: Filming Mixed Performances).
So, let us start with two contrasting examples, from the same group, of how footage from different performances can be cut together:
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Twenty One Pilots “Ode To Sleep” |
Twenty One Pilots “Can’t Help Falling in Love” |
Both of these videos used different kinds of footage, staged for performance; the lead singer Joseph Tyler felt it was important to always have some kind of record of their performances, exactly so videos like “Ode To Sleep” could be made. Other Twenty One Pilot music videos incorporate footage of them performing live with staged narrative or performance elements. “Can’t Help Falling In Love” takes that one step further with different performances of a song staged for the camera, stitched together to make a music video. The filmed performances take place on tour in different locations, both on and off the stage, Tyler alone, or of the band surrounded by fans.
If you have seen music videos made from compiled live performances, then they have probably been like the following two:
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The Beatles “Boy” (from “Eight Days A Week”) |
Beastie Boys “Brass Monkey” (from “Awesome! I Shot That!”) |
With The Beatles, you have a compilation of official (Film, TV company) footage and privately filmed footage brought together; different cameras at the same event are cut together for the main performance footage. Shots of other performances, crowds, fans, The Beatles relaxing, are cut together to create an interesting montage. This is the kind of compilation you will find in documentaries about your favourite performer or band (in this case “Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years”). On the other hand – The Beastie Boys’ filmed concert was purposely shot by fans, 50 in all, who were given cameras before the concert and asked to film what they liked. The editors then sifted through the resulting footage to stitch together music videos for each song performed during the concert.
Below are some examples of compiled, mixed-footage performance videos which I have edited for the band Flying Kangaroo Alliance:
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FKA “Drunk” |
FKA “Prince of Darkness” |
The music video for ‘Drunk’ combines footage filmed by fans and in a studio. The range of footage available – from very rough to high quality – helps make the video interesting. You see different ways the band presents itself and performs – and allows the editing to move regularly between different types of filmed performances. It helps that there are more than five different sets of live/filmed footage The music video for ‘Prince of Darkness’ takes this one step further; the soundtrack is not a studio recorded track, or a professionally recorded live track. It is a compilation/montage of live recordings. The video starts off with a demo, then works it way through various early performances. As the video progresses, through variable sound quality, we get increasingly more professional, finished performances of the song as the band regularly performs it. By the end, in the last 90 seconds, we have studio-recorded tracks which the footage is cut to (as with all of the video ‘Drunk’). The first 30 seconds of this end section is an acoustic-style version recorded by the lead singer Meri Everitt. The last 50-60 seconds is a studio version recorded by the whole band, Flying Kangaroo Alliance.
Below are some further examples of what footage could be used, and how it could be used. The music video made for Mantua is just using footage from cheap cameras placed at different places around a live rehearsal. It’s simple – but if only getting more than one camera in use can improve how a music video can look. The music video for the Flying Kangaroo Alliance is an alternative edit to the one shown above; there was so much footage available two different versions were possible. The above version shows the evolution of the song; this version uses just one, live audio recording to which all the footage is edited.
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Mantua “Pain” |
FKA “Prince of Darkness” (Alternative Edit) |
In contrast to the above videos I did, I want to show you a video I made that used filmed footage, studio footage and footage from a film. It is not just that there is a variety of footage, it is that they are also combined in a variety of ways – even resorting to compositing to combine different takes into single shots, or, layering film footage with performance footage.
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Free Control “The Balloon” (Mixed Live/Studio/Film Footage) |
This is a music video completed using footage from various different sources; footage filmed by me, band members, fans of the band, the band’s own back-projection videos used for live shows and the film “Apocalypse Now” from which a sample of an actress’ dialogue was sampled in the song. A good example of combining a disparate range of footage into a finished music video. |
This is a music video that isn’t necessarily a conventional performance music video; but it is not a conventional abstract music video (or narrative music video, despite using film clips). Ideally, a proper abstract/concept music video would have a range of ideas, images – but making sure the entire length of a video is visually interesting can be a tall order. Ideally, a proper performance music video should have multiple cameras, multiple framing, to get you in and around the band as they perform. Individually, for this song, the individual elements (apart from the film) are simple and won’t support a longer, complex video (e.g. many takes of the song are just one framing). Even if one of the elements is a film – and a classic at that – the theme of the song references a part of that film, and the song does not support taking many of the elements from the film. It would be deeply unproductive (if not creatively bankrupt) to just pilfer all the best imagery of “Apocalypse Now” and try to marry them with the song; the song doesn’t support that. However, taking from each different source and mixing them together allows us to make something interesting to watch – basically it is a performance-based music video, but it still references the film (and a sample) that inspired the song, the lightshow they put together for their own live performances, and then a series of excerpts from different live performances in the studio and at festivals.
That was a general discussion of mixed-footage videos. For discussion of editing such videos, go look at Editing Mixed Performances. Usually this kind of video is starting with ‘found footage’, i.e. taking or researching footage already in existence and then edit them into a new form. However, having videos made from multiple live recordings is in itself an interesting form of music video – so if you wanted to make your own, you could look at Filming Mixed Performances.