Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 7, 2011 Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 Many times here on SSS, I've seen people asking about making videos for their songs, usually to place on YouTube and get some attention. There are many legitimate reasons that people don't make videos... they don't have camera or editing gear, they don't have any expertise in working in video, they don't have any budget to pay someone else to make the video for them, and so on. But still, it's sort of essential to have your music accessible on YouTube these days. What to do? One quick and easy thing you can do, either as a promo tool on its own, or as a placeholder before you can make the "real" video, is what people call a "lyric video". You basically take the lyrics of your song and run them across the screen as your song plays. Lyric videos help people get to know your tunes and sing along... it's a good way to promote your music. Almost every computer you buy these days has some kind of basic video editing tool that comes with the operating system. On Mac, it's iMovie. On Windows, it's Windows Movie Maker. Either is fine for this kind of thing. The secret is to try and make the video at least semi-interesting. Here are some tips: 1. Try and not use a boring background, like a flat blue screen. You can import a still photo, or use a series of stills to create a slideshow that runs behind your lyrics. Since I have a camera, I prefer taking it one more step ahead by filming a background that has some motion... it's better at capturing and keeping the viewer's attention. 2. You can be creative with your fonts and use of moving text, but not so creative that the person can't read your words. Also, make sure the lyric text is synched with the music. To put in the lyrics, there are usually several options for titles in your video editing software. Oh, and don't use Comic Sans font, because people will laugh at you and call you bad names. 3. Make sure to direct people somewhere during or after the video... perhaps to your web site, iTunes link, or other place where they can purchase the song if they like it. In advertising, we call this a "call to action". Also remember to put the link in the description of the song when you post it to YouTube, Vimeo, or elsewhere. I put one of these together on Sunday afternoon in under an hour for my little love tune "Always Tomorrow". I simply don't have the time or the mental bandwidth to make a "real" video at the moment, but this was quick and about as easy as could be. Check it out. [video=youtube;00jG8oIBcKI] If you have any questions about specifics, let me know. Always happy to help out my SSS homies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Bartus Posted December 7, 2011 Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 GREAT tip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mark L Posted December 7, 2011 Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 I've done a few [YOUTUBE]-9FgcDij7lo[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 7, 2011 Moderators Share Posted December 7, 2011 I do this as I'm writing. Then I'll post them in various stages of completion with names like "Song Name - work 4" or "Song Name - phase 2". This really facilitates collaboration. Here are a couple... [video=youtube;W-61aNMTqTE] [video=youtube;0TXNNeJdeOs] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Another quick fix you can do if you want a nice looking video quickly is to use images or movies or documentaries in the public domain, such as this video by The Mercury Seven: [video=youtube;x3-m8XYxkas] [video=youtube;JFJk18pIGqE] These songs are instrumental, in the vein of Brian Eno or Godspeed, You Black Emperor or Cluster or Harmonia or even Pink Floyd in places. But you could just as easily put lyrics in place here and still have a compelling video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 These songs are instrumental, in the vein of Brian Eno or Godspeed, You Black Emperor or Cluster or Harmonia or even Pink Floyd in places. Dude, I could barely see the lyrics. Fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 I've done a few We too, thousands so far, they are best sellers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Dude, I could barely see the lyrics. Fail. Oh oh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 He's got poor eyesight. Give him a pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 I was trying to sing along, and couldn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 I was more yodeling at the last party, the lyrics where in mandrin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 If you have any questions about specifics, let me know. Always happy to help out my SSS homies. Well, I love the song and the rest of the album but dude, you`re missing about 20 seconds of "la la la`s" after the guitar solo. I mean seriously.. what the frig? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 and a couple of "whoas" while we`re at it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Well, I love the song and the rest of the album but dude, you`re missing about 20 seconds of "la la la`s" after the guitar solo. I mean seriously.. what the frig? I did briefly consider adding in the "la las" and the "whoa-oh-oh", but then I remembered that my listeners are smart enough to figure those parts out on their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 If you have any questions about specifics, let me know. Yes, um, how did you do that?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 I did briefly consider adding in the "la las" and the "whoa-oh-oh", but then I remembered that my listeners are smart enough to figure those parts out on their own. don`t assume.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Yes, um, how did you do that?! My, that IS specific! Not sure how serious you are, but I'm happy to share the process. 1. Took a camcorder to my front porch. Looked around until I saw some flowers fluttering in the breeze. I pointed the camera in that direction and zoomed in on the flowers so the rest of the scene would be blurred out due to depth of field. I put the camera down and hit "record" for about three minutes. 2. I took the camera inside and imported the video into my computer with a handy USB cable. 3. I created a new file in iMovie, then brought the video file into the application. I made sure to turn off the audio from the camera, since a music video generally only uses the song for the audio. 4. I brought in the song to the movie file. 5. Realizing that I needed some more stuff for the solo and the "lala" section, I did two things: a) I videoed myself playing the solo on my kid's Strat, and then did some little graphics in Photoshop. Both sections were imported into iMovie, and then I used the insert>green screen function to overlay those images/video. 6. I did all the lyrics in the function that lets you add titles to videos. 7. I exported the file as a large sized (but not HD) 720x486 file, and then uploaded it to YouTube and elsewhere. That's really about all there was. I started at about 3:00 and uploaded by 4:30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 5. Realizing that I needed some more stuff for the solo and the "lala" section No seriously, I have to do this for some of my stuff so I`m glad you shared. How much does Photoshop go for these days? Of course, this will probably take me about 3 weeks to do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 My, that IS specific! Not sure how serious you are, but I'm happy to share the process. Thanks. I was serious! I realized I wasn't that specific, but anything more specific wouldn't have gotten all those answers. That out of the way... What kind of camcorder did you use? What version of iMovie? I take it the "insert>green screen" function is easier done than explained? Was it easy to sync the titles to the music? Any tips for that? Thanks again. Goobers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 How much does Photoshop go for these days? Way too much, and it really wasn't necessary for this video at all. I have it (Adobe's Creative Suite) because my job involves a lot of design work. Of course, this will probably take me about 3 weeks to do... So what? The time after that it'll take one week, and the next time two days. It's like anything you do... the more you do it, the easier and more natural the process is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 What kind of camcorder did you use? My camcorder is a Sanyo VPC-FH1A. I got it a couple of years ago. It shoots in full HD (1920x1080) at 60 frames/second. It's the best cheap camera out there, I think, purely for capturing video. No audio inputs, though. What version of iMovie? It says v8.0.6, but it's whatever version of iMovie came with iLife '09. There's a more recent one, I think. I take it the "insert>green screen" function is easier done than explained? Like most stuff in the Mac OS, it's drag and drop. You select a section of video, pull it into the project's work area, and drop it down. The app will then ask you if you want to insert it, to replace the current video there, if you want it to be picture-in-picture, or (like I did) if you want it to be a "green screen" insert. Had I filmed myself on an actual green screen (I do have one), it would have looked very different. However, I purposefully wanted that "ghosted in" look, so I just messed with the color balance on the section I was pulling in and it worked fine. Was it easy to sync the titles to the music? Any tips for that? Again, drag and drop. I used a preset style of title movement (called "drifting" in this case), and just customized the fonts. Literally plopped them in the area where the lyrics would sync, and then slightly tweaked the start and end point to match the vocal. It was cake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 I've been doing this for a while. Here's a 'slide show' vid I did to accompany my paean to my trusty '74 Plymouth Valiant... [video=youtube;wtGHRagsFmo] It's developed a small following among Valiant aficionadi. Here's one I did in a rush -- so no 'animation' and only a scrolling lyric... [video=youtube;DY7-2lTSdUE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted December 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Blue, your examples are precisely what I was referring to, in that you have the lyrics, but you also have something visually entertaining happening at the same time to keep interest level up. Plus, it didn't require days on end of shooting, or the pain in the ass of synching vocals to lip movements, and so on. Nice stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 8, 2011 Moderators Share Posted December 8, 2011 Blue, your examples are precisely what I was referring to, in that you have the lyrics, but you also have something visually entertaining happening at the same time to keep interest level up. Plus, it didn't require days on end of shooting, or the pain in the ass of synching vocals to lip movements, and so on. Nice stuff. Yeah, agreed. I'd like to take my simple lyric vids and step them up with visuals. That's next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 8, 2011 Members Share Posted December 8, 2011 Blue, your examples are precisely what I was referring to, in that you have the lyrics, but you also have something visually entertaining happening at the same time to keep interest level up. Plus, it didn't require days on end of shooting, or the pain in the ass of synching vocals to lip movements, and so on. Nice stuff. The first one, of course, is probably a lot more fun to watch. The second one was done with the idea of getting a lyric vid up as fast as possible. And the production took very little time. Still, by the time you render it in a big enough video format to trick YouTube into not squashing your sound down to 24 kbps crap audio, you've still tied up a sizable part of your computer and bandwidth for quite a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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