What is a music video?
A music video is a film cut to a song. It can be a performance, a narrative, an abstract piece, an animation or a single unbroken take, and its running time is the track's running time. Since the format was born on television and reborn on YouTube, it has been the main way an artist introduces a record to the world, and the main way a song gets a look: a palette, a place, a set of images that attach themselves to the sound forever.
For brands the format has a second life. Branded music videos, artist collaborations and campaign films cut like videos borrow the energy of the form, and the techniques, from performance coverage to the rhythm of the edit, carry over into any film where the music leads.
Why it matters
Why music videos matter
A song is heard; a video is seen, shared and remembered. The video gives the audience something to attach the music to, and in a streaming world where a release competes with ten thousand others that visual hook is often what gets it noticed. For an artist the video is the brand: how they look, what world they live in, what they stand for.
The craft also matters beyond music. Music videos have always been the laboratory of commercial filmmaking, where directors and cinematographers try things that advertising adopts a year later. The look of much of today's fashion and sports advertising was worked out on music video sets first.
In practice
How a music video works in practice
- 01
The director pitches a treatment to the artist and the label: a concept, a look, references, and a plan for how the song's structure maps to the film. Once approved, the producer builds the schedule and the budget, typically for one or two shoot days, with the artist's availability as the fixed point everything else moves around.
- 02
On set the song plays back and the artist performs to it, take after take, from the angles the treatment calls for. Narrative scenes are shot alongside. The editor cuts to the track, which fixes the timing: every cut is on a beat or against one on purpose. The grade and the finish follow, and the video is delivered for the platforms where it will live, often with vertical versions for social.
At RIOT
Music videos at RIOT
AltSounds, our music video channel, and Muvvoo, our music video database, are our own products, built because we think the form deserves a home that treats it as film rather than as filler. They are also where we keep watching what the rest of the industry is doing, which is how the craft stays sharp on the brand work.
Watch out
What people get wrong about music videos
Cutting to the beat and nothing else. A video that hits every downbeat is mechanical; the best ones phrase the edit against the music, holding through a chorus or cutting early to make a point. The other mistake is forgetting the platform. A video designed for a widescreen television and watched on a phone loses the detail that made it work, so the frame and the pace have to be planned for where the audience actually is.
