Ideas for instrumental music video (without Ken Burns effect, telling a story, or concert footage)

Hello,

(First post here, but I've been around here lurking and at the Cow and other forums for some time.)

I'd like to put up some of my earlier instrumental music up at Youtube, as it's just been sitting on my hard drive for some years now. I'm fairly adept with FCP X (started back on FCP 4.5), so the actual editing is not an issue, it's coming up with some concepts for visual images to go with the music.

I'm trying to avoid using photos a la the Ken Burns effect, shooting a "story", or using concert footage. It's really about getting the music heard, but I'd like some interesting visuals to with it. Ideally, I could cut these quickly, so I can crank out a few songs in a day. I'm not worried about whether the effects or concepts are repetitive, and the visuals don't need to relate directly with the song. I've checked out some "fan videos", but most of them use the Ken Burns effect with photos of the artist.

I already have a few ideas, but I don't want to "poison" the idea well with them yet. Have any of you ever done anything like this? I hope this isn't an inappropriate question as I know this forum tends to be mostly FCP X technical issues.

Thanks,
Dave Gage

One word: (its not plastics)

Motion!

If you don't know it, this would be an excellent opportunity to start learning it. You could create some abstract eye candy or something more targeted towards you music. I highly recommend giving it a go.

grailz wrote: One word: (its not plastics)

Motion!

If you don't know it, this would be an excellent opportunity to start learning it. You could create some abstract eye candy or something more targeted towards you music. I highly recommend giving it a go.

I am acquainted with Motion. Did you have any specific ideas in mind or maybe a link to something online as an example? Motion is such a huge can of worms.

Thanks,
Dave

I guess I wasn't as clear as I could have been in my first post. Does anyone have some specific links to music video examples or otherwise that use Motion or AE to create some interesting "eye candy". I think if I just see a few ideas or concepts, I can figure out how to put it all together.

I haven't a chance yet, but I'm going to try to do some random searches at Vimeo later tonight and see what turns up.

I did find a few interesting things yesterday by searching on "fan video". If I can pull a few more ideas I should be in good shape.

Thanks again,
Dave

Music tells a story, just like video does. Create graphics based on the story. If there's anything I hate more in a music "video" and that's eye candy for the sake of eye candy. Tell the story of the music.

Ben,

All I need to do at this point is to get some of my older music up from the 80's and 90's and 2000's. I don't have time at this point to get into story telling (and most of the tracks are instrumentals). As a solo artist, I made actual music videos in the 80's, but this isn't that. I've seen people upload MP3s and AIFFs to YouTube with a blank (black) screen, I'd like to to a bit more than that, but not much more. Motion or AE might be the best solution, but even that might be overkill for my intent.

I was hoping that maybe someone here had seen or done quickie visuals for a jazz or blues or rock instrumental tune and have a suggestion. But it's possible what I'm looking to do may come down to Ken Burns effect, Motion, throwing on stock footage that's highly effected, or a blank screen with informational text overlays.

Here's one example of a Motion/AE type effect I found with U2 music at Vimeo, but the expertise and time involved is more than I can do at this point-
vimeo.com/6046796

Thanks,
Dave

That's just stock water theme backgrounds with weird color effects. I didn't think that was a video to aspire to. Totally meaningless. It's all about the story.

Ben,

BenB wrote: That's just stock water theme backgrounds with weird color effects.

That's good to know about the stock footage. Picking up footage like that would be very helpful. Do you know of any stock footage companies that specialize in visual effects like that?

BenB wrote: It's all about the story.

As I said, I don't want story. This is not intended to be art, it's just business. I'm not trying to get a record deal. I have about 30-75 tracks I'd like to upload and I'd rather not upload them with a blank screen, but it may be all I have time to do at this point.

Thanks again,
Dave

Sounds like you just need some type of visualizer so the listener isn't viewing black. The Mac OSX screensaver visualizer would probably accomplish this, or as mentioned earlier, Motion with very little effort could provide a slight moving abstract to serve as a visualizer.

Perhaps also consider something that can use the BPM of the music to change its' appearance. If all else fails, a classy looking title screen with the name of the composition, artist, etc.

Try asking if any one who wants to give it a shot will be included in credits. I'd spit something out for a song just for fun, with credit. I'm sure you could find lots of folks here who would love to give this a shot in exchange for credit.

I'm guessing you're looking for something like this perhaps:

If it is, do a search for VJ Reels. I think you might find more inspiration there.

dgwvideo wrote: Sounds like you just need some type of visualizer so the listener isn't viewing black. The Mac OSX screensaver visualizer would probably accomplish this...

Excellent idea! I don't think this would create any Apple related legal issues either. Based on this concept, I could also create a new "Pictures" folder for the Desktop ScreenSaver with some relevant (or non-relevant) photos, let the OS create a Ken Burns effect, turn on ScreenFlow and do a final edit in FCPX if I want to play with the timing of the changes. This could be a great quickie fix for me.

dgwvideo wrote: Perhaps also consider something that can use the BPM of the music to change its' appearance.

That would be very cool too. No software comes to mind at the moment that would accomplish. There must be a Logic plugin or something similar available somewhere. I'll do a search tonight.

dgwvideo wrote: If all else fails, a classy looking title screen with the name of the composition, artist, etc.

Yes, that's one of my backup plans. Since I'm also an online music instructor, which is a main part of my business, I could put in playing tips or discuss via titles how I'm doing what I'm doing. Quick and easy.

Thanks,
Dave

BenB wrote: Try asking if any one who wants to give it a shot will be included in credits. I'd spit something out for a song just for fun, with credit. I'm sure you could find lots of folks here who would love to give this a shot in exchange for credit.

Brilliant idea! I tend to be "Mr. I'll do everything myself" guy and missed the obvious. I'd be more than happy to do that. And in that case, since I don't have to put in a ton of time for the visuals, it really could a storyline or almost any visuals. (It's like the reverse of people who upload to Vimeo and then need to find music to put in the background.)

If you or someone else is interested, we can work out the details as to how to hear/download the music via PM or contact me at: webmaster3 (at) harmonicalessons.com. Until recently, I've had MP3 players where people could sample and/or buy the songs, but these independent MP3 player companies keep going out of business. So, I can easily set up some Flash MP3 players on one of my websites with some of the tunes.

Thanks,
Dave

grailz wrote: If it is, do a search for VJ Reels. I think you might find more inspiration there.

Yes, that's an excellent example of something that would work for me. By "VJ reels", did you mean "DJ reels". I suppose I could search on both. I would never have time to create something like that. It would be cool if I could find an app or plug-in that just did it for me. Or, as I posted in response to Ben, I'd be happy work with someone and supply credit and a link within the video and in the descriptive text below the video.

Thanks,
Dave

Why not creating shapes? Morph them, keyframe color changes, position, .... and add an Audio Behavior Parameter to all that stuff in Motion?

That gives you some creative, abstract, whatever images that are matched to your music.

cgbier wrote: Why not creating shapes? Morph them, keyframe color changes, position, .... and add an Audio Behavior Parameter to all that stuff in Motion?

That gives you some creative, abstract, whatever images that are matched to your music.

I agree that Motion would be the way to go if I were going to create these images myself, but I just don't have the time for the Motion learning curve. I know Mark Spencer has excellent tutorials at Ripple Training, but I'm just too busy right now to get in and do the training or program justice (hopefully, later this year).

On the bright side, Chris posted an example video and suggested a search on "VJ Reel". That turned out great. Looking around Youtube I came up with some other relevant search terms. I searched at Google on "mac audio visualizer" and came up with this page-
"10 Impressive & Beautiful iTunes Visualizers"
mac.appstorm.net/roundups/music-roundups...-itunes-visualizers/

After looking at that page I realized I should open iTunes and see what might already be in there. Actually, not too bad. I may be able to use the default "iTunes Visualizer" and one or two others for something. Certainly, not as good as a unique project in Motion or making a "real" video with humans, but it's a start.

Thanks,
Dave

Between a combination of enlisting willing editors to help on a project in exchange for credit (suggested by BenB) and using "visualizers" built into iTunes or added as plug-ins, I think I should be in decent shape to get some songs up in the next couple of weeks.

Here's a freebie iTunes plug-in that I found to be very cool (my kids love these things)-
apptree.net/ledsa.htm
(the spectrum analyzer and VU meters move in time to the music.)

Also, I'm going to start shooting some random personalized stock footage in the next couple of months so I have some composting backgrounds for videos down the road. I'll also add to that some green screen footage of myself playing that I can put on top of the visualizers or other backgrounds.

Thanks to every one who added to this thread as it was extremely helpful. I hope this thread helps someone down the road with a similar request.

Thanks,
Dave