How to make a music video

Music video director AM captures the Middle East’s biggest bands on film. He takes us through the 10 essential steps 1 Comments

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1 Network
‘I go to a lot of gigs and check out a lot of MySpace pages to see who’s out there and who I would be interested in working with. I also listen to the Open Mic radio show on Dubai Eye 103.8 FM. Then I can take it from there. I’m also careful about choosing the tracks I want to promote – there are lots of things I would walk away from: all the things that are “gangsta” and “bling-bling”. I’m more interested in making good, positive images.’

2 Develop your ideas
‘I listen to the track about 50 or 60 times to really absorb the song and get an idea in my head. Obviously you have to engage with the artist too – if they have a good idea I try not to step on their vision. Every artist has a different threshold of involvement. Some completely trust you, some want a lot of control and some are willing to share. Juliana Down were happy to give me full control, because they were so happy with the concept, while artists like The Narcycist and Abri wanted it to be more 50/50, because they have clear ideas about how they want to be represented.’

3 Gather your team
‘I’m the video director and my colleague, Markus Rosentreter, is the technical guru and director of production. We’re yin and yang, basically. He’ll look at the lights, the lens, the camera and say, “This angle’s not possible within this timeframe.” He’s more technical than me. The rest involves pulling in a lot of favours. We have a lot of people who are prepared to work on weekends to put the video on their showreel. All the post-production special effects work has to be done outside of work hours, too. A record company could make a video in two-to-three weeks; it takes us on average three-to-four months.’

4 Prop yourself up
‘In the UK or the US you get prop shops – big lots full of costumes and objects for hire. In Dubai there’s nothing like that so you’re at the mercy of eBay or your designer friends. The first video I ever shot involved three straightjackets that we made out of curtains. You can see one in The Narcycist’s video. So it’s an uphill struggle, but it’s very interesting to learn that kind of self-reliance. And now I know how to make straightjackets, too.’

5 Scout locations
‘Most of the time you have the locations sorted out in your head because you’ve used them before in music videos or commercials. But sometimes it’s more complicated – especially because we try to to make the videos more universal by avoiding locations that can be identified as Dubai. So in the upcoming video for The Narcycist we had a shot where he was looking out of a window, but that window couldn’t have any cranes or skyscrapers in it. It took two weeks to find the right one and in the end we only used about two seconds of it!’