Clip maker is the director of video clips. How to become a clip maker

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Recently, music videos have become almost the main part of the video information flow. They are incredibly carefully crafted, produced by well-known, famous directors, and the budgets of these three-minute videos are already ready to be compared with the amounts allocated to finance an average quality film.

It's not surprising that a music video director is not just a director who shoots music videos for various bands. Such work requires considerable experience and great knowledge in various areas of the music and film business.

Video clip

A video clip is a short film, the plot of which is voiced by a song of a group. Sometimes the content of the video does not correspond to the song, conveying its atmosphere and meaning in general terms, and sometimes the video sequence completely corresponds to the lines from the song, duplicating the action of the lyrics on the screen.

Music videos are one of the most common video formats used not only by famous musicians, but also by vloggers, YouTube channel authors and many others.creative people, at first glance, who have nothing to do with the music field.

Clipmaker

The profession of a clip maker combines a large number of responsibilities typical of other professions in the film industry. A good clip maker should be at the same time: director, cameraman, editor, composer, sound engineer, be able to process the footage, and also have extensive experience in various fields of human activity. Famous video makers such as Jonas Akerlund, Jake Nava, Stobbe Harju, Ilya Nightshuller, Jonathan Glazer are recognized experts in many topics, from theoretical filmmaking to gunsmithing.

Often, the more educated and experienced the clip maker is, the richer the video is. If the author is well versed in history, culture and politics, then he can make many interesting references and ambiguous episodes that will enrich the canvas of the work and make it more atmospheric.

Of course, a clip maker is not only an employee, but also a manager. All famous people who make videos have a reliable creative team that has been working under this person for years. In such teams, there is an atmosphere of complete mutual understanding and support, which allows you to intuitively do a lot of work without prior discussion.

Director

The main duty of a clip maker is the process of creating a video sequence, its directing and control of all works,produced on the set. In order to fully control the entire filming process, you need to have experience in directing, be responsible and be able to do many things at the same time, while having time to think about creative ideas that can be implemented directly in the process.

Operator

The work of an operator for a clip maker is secondary, since usually a separate, already proven professional is hired for this position. A particularly successful video is obtained if the cameraman and director have known each other for a long time and work in tandem, understanding all the tasks they face.

But if the vacancy of the operator remains unoccupied, his work is also performed by the clip maker himself, and the final result directly depends on his personal skills in this difficult matter.

Editor

If the clip maker is the one who “makes the clip”, then the editor is the person responsible for the direct “gluing” and placement of frames in the order specified in the script. Usually eminent directors do not trust the editing process to unfamiliar people and work in the studio themselves, determining the order of shots and, accordingly, editing the film according to their author's vision.

The clip maker can consult with the group, finding out exactly what moment of the video should be suitable for this or that word of the song, musical part or solo part, or he can decide everything himself, determining the order of small videos in the context of one large piece.

Composer

Often composition,which will sound in the video, the group provides. However, in addition to the song, other background sounds are constantly present in the clips, for example, the interlude for the prologue or the atmospheric composition of the epilogue. In such cases, the video maker must also have the skills of a composer in order to competently combine the work of the group with additional sounds, to create a special atmosphere that will not only emphasize the beauty of the recorded song, but also make the video sequence special, turning it into a conceptual creation.

Sound engineer

One of the responsibilities of a clip maker is the ability to work with sound. It is very important to make the sound picture of the work monotonous so that all everyday and additional sounds are correctly combined with the main composition, complementing it and making the sound palette of the clip richer. Of course, this work can also be done by a sound engineer specially hired for this purpose, but serious clip makers consider this to be in bad taste, preferring to perform the final dubbing of the clip personally to make sure the quality of the mixed audio tracks.

Post-production

The ability to process the footage is the main task of the director of video clips. Sometimes the filming process itself is much easier than the final editing of the video. The creative team spends long hours and days in the studio, gluing, adjusting, cutting, adding and reordering the frames of the clip endlessly, in order to ultimately get a beautiful piece that will remain in the memory of the viewer forever.

How to becomemusic video?

You can get a well-deserved title of a clip maker only in the process of hard work on yourself and your creative skills, theoretical knowledge and practical experience. To begin with, you should find out all the information about working with video, ask about various directing techniques, try to shoot a few videos yourself. If there is a musical group among the acquaintances of a novice clip maker, then you can offer your services to her. The main thing is to constantly study, set high goals for yourself and work without rest, achieving better results each time.