Thinking of shooting a music video? Watch this.

Friedemann: Over the years, I've dabbled in shooting music videos. For my own music as Kano Head, I shot and edited thirteen music videos, releasing one every month. And when I say I was a team of one, I really mean one. I was in front of the camera and behind the camera, to a point where all of the camera movement that you see was all done in post. But this time was very different. I just shot a music video for my wife, Joanna Kay, and suddenly there were over a dozen people on set, dance choreographies. Script, multiple locations, and just two hours at each location to get everything we needed. You'd think that the most stressful part of a production like that would be the actual shoot, but it wasn't. The most stressful part was the two weeks before anyone even stepped onto the set. Two weeks of planning, problems, compromises, replanning, rewriting, trying to solve problems that didn't exist yet, and discovering new ones every time we solved an old one. And here's the strange thing. When you eventually watch the finished video, you won't see any of that. You won't see the things that almost went wrong, the ideas we had to abandon, the last minute changes, the compromises that somehow turned into better ideas. And in a month, I'll probably have forgotten how much work this actually was. That's happened to me with almost every big project I've ever done. So today I want to take you behind the scenes of this one because the finished work is only half the story. So what is the song about? This is a song called Girl. Which I wrote and co-produced with Joanna. And it's about wanting to be young again. So the first line of the song is, I used to sniff my glitter pens. Now I'm a Mrs. So and so to you. And it's about somebody who's feeling quite nostalgic about being a teenager again and, you know, hanging out with their friends and things like that. Joanna looks very young and people often think she's 10 or sometimes 15 years younger than she actually is, and we wanted to play with that somehow. So the title girl just made a lot of sense for us. So we wanted something sweet, imperfect, not cool. We wanted something that's fun, not funny. So what was our vision? I had this idea. So what was our vision? We had this idea of Joanna coming to a dance class, and there's all these young girls that are kind of lining up and they're huddling together and she's know, putting on her shoes and kind of like side eyeing them, being like, man, this is kind of cool. I want to be part of that gang. And they are like whipping out their phones and she only has a book or something, you know, something dinosaur-like. And s loads of jokes like that. That was kind of the original idea. And then we would have scenes where they're dancing, everybody's kind of Perfectly in sync and Joanna's always lagging slightly behind, you know, she can't quite keep up with everybody. And then it would just be jokes like that. They're wearing cool shoes, Joanna's wearing clogs or whatever. So what did we do? We contacted the local dance studios and asked whether they have dancers for us, teens and, you know, parents, moms, which could appear with Joanna. We wanted to do a sort of duel at some point in the song. where we have like teens on one side, Gen Z versus the millennials, you know? And so we contacted them and we sent them like a whole pitch and said, like, hey, here's a couple of the scenes that we were thinking about would be really cool. It was vacation time, right? Summer break. So we thought the studio is empty. This the kids have time and they're probably eager to get back to dancing. So we were quite excited about this. And so we contacted the leader of the dance studio and said, like, hey, look, we think this would be cool. I'm sure a lot of teens would want to be part of a music video. Here, check this out. And he's like, Is there a budget? We said, There is no budget. And he said, Okay, it's gonna be difficult, but I can try. Two days later, we get an email saying they're not interested. If there's no budget, they're not gonna do it, which really surprised us, thinking, I you know, when I was a teenager, if somebody would have offered me the chance to be a part of a music video, I would have jumped at that. So it surprised us. And we were really let down by this because we really thought, does that mean we have to scrap our whole idea? If everybody says no to this, maybe it's not as interesting. Making a music video as we thought it was. In the meantime, Joanna had organized some of her friends. So we had the moms. We just didn't have the teens. And the teens were kind of a crucial part of this music video. So we didn't quite know what to do. We got to know from the dance studio for the teens. We got to know about the dance studio because we wanted to use that location, remember, and they wanted to see a lot of money for it, which we didn't have because this was basically a no-budget shoot. So we were in trouble. We had to find a new dance studio. And then the question was, do we even need a dance studio anymore? If we don't have the teens, if we don't have the dancers, does it even still make sense? So we have two weeks before the video has to be finished before we send it out to the distribution. And so we are kind of struggling. We're like, okay, we have this whole plan, we have this whole thing figured out. What do we do now? so Joanna posted something on social media and contacted a bunch of other dance studios in the hopes that somebody might say yes. In the meantime, one of the moms that Joanna had recruited, let's say, got very excited about the offer to do a music video, which was awesome. And she made a choreography for the song. The problem was that the choreography did not at all align with the vision that we had for the song. It was a a very sexy chair choreography. And that's not what you want in a music video that's supposed to be self-deprecating and making fun of your own age. So already I have to say no to somebody who worked for free on this project because she was really excited. And I have to say, no, I'm sorry, this doesn't fit our vision. So she wasn't thrilled about the idea, of course, of dropping the entire choreo. But we met up and we talked about a pom-pom coureel, which is a lot more girl like. So that was something that we could get her excited about. That's something that she started working on. While we were still trying to figure out how we were going to do this, even in the first place. So at this point, the entire crew is just me, right? I'm gonna be doing everything at this point. And so we already knew that that wasn't gonna be working if we are working with a lot of people, which we still didn't have, but you know, hopefully we were gonna get those. We would need a bit of a crew. We need people for lighting, we need people for camera, directing, things like that. Gaffer, you know, people running around and helping out. So we have a friend who is a director, and so we contacted Him and said, Hey, we have this music video coming up. would you look at our idea? What do you think? And he said, Okay, I'm just gonna check it out and tell you what I think. I'm available on this specific date next week. So we had one date that we now had where everything had to be done, basically. And we thought, okay, that's what we're going for. That's when we're gonna shoot this whole thing. So that's what we tell everybody. That's when we ask the location. This Thursday, that's the one we're gonna use. Because it's the only place that the director even has time. Problem is we still don't have a script. We don't have the dancers, and we don't have a location to film it. So what do we do? We have an outline, that's what we sent him, but that's kind of all we have at this point. So all of it comes back down to we need to find a location and we need to get our teens on board. So you remember how Joanna posted something on social media about making a music video and that she was looking for dancers? Well, suddenly Dozens of teens are showing up, and we have a bunch of teens who are willing in some cases to travel four hours to come to our music video shoot to be part of Girl, which is amazing. Like this, we have about seven or eight girls who can actually make the date and who can actually be there. The problem with it is, on the other hand, side, is with this many people, you need a big location. And big locations are expensive. We could shoot it. I guess on a parking lot, but that has nothing to do with the theme. We need something that speaks to what the song is about, right? So none of the dance schools want to do it. Joanna has contacted all of the ones in our vicinity. It's also the summer break, so a lot of people, you know, the owners aren't there and they won't give out the keys just to anybody. So we're in serious trouble here. We have the dancers, we don't have a location to shoot at. So the next couple of days, we are actively location hunting, and that's really all we're doing. trying to find a location that we could fit all these people in. And we soon realize that the dance studios that we look at aren't really that interesting visually. They're just empty rooms. There's a big mirror on one side, obviously, and that makes it really difficult to shoot because you don't want to be in the shot. It's not the ideal location. Of course, that means scrapping our whole idea of Joanna coming to dance rehearsal and seeing all these other teens. So that makes it more difficult. So we think about, well, what else could we do? Maybe she's going roller skating and we go to like a skating rink or something like that, or maybe a bowling alley. And we have a couple of ideas like that, like ice skating or some kind of sport where Joanna can kind of look a little ridiculous because she's not as good as the other teens, right? So we have a couple of options for the location. So we can actually write the script so we can get our cameraman and director on board. So now that it's becoming kind of clear that we're going to use the bowling alley, which was the nicest location that we saw, I'm writing a new script for the director. So he has something to look at so you can say yes or no to us. So I sit down to write. Here's what I come up with. Joanna's at a bowling alley. She's shit at bowling. She looks over. There's these teens who are really great at it. She sees them, she kind of gets nostalgic, a little bit jealous. She wants to be part of the gang. And then she has like sort of a dream sequence in which we see her in a different location, much brighter, very colorful, dancing with people her age. And it's this whole idea of want to be a girl, I've womaned it enough, right? That's the the chorus line. So that's our concept for it, which also means we need a second location for the colorful shoot. So we've seen a couple of those, and we pick one. And now that we have our locations sorta locked down, we don't have a definite yes from the locations yet, but we have a good idea of what we're gonna shoot there. We now send this script to the director. And as luck would have it, one of the locations that we found is actually just three minutes from the bowling alley, and it's Gorgeous. It's super colorful. It's exactly what we need. So now we have four days left and we are stressing out because we still don't have a team. Just me shooting about 15 people at this point at two big locations. And so we contact the director again, say, Did you take a look at the script? How's everything looking? Can you can you do Thursday? Here's how we're planning the day. And I guess that came across as too pushy because he said, like, well, if you're gonna plan like this, I haven't even said yes, I'm out. Sorry. So suddenly the whole film crew is just me. Camera, director, lighting, grip, all those things is just back to me. At this point, I'm honestly thinking, screw it. I'm just gonna do it. I've shot music videos before. I have shot a lot of YouTube videos before. I can do this. I'll figure it out if I have to. We've done all of this work. We're not gonna throw all of that away because we don't have a crew. Now we still haven't heard from the locations, so we're still not entirely sure whether we can actually do it on the day, but if we can, I definitely want to shoot because You know, the distributor is actively waiting. They're writing every day saying, like, hey, we need the music video next Monday. Don't forget, right? The moms come over and they're practicing their dance routines, right? The pom pom routine and the chair choreo is still being practiced, although I'm still not quite sure how we're gonna fit that in. And so the plan right now is we're gonna do two hours of shooting at the bowling alley, then we have a one hour break, and then we're gonna do another hour of shooting at that other location. So luckily the bowling alley says yes for a little bit more money than we were hoping for, but at least we do have a location. That can fit this many people. The second location, unfortunately, says, well, we do a two-hour minimum. So you have to take at least two hours, and they're quite expensive. So this takes us well above our budget of 700 euros for the locations. But I say, you know what? Screw it. This is just, it's a good situation, one being so close to the other. We should still do this. We're just going to use the second hour we have at location number two for shooting social media content. It's a big location, right? With a lot of different areas, like there's a boxing ring and like a room with a lot of lights and whatever. So there's a lot of Opportunities here to shoot some nice content. So with three days left, I start making a shot list. This is basically just a little comic book showing me exactly the shots that I need, right? And then ordering those in a way that makes sense to shoot. So we're not shooting the thing in order because if Joanna's already sitting in a location and we need that shot again later, we're just going to shoot those back to back, right? So we make a shot list for all of that. I've never had to do that before because I usually work by myself, as I say, and I have all the time in the world. And I just kind of shoot whatever I think looks interesting and put it together in the edit. But in this case, we do have a proper story, so there's a a fair bit of storytelling involved. Every section has a thing that needs to happen during that section. So there's a lot more planning that needs to go into that. So we do that. I watch a lot of tutorials, specifically on how to shoot in low level light settings because the bowling alley is quite dark. There's a lot more planning that Joanna is doing at the same time, figuring out the outfits and coordinating everybody to. where things that kind of fit together, reaching out to more crew members that might potentially join me and to help me out. And finally, we have a little bit of luck that our neighbor says yes to being my assistant on set, helping helping me kind of set up the lights, managing everything, walking around with like, you know, the shot list and just crossing everything off that we've shot, already a huge help. And I'm so happy to have somebody helping me out. So it's not just me. So now I'm preparing and I'm looking through my gear, setting everything up, make sure I have everything. And I realize that my gimbal, which is a contraption that you use to have a steadier shot with your camera, is basically broken. So it's a really nice gimbal, but it's made by this dude in Italy who doesn't even operate anymore. And it's it uses these RC car batteries. And one of them, as I unpack it, I realize has swollen to double its size. And the other one I can barely get out of the gimbal. So It looks like this gimbal isn't gonna work. It looks like I only have about three hours of shooting time left on it, which is not a lot if you're shooting for four hours, right? So I realize I need a new gimbal. Luckily, gimbals these days are much cheaper, and I managed to score one that is gonna arrive on time before the shoot. But another cost that I did not see coming. So now it's the day before. I'm exporting clips of the song, you know, verse two, so we can jump right into that so we don't have to look for the moments in the song. I'm exporting some clips at double speed, some at half speed, because I'm gonna be shooting super slow motion and sometimes at double speed. And I have to make sure that the mouth movements still line up and I have to remember to do all of that on set to set the camera to the proper mode. We're also re rehearsing Joanna's acting. Joanna's never acted before. Now she doesn't have any lines, but there's all the facial expressions that have to work. And on the day we won't have time for that. So we're practicing that. And then we go to bed. And just hope for the best. And then it's the day of the shoot. I am extremely nervous about having to direct people. I I feel like I'm good one-on-one with people. I'm not really comfortable once there's more than one person that I'm talking to at the same time. So this is something that I have that I really struggle with. I'm I'm not really good splitting my attention between two people in the room, much less 15 people who are now waiting for me to tell them what to do. So we get there a little early, and thankfully the bowling alley lets us in a little bit earlier. Which is awesome because it means we have some time to set up the lights and to talk to the actors and make sure everybody's on board. Awesome. So then we shoot the video and everything, and I mean everything goes to plan, which is really weird. The girls are great, the moms are great, everybody has is having a great time. And then that just doesn't stop. The day is really energizing. It's exhilarating. I it's it's a weird feeling. I have spent years making things largely by myself. You know, the thirteen music videos every month as a one-man operation. And this project was the first time that I tried to control something much bigger. And naturally my instinct was to solve the problem through more planning, right? Having a script, finding locations, getting the choreographies down, getting a crew with a shot list, schedules, rehearsals. And then despite all of that planning, the thing that made the shoot successful was ultimately people. When you watch the final video, you'll see that the thing that really makes it work. Is the characters in it? The girls and the moms were just awesome. I'm shooting this whole thing and I'm just having the best time, and everybody there is having the best time. And the next day I'm editing and I can't stop smiling. Joanna and I shot about a dozen videos together already. And this is the most her I've ever seen her in a music video. It feels like it's the perfect video for the song. So I'm having a blast editing this. And this brings me to perhaps a lesson that I've learned from all of this, which is. That you discover what your project is by making it. So when you hear me talk about how we had this plan in the beginning and then we got a bunch of no's making it impossible for us to carry out our vision, you would think that that means the music video got less good, that we had to compromise on it. But that's not true. So it's not like every time we got a no, our project just got smaller or worse. We just had to be smart and rethink, replan with these new constrictions, how do we now pull this off? So it's really a matter of being okay with abandoning plans and saying, okay, well, with these new constraints, what are we going to do? What's the best thing we can make with this? The young dancers didn't want to do it. The dance studios weren't interested. We didn't have the right location. And then suddenly we had too many teenagers and we didn't have the money to get a good location. Then the choreography wasn't what we had imagined. Then we didn't have a script, director, or crew. And every single problem changed the project. The bowling alley wasn't merely a backup location. The imperfect choreography, the dream sequences, the particular people who actually showed up, those things helped create the actual identity of the video. As artists, we often think that we are creating the work, but the work is also creating itself through resistance. And that's something to really keep in mind. When we are making something, remember that the work also has its voice. And it's important to let that shine and to let that come through. Your original idea is almost never the thing you end up making. That's the process. It's struggle. And struggle is vital to making anything of note. Weirdly enough, struggle is something that everybody is seeking to eradicate at the moment. AI, but before that, apps and books. Marketing wants us to believe that our lives should be easy and comfortable. When really the most satisfying thing you'll ever do. Is look back at something you accomplished that was incredibly hard. Work needs to be hard to make a difference. Easy work is shallow.