Sam Shepherd writes about producing a high quality music video on a low budget.

Sam is a filmmaker and editor based in London, who has been producing videos, TV and online content for about six years. From his creative background in broadcast television and online, he has just started his own production label called We Were Promised Robots. Sam is currently developing new ideas for the BBC and Channel 4.

Unconventionally, the idea for the video came before I’d even heard the song – I wanted to do a performance piece with tremendous visual energy, hard cuts and relentless pacing. Working with an excellent DOP [Director of Photography], I set about producing a proof of concept demo to use in our pitch to potential bands. That’s how we came across The Bang Bangs who were looking for a new video to promote their forthcoming single, Union.

As we were going to be producing this independently, financing had to come out of our own back pocket. The upshot is that, working in the industry, we were able to beg, steal or borrow all the equipment we needed. Booking the studio was a small coup too – I was surprised how willing the management were to give us a discount rate when they learned we were an independent crew with no budget. In the end, most of the expense went on catering, car hire and about two kilos of red confetti (an essential purchase).

In my experience, working on projects with low-to-no budget can go one of two ways: either you’re horrendously overambitious in terms of scope and your ability to deliver, or you turn the lack of production value into an advantage. We played to our strengths. The video only demanded two different camera positions, and because of the pace of editing, we’d get away with really simplistic setups and quick takes.

With so few compositions in the video, it was important that it didn’t get stale and repetitive. To break up the pace, and for a bit of added flair, we shot some of the performance at 60fps and used red confetti as a visual motif. Considering I almost forked out for an electronic confetti cannon, I was very pleased with the results we had just standing at the top of a stepladder and throwing it at the band.

Fundamentally, the shoot was a success because of thorough planning. We were lucky enough to be working with a really enthusiastic band who were all willing to (literally) throw themselves into the performance. Having brainstormed the concept at length, and consequently being able to storyboard extensively, we were able to rocket through the shot list and get everything we wanted on a relatively short shoot day.

Sam’s Top 5 Tips!

5: Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Our idea was a little unconventional, so a proof of concept video went a long way to convincing bands.
4: Find a camera with overcrank.
Slow motion looks gorgeous in music videos, and raises production value a lot – we used Sony’s EX1.
3: Make friends with a DOP
…who can handle everything technical on the day, freeing you up to concentrate on what’s going on in front of the camera.
2: Have a Plan B
…for every shot and sequence; Not every idea works as envisioned.
1: Haggle!

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