You're driving in your car
You turn on the radio......

"Wild thing,
You make my heart sing
You make everything .... Groovy" .....

The song by the appropriately named Troggs fills the car and your head with visions of Joe the Raptor ... and with that the idea for a video is born.

There are two ways to approach video making.
1.      the song provides the basis and the theme for the video
2.      the idea or theme is there and you go looking for a song to express your vision.

Either approach has been used by all video makers and you can approach it whichever way seems more "you."

For example, under the first approach Sandy says she just knew the song "Against the Wind" was a David Grief and Jenny Duval video. So she matched the clips to the words, building on the theme of David and Jenny.

Another example is "Miss Independent".  Julianne says she knew that song and it reminded her of Marguerite.  She matched the clips to the lyrics building on that theme.

Under the second approach, Sandy wanted to make a Morrighan video and wanted some Celtic overtones in the music - bagpipes and fiddles. So she went looking for a song that would give her that feel that she wanted. She went through the soundtracks for Willow and Braveheart and The Commitments, but nothing inspired her. Tried Sinead O'Connor and then went back to the Corrs and found what she wanted.

For the second approach, Julianne's example is "I Need You" by Leann Rimes.
"I knew I wanted to make some sort of tribute DMH video," Julianne says. "I had been listening to that song and liked the introduction piece. The best I can describe it is it sounded like the Old West to me. ... Once I placed them together I knew I had what I wanted," Julianne noted.

When JustLost did "Precious Pain", a Marguerite video, she says she had just started making videos - it was her first.  She also noted that "I also hadn't seen all the episodes and was only familiar with some of the third-season episodes and a few episodes from the other seasons. The Secret, at the time, was one of the most touching and memorable episodes I could remember. I went searching for songs to use and lucked out when I listened to "Precious Pain" by Melissa Etheridge. I also did that kind of video because it seems to be the type of video other video makers were making."

That's what I meant by the two approaches.

THE FIRST APPROACH:

So you already have a song like Wild Thing and you decide it would be great for a Joe the Raptor video.  Next step is to go to Google or some other search engine and find the lyrics on the Web. Read them closely ... are you going to be able to match scenes to those lyrics? Are they appropriate for your video?  Vid makers have tossed songs because the lyrics just aren't appropriate. Once you have the song and lyrics, start visualizing what scenes you would like to use - which brings us to storyboarding ....

THE SECOND APPROACH

Decide on a theme or purpose for a video. For example, how about a tribute to Summerlee video?  Once you have your theme/purpose, go look for a song.

Finding a song can be as simple as listening to the radio on the way to and from work or school; playing your CD collection; falling back on a song that was a personal favorite; or doing some surfing on the Web.  Or you can follow some advice from Karen (ksyrjama). She says most of her songs come from friends or from posting on the board and asking for help.

A good key to a song that will work for a video is that if while listening to it, scenes from the show start popping in your head. That is usually a sign that the song might work as a video.

What kind of music works? Anything.

There have been fanvids made from instrumentals, soundtracks, big band, easy listening, reggae, rock and roll, disco, acid rock, hard rock, soul, blues, ethnic i.e. Polynesian and Samoan, etc. The key is the song has to speak to YOU. Video making is very individualistic and personal if we strip it down to its barest of levels. It is your creation, your vision, and your expression.

Just pick a song that speaks to you or that allows you to have a vision or visions of the characters. Also, keep in mind what Catseye emphasized in Long Beach ... you have to LOVE the song because you are going to be listening to it - a lot. 

You will be listening to it to get ideas for scenes. You will be listening to it to decide what the feel is. You will be listening to it to see whether there are instrumentals inserted in between lyric stanzas. You will be listening to it to hear it talk to you. And you will be listening to it over and over again when you put your clips down and try and synchronize everything.

For example, Sandy watched Julianne (LJR02) listen to the song "My Immortal" over and over again on a trip from Charleston, S.C., to Savannah, Ga. Julianne just kept playing the CD over and over and Sandy could actually see Julianne visualizing it. But then Julianne also had Sandy's handy notepad swiped (with pen, of course - oh, those incidentals!) from the hotel in Charleston and Sandy writing down scenes so Julianne wouldn't forget what she was visualizing! 

"I started out thinking of that song for another purpose," Julianne says of My Immortal. "But once I had the basic storyboard going I actually ran with it. This was the first time I had done this on a road trip but with Sandy's notepad ... this actually wasn't a bad way to visualize, well, at least for me.  I wasn't the one taking notes!  I did keep listening to that song over and over ... and I'm still never tired of it. I would listen and tell Sandy scenes I was thinking of to use for certain verses ... there were some repeating verses, which helped and I had an idea of the type of scene I was looking for. The first thing I did know was where I wanted to put Veronica finding her father's grave scene.  I just jumped back and forth and Sandy kept taking notes. When I got home I started building the video."

Which brings us to the topic of storyboarding... but that's for the next installment.

For now, the assignment is to find a song and decide what kind of video you want to make with it. Once you have the song, start visualizing the scenes.

Also remember to bring a copy of your song to Toronto.

If you all have time, please go to Julianne's website and watch My Immortal. We will be pointing out some things during the Toronto vid segment based on the video.  And will use it as a discussion video.  (So you'll have a chance to pick Julianne's brain into her creative process.) If you can't download or watch the video, please email me and I will put the discussion vids on a disk and bring you a copy to Toronto - that way you can watch after you get home.

Next installment --- storyboarding.

As always you are not required to do this, but you might find it interesting and it will enrich your experience in Toronto.