Seriously, if you want your vid to be taken seriously, dont use any standard "FX" in it.

Watch the top 40 music vids around today, 99% will include lots of speed ramping, time/slomo, overcranking type shots, and 3d animation objects inserted into the scenes.

Nothing worse than watching a well told and shot story, only to see some lens flare type effect ruin the mood, or star wipe to next scene.....

Just get your capture right,
Do a snappy edit ( or slow and dreamy if song requires)
Make your grading tasteful,
And you are there.

Here is an example, barely a budget, one days filming, no FX. Just a nice cam and lens hired for the day.

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Thanks Atom. It is an interesting idea. My main market is the medieval re-creation group (Society for Creative Anachronism - SCA), and though some modern stuff, especially performing clips, will be fine. I'm hoping to bring that period feel to the videos if possible. If not, well, that's where I was hoping something "effecty" (I know, not a word:)) from Vegas Pro could be cool. I do have a green screen set-up and have done chroma key stuff with Vegas Pro before.

I'll keep brainstorming. Thanks again.

Ken

two things on this planet I would love to change immediately: BAD camera use being "cool" or "good": over done flares, and shaky hand held camera work.

When filming something, why would we ever want a huge line of skewed light BLOCKING the view? It is "ART"??
And shaky hand held just smells of no budget or skills. It was cool exactly ONCE for about 30 seconds when BLAIR WITCH came out. Since then it's mostly just sloppy.

My opinion aside, see my first and last music video for various effects tested in Vegas
(yes, there are flares, shakey cam, and bad 80's coloring because that was desired)

I used a lot of the GLINT, SOFT CONTRAST, LENS FLARE, COOKIE CUTTER plugins as effects. The whole thing is a non-stop barrage of effects tests, overlays, and experiments.

@KRyan, I understand now. My wife used to take part in a lot of SCA events and have several friends who go today. Good luck with your project. Easy on those effects. ;-)

@wwjd.
Well I guess all tastes are different.

But I cant see how you can put cheesy Vegas lens flare and Glint in the same bucket as a 4k RED with Lomo anamorphic lenses. Most pros (and artists) can see the difference, thats why they pay good money to rent them.

Dont get me wrong, the tools in Vegas are great, but if not used subtly they can look very consumer grade.

My point was, if budget is limited, a performance clip is always a good way to go. Just use some imagination and theme it accordingly.

Whether you and I agree that shaky cams, flares etc are nice filmmaking or not, its what a lot (not all) of editors in this field of work are doing.

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too."
Abraham Simpson

simply put: one is filming IMAGES to show to others. why would one shake the images all over the place like they can't hold a camera steady. not a very good display of said visuals.

that's not being old, it is having the ****s to stand up and call it what it is.

I never compared anything to anything RED.

some of the most outstanding video clips i can remember were based solely on well shot performances.

if you're going to do anything else, it's going to have to look REALLY good, otherwise you'll end up being just more window dressing on youtube.

i used to regularly turn down video clips that didn't have the budget to cover the costs of SERIOUS post production - which not only meant colour grading, etc., but also using professionals who were adept with tools like genarts, maya, and after effects. these guys (and girls) KNEW what they were doing, and at around $300 / hour 15 years ago (labour only), you got something that was unique and memorable - not like the vast majority of wallpaper you see on tv nowadays made up of out of the box fx. {/r}

i have the feeling that the desktop tv revolution is still in progress - when it happened to print (think quark express, m$ publisher) what happened was the sudden demise of the graphic designer and the rise of the 'wonderkin' secretary who could throw 28 type fonts on a single page AND still leave room for clip art. in that regard the world has come full circle and now good designers are sought after and once again well paid.

for quite some time every tom, dick, and harry can pick up a cracked version of an nle, a $2k hd video camera ad sell themselves as the 'wunderkin' of video production; lots of 'bad' wobble cam (there IS good wobble cam,but you REALLY need to know how to do it), oodles and oodles of fx, and all at spectacularly low prices - the stuff looks like sh*t, and we all see it day in, day out.

fortunately people know what's good instinctively, and they will pay for it if they need it.

when a top line rapper / rocker / singer / producer starts quibbling about a $250k video, then we know all is lost to youtube....

I am of a mind with atom12 suggestion of shooting modern day interpretation or at least a well thought out set of metaphors. I take your point that you are involved in a "historical" scene but nonetheless I think you could bend the genre and take a risk.

I would point to Shakespeare and in particular Romeo & Juliet, leaving stage performance out just the variety of film interpretations shows ways you can play around with both historical works and well know plot. I will hasten to add there have been some productions that would have been better left on the cutting room floor.

So a couple of shot suggestions shoot fleeting glimpses from a far, as an example, a wide shot of a forest then x seconds in you see at a distance a character dart from behind a tree only to disappear behind another and stay on the shot for x seconds before cutting away to shadow(s) on a wall/ground of moving characters. I think you will get it - never actually see a person except fleetingly in the distance and for variety close ups of shadows (drawing a long bow?).

What FX could you add - Levels and Colour - perhaps darken the forest, play around with saturation and light, or add an amber cast to the whole piece? Go for mystery and atmosphere. Given the song isn't a jovial track.

I would also add a Nikon D800 with every F-mount lens made available is ideal for shooting "clips" particularly when you can control focus to a finer degree than most video cams.

Wow Atom12, someone else who knows about the SCA:). Cool. I'm getting some great ideas here from everyone. Thanks so much!

Ken

I'm an audio guy, and one of my main projects is teaching folks how to produce professional quality audio without buying expensive gear. I do this by demonstrating it. While it used to be true that in order to produce an album that sounded ready for radio, you had to pay thousands, even hundreds of thousands. That simply isn't true anymore.

However, like in the video field, the lower barriers to entry have led to a flood of crappy audio recordings. But that is down to a lack of knowledge and not a lack of gear. My latest album not counting the cost of my time - used about $3K in total gear and software, another $750 for mastering (post-production) by a professional mastering house, and another $2K in manufacturing/printing. And I know what I'm doing. So I'm not suggesting that and Tom, ****, and Harry should be recording albums with $75 USB mic and free software. Yes, that does happen, and yes, that results in shyte recordings (most of the time).

But still, my $3K in total gear and software was 2 decent microphones, a decent hardware interface, and a total of about $2K in software - different programs, no single one of which was more than $600.

Is there not a similar set of circumstances with video? Surely there is some middle ground between a video made with an iPhone and iMovie for super cheap, and $250 grand for a music video?

I have an $800 camcorder (Vixia), a few hundred dollars in lighting for indoor shoots, and a $600 video program (Vegas Pro). So before I start, I'm at $2K+ for gear. I will probably rent or borrow a DSLR for some of the shots as well.

Keeping in mind that my prime demographic is the medieval re-creationist market and not the top-40 pop or country record buying public, is it possible to create something with my gear and software to produce something that is professional looking? To do something similar to what I mentioned that I do with audio?

Cheers,
Ken

of course it's possible to create good video with prosumer equipment, with the right lighting, setup, etc., you can get some fabulous footage - however, it will NEVER match the look or quality of serious equipment.

i should also add that as soon as you start introducing prosumer effects, your 'overall' production value goes down. even the uninitiated viewer is pretty savvy as to what's quality and what's homegrown....