Music Videos without a budget
For a while it seemed that music videos were dead. MTV and Much Music started airing reality shows, the music business took a hit with file sharing, and it seemed that the music video was a thing of the past.
Then came YouTube.
Music videos have a new life, with YouTube being the primary form of distribution. BUT the music business is still in trouble, and music video budgets are a fraction of what they once were. Here is an example of how an artist was able to take advantage of the marketing opportunity, with little to no budget:
OK, so this artist, Richie Kotzen, an American with no North American record deal, has 25 thousand views in 2 weeks on a video he did himself. Not bad!
This is a great example of thinking outside of the box because you have no budget. He grabbed a camcorder (could have even used a Flip), and got a pal to film him while he performed the song (yes, it helps that he plays all the instruments himself…). This probably took a maximum of a couple of hours. Then he probably dumped the footage on to a notebook with either Final Cut (could have even been the free iMovie), and spent a few hours cutting it together. Used a few basic filters to pretty up the footage, and done!
Now 25 thousand people have watch his promotional video for his new song and it barely cost him a penny!
Now, about that record deal…
*** UPDATE*** was just informed that the Director Of Photography on this video was Kotzen’s 12 year old daughter.
