Lights, camera, action! Time to make a music video. Making music videos is a ton of fun. You get a small taste of what it feels like to be in an MTV video. Is that still a thing with YouTube? And now it has become easier and easier for people to make home videos, wedding videos, corporate videos, music videos—basically any kind of movie you want to make. There is nothing stopping you from letting your creativity run wild with this fun and creative date idea.
Digital video cameras have come way down in price since they were first released, and with smartphone technology the way it is, practically everyone has a video recording device nestled in their pocket. Who knows maybe the next famous movie star, singer, or Hollywood director is one of your friends. Now after recording, you can hook up the camera to your computer and edit your video or download it from your phone. Most computers have some sort of editing system on them already.
For this creative date idea, you and your date can make a music video together. Maybe you could make a lip-sync video to one of your favorite love songs or you could make a fun music video, or a silly dancing movie.
Holiday seasons are a great time for movie making, so take advantage of whichever one is near. Or for the perfect group date idea grab your friends and their significant others and makes a super fun music video together.
What you need for this music video date idea:
You really only need a camera, whether on your phone or a separate camera, your imagination, and a computer to edit the videos on. I use professional software called Adobe Premiere. Other good editing programs are Final Cut Pro X, Pinnacle Studio, etc. Do you have Windows 10? If so there is a free video editor that comes with it.
You can find basic editing tutorials on YouTube if you don’t really know how to do it already. Or if you like you can try making a one-shot video. What is a one-shot video? Well, basically what you do is you start the music and roll your camera. Then do everything you want to do until the song ends. Stop the camera and your video is done. You don’t worry about any kind of editing. This takes a ton of rehearsing to make it look really cool, or don’t worry about how it looks and just have fun.
If you plan on posting the video just make sure you read the copyright rules for the song that you are using. On YouTube a lot of times you can use a particular song for a video, but the owner of the song will run ads on your video and they will get to keep the money.
My commentary on this creative date idea:
My brother and his wife used to make Christmas music videos every year. The videos are really entertaining and fun for the whole family to watch. Not to mention it is a great way to save memories for posterity. Something to remember is that this can be a time-consuming task, although that might be what makes it so great! And remember that you don’t have to make it a masterpiece; having fun is what really will set this date apart.
I have made several music videos over the years. Sometimes they were just slideshow videos, other times they were lip-syncing videos with my family or friends. Or that one time I made a solo cheesy dance video. And in case you are wondering, no I don’t have moves like Jagger.
Once you’re done recording, put it on a DVD or Blu-Ray, keep the file on your computer, or just upload it to YouTube and share it with the world (you’ll need to be mindful of copyright issues if you upload to YouTube). And don’t fret if it seems like way too much work—the recording and editing can be done over a series of dates. Maybe you could tell your date that for the next few Friday nights you will be working on the video together. My career is video production so this is something I have lots of experience with. For me sometime in the future maybe I will have my wife be my co-host on my YouTube cooking channel.
How to Make a Music Video
I covered the basics of how to make a music video above. But I want to share a few more ideas to help make the process go more smoothly. When I tackle the task of making a music video I do a fair amount of planning. That age-old saying,
If you fail to plan, you plan on failing.
Benjamin Franklin
Again though you can certainly make this process as simple as you want. And not care how good it comes out and just get a barrel of laughs out while doing it. But if you really want to make it awesome follow some of these tips.
Tip 1: Plan out your various locations.
A variety of locations, indoors, outdoors, cool scenery all lend to the production value of the final product. Make sure you have any necessary permits to film in those particular locations. Most of the time you won’t get bothered if you are filming with your phone. But the moment you set up a tripod and camera officials seem to get leary.
Tip 2: Watch several videos that you like
What makes them awesome? Try and incorporate some of that stuff into your video. I like to get a variety of angles when I film. Make sure to get a nice wide shot of the talent lip-singing the whole song. That will serve as your MASTER angle. Then come in at the same location as the master angle and get closeup shots. Have the talent lip sing the whole song again, this time have the camera close on just the face or faces. Do you have instruments as props? Get close up angles of those. Now once you are done with this location go to your next location and repeat the process. MASTER wide angle first, then move on to the closeup angles.
Tip 3: Cutaway shots
Cutaway shots to other scenery, related to your video are always a nice touch. If they are easy to capture then great get them. If not use a free resource like Pixabay to find some videos and images to use.
Tip 4: Editing
Use professional or free software to edit the video. If video editing is something you really enjoy you might opt for professional software. But there are many free tools out there that you can use as well. During editing, since you have the full song for all the main locations and closeups you can sync all the shots together easily. This is more easily done in certain video editing software. Then it just becomes a matter of what shot you want to use at a particular point in the song. Is there a guitar solo? Make sure to come in close to the person playing the guitar. You get the idea. There are many many editing tutorials on YouTube that will help you in your music video making experience.
Tip 6: Have fun!
Most importantly have lots of fun with it. Don’t get too hung up with the details, and don’t let it stress you out if something doesn’t go how you want it to.
Share your music video!
Do you have experience with this creative date idea? Let me know in the comments how it went and if your date, spouse, significant other liked it. Also, share a link to the video if you posted it somewhere, I would love to see it! You can buy a copy of the book 101 Creative Dates: ideas, tips, and personal experiences from the life of a hopeless romantic here or visit the shop.
Here are other date ideas you might like: