Shooting a Music Video

Living Dead Drummer

Living Dead Drummer

Platinum Member
Not sure if this should be in the "Your Playing" Forum or not. If it's in the wrong place I apologize.

I wanted to give people a little peek at how drums are filmed for music videos. The band has to match the recorded track perfectly in order for post production editing to line things up. For this reason we play the recording out loud through a PA and play along to it. No amps are turned on and drums are muted so we can all hear the song clearly. In order to mute the drums we employ rubber mutes over the drums and something called "video deads" for cymbals.
For the drums I use a set of Vic Firth drum mutes, flipped logo down. Being that I mainly use black drumheads anyway, these look no different on camera. The "Video Deads" are REAL cymbals. They use two of the same model and glue them together. This takes away most of the flexibility and adds a bunch of weight. When struck they just make a "clunk" sound. Most larger rental houses will have these in all major brands with a wide variety of models and sizes. You can hear everything in the video below. The video deads I'm using are 14" Hats, two 18" Crashes, 20" Ride, and an 18 China. All Paiste of course, and mostly from the signature line.

 
This is great! When I've done videos in the past, I don't attach my kick drum pedal at all and I use Silent Strokes on the toms and snare. I never really knew what to do with my cymbals. I'll have to try this!
 
Cool insight, we mostly played "live" but with me on a click through a bluetooth earbud. Maybe some tape underneath the cymbals at the most, but mostly just memorizing the parts as good as we can and play. Will check out these solutions on our next video 🙂
 
I never understood if they intend to play the video and edit out the "clink" or muted strikes out by removing the audio and playing the video in synch with the studio recorded version, then why not have us play it for real and do the same thing remove the audio from the video and then synch it to the desired audio. I did one video in the 80's and it was filmed at a news network station, we kind of had an issue with me striking the (simmons) drum pads. They were trying to do the audio simultaineously with the video.
 
MazdaRex said:
(And apparently they use colored mashed potatoes in place of real ice cream for tv commercials, too.)
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Food stylists use all sorts of chemicals & substances for their "food". This "ice cream" sat on the set for over two hours while we waited for some suit in an office to approve the pic. The give-away is: there's no condensation on the glass.

IMG_1232.jpeg
 
Luv4drums said:
I never understood if they intend to play the video and edit out the "clink" or muted strikes out by removing the audio and playing the video in synch with the studio recorded version, then why not have us play it for real and do the same thing remove the audio from the video and then synch it to the desired audio. I did one video in the 80's and it was filmed at a news network station, we kind of had an issue with me striking the (simmons) drum pads. They were trying to do the audio simultaineously with the video.
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With hot amps and live drums you would never be able to hear direction from the people on set. You would also have to bring in a full sound system for monitoring. Basically set up for an entire concert. Sound techs, the whole nine. It's far more cost effective to do it this way, plus if you play to the audio that's going to be used in the final product you can better match the parts. I don't always play 100% as something is recorded in a live setting, but if I'm shooting a video I try to match every note perfectly. If I can't hear that part while I'm doing it I could make a costly mistake. It's about controlling the environment to make post production easier.
 
Living Dead Drummer said:
With hot amps and live drums you would never be able to hear direction from the people on set. You would also have to bring in a full sound system for monitoring. Basically set up for an entire concert. Sound techs, the whole nine. It's far more cost effective to do it this way, plus if you play to the audio that's going to be used in the final product you can better match the parts. I don't always play 100% as something is recorded in a live setting, but if I'm shooting a video I try to match every note perfectly. If I can't hear that part while I'm doing it I could make a costly mistake. It's about controlling the environment to make post production easier.
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See I am still not getting it. Isn't that what ear monitors are for?
 
Very cool, Nick! A glimpse at the other side of music production that most of us never see!

To chime in with @MazdaRex and @cbphoto, a buddy of mine in Denver, CO was a professional photographer. Bought himself a Toyota LandCruiser in the early 80's on credit - hunting and all that... His wife almost exploded!! He indentured himself to wedding shoots and food photography for a year and paid it off. Weddings are mostly weekend affairs and never run on time - racing between stacked up events almost killed him. One thing I remember is that french fries are hard to keep looking like they just came out of the fryer for a one-hour shoot and that a holiday turkey is cooked to perfection with a propane torch!

On that same note, I worked in a slaughterhouse for a time. If you ever wondered where those nicely trimmed and packed steaks come from, let me know! ;)
 
Luv4drums said:
See I am still not getting it. Isn't that what ear monitors are for?
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You could use them on set, and I have in the past where hearing the playback was going to be an issue. But It doesn't solve any of the outlying problems I listed. You would still have to have to have the sound dialed in for everyone's ears, and that doesn't help with the volume on set from amps/drums. The Director, and crew need to be able to hear one another, and you need to be able to hear them. Can't do that if the band is playing out loud.
 
As always - there always seems to be a million different ways people get stuff done.... The only time on video that I've been asked to have silent drums is where live audio was also being captured along with us playing to a pre-recorded track. Common example - they want to capture a live vocal performance, but have the band mime the instrumental parts.

I've never used "video dead" cymbals, except for situations like the above - and when the drums will be more part of the background.... as basically, crashing them tends to look funny... they are so thick and heavy, that they only barely move when struck. You almost have to give them a push as you're striking them to get them to move.

Also have never run into a director wanting to be able to gives cues to the band while they are performing - to the crew certainly, but that's why cameramen and lighting guys are always wearing big beefy headphone/headsets. But beyond that - setting up playback capable of blasting the track over the sound of acoustic drums is pretty straight forward. (Playback device pumped into a simple PA with the speakers turned around facing the band)

All said not to at all discount the OP sharing this with us - just chiming in that you can run into a lot of variation in how this stuff is done.
 
i was not meaning to bring criticism to how the op video was made, but only trying to learn. I really felt strong about pretending to play in the one video I made at a news station. I figured anything I played while filming would be scratched and audio synched up to it later. That was in the 80's too before the software programs like sonar or other movie making stuff ever existed. Yes I was flying through space throughout the video. The rest of the video was a model sitting on a bar chair while the singer lip synched to her with a bottle of champaign. Videos I have watched with playing in them have always looked like the drummer was in fact making contact. Apparently Tommy Lee fakes live performances too!!
 
dcrigger said:
Also have never run into a director wanting to be able to gives cues to the band while they are performing - to the crew certainly, but that's why cameramen and lighting guys are always wearing big beefy headphone/headsets.
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I used to sell those belt packs and headsets for Clear Com, they were the top competitor of RTS. They started here in the bay area at first to stage production, lighting crews, then moved into broadcasting, News vans and trucks... Aerospace, and the famous, Moon landing communications to Houston from the Apollo missions. You see them on the instant replay in NFL games from "upstairs" to the reviewing referee. And RTS OEM's to sony for the coaches. RTS headsets are more appealing to the eyes.
They also have computer based systems for buildings and government contracts, with Lockheed...etc...
They are wired headsets that use a 6 pin XLR. and work generally on two channels. like directers line and crew line.
There is no reason why a line could not be sent through the same channel the track is playing on that is in your ear monitor if you have to receive directors verbal calls while playing. Like I said though I am grateful to be able to learn stuff Thanks all. Pardom my lack of understanding and experience.
 
Smoke said:
Very cool, Nick! A glimpse at the other side of music production that most of us never see!

To chime in with @MazdaRex and @cbphoto, a buddy of mine in Denver, CO was a professional photographer. Bought himself a Toyota LandCruiser in the early 80's on credit - hunting and all that... His wife almost exploded!! He indentured himself to wedding shoots and food photography for a year and paid it off. Weddings are mostly weekend affairs and never run on time - racing between stacked up events almost killed him. One thing I remember is that french fries are hard to keep looking like they just came out of the fryer for a one-hour shoot and that a holiday turkey is cooked to perfection with a propane torch!

On that same note, I worked in a slaughterhouse for a time. If you ever wondered where those nicely trimmed and packed steaks come from, let me know! ;)
Click to expand...
Did this guy design the slaughterhouse?


Sorry…just wanted an excuse to post this.
 
Luv4drums said:
i was not meaning to bring criticism to how the op video was made, but only trying to learn. I really felt strong about pretending to play in the one video I made at a news station. I figured anything I played while filming would be scratched and audio synched up to it later. That was in the 80's too before the software programs like sonar or other movie making stuff ever existed. Yes I was flying through space throughout the video. The rest of the video was a model sitting on a bar chair while the singer lip synched to her with a bottle of champaign. Videos I have watched with playing in them have always looked like the drummer was in fact making contact. Apparently Tommy Lee fakes live performances too!!
Click to expand...

I never took it as criticism at all. The whole reason to post that clip was to show people a peek behind the scenes of how things are generally done. And There are many ways to do it, this is just what I've found to be most common. The drummer music always make contact with the drums/cymbals, and that's the reason for having video deds and pads on the drums in the first place. If you weren't to make contact, and just kind of air-drum it's REALLY obvious. I did it once on a set where volume was a huge issue. We weren't allowed to make much noise on set due to other businesses operating in the same building as the studio. The video turned out so bad looking that they had me come back and reshoot the entire thing at a different soundstage where we could have the volume up louder, and I could really make contact with the kit. This of course was many yeas ago, before I knew about video deads and mutes for the kit. So I was playing the drums live and out loud along with playback.
That was probably the LAST video I ever shot without mutes and dead cymbals, lol.
 
Living Dead Drummer said:
I never took it as criticism at all. The whole reason to post that clip was to show people a peek behind the scenes of how things are generally done. And There are many ways to do it, this is just what I've found to be most common. The drummer music always make contact with the drums/cymbals, and that's the reason for having video deds and pads on the drums in the first place. If you weren't to make contact, and just kind of air-drum it's REALLY obvious. I did it once on a set where volume was a huge issue. We weren't allowed to make much noise on set due to other businesses operating in the same building as the studio. The video turned out so bad looking that they had me come back and reshoot the entire thing at a different soundstage where we could have the volume up louder, and I could really make contact with the kit. This of course was many yeas ago, before I knew about video deads and mutes for the kit. So I was playing the drums live and out loud along with playback.
That was probably the LAST video I ever shot without mutes and dead cymbals, lol.
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Appreciate the knowledge, glad you shared it.
 
@Living Dead Drummer appreciate the content, this is a niche of the drumming world I knew/know nothing about. The cymbal reads were the eye opening part......whoever came up with that originally had a creative moment and some petty cash to burn lol.
 
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