Experience Level: All

Conceive, develop and execute your own long-form narrative music video (popularly known as the visual album) on zero budget and limited resources. This workshop dissects the space where music rife with a story and guerrilla cinema intersect, encouraging filmmakers and musicians to bring all ideas to the table – from initial seed concepts to projects already in pre-production. Students will use the history of visual albums past to take a critical look at their own proposals, working on treatment, budget and visual presentation to create a standalone work that uses music to tell a story.

TOPICS

• Not just a music video: The history of the visual album, from the Beatles to Janelle Monae
• The visual vs. the music: What comes first? Which is telling the story?
• Economical concept-building: Using your resources to help tell your story, from cast to locations
• D.I.Y. Budgeting: How to scale big ideas down to size
• The community factor: An open forum to share and build on ideas for success

Students should bring a laptop or device they can write with and use google spreadsheets on.