Tips for Filming Yourself for MAJOR Improvement

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How to Actually Film Better Content as a Musician

Most musicians suck at filming content for themselves. Not because they lack creativity, but because the actual mechanics of filming: setting up, performing to the camera, capturing good takes, feel awkward and time-consuming. Here's how to make the filming process itself way smoother and get better results

Film in Batches

The setup, getting dressed, nailing the shot, getting in the zone, all that takes time. If you're already filming, get as much done while the camera's set up and you're dressed and ready. The setup time for 16 videos can be almost as long as filming all those videos combined.

Loop Your Sound

Never underestimate the power of looping your song on TikTok through a Bluetooth speaker and filming yourself on repeat rather than stopping between takes. So many of the best performances come from vibing out to a repeated loop till something fun happens. You can keep the loop of your song going, keep recording on your camera, and just keep performing until you nail that performance or something funny happens. You can improvise, experiment—all that stuff works to get better performances. It sometimes takes a while of hearing it over and over again until you're really in the vibe and feeling it. The stopping and starting kill momentum. Let it loop, let it rock. You'll edit the right portion later.

SmallRig Monitor is a Godsend

This thing is perfect for those of you who want to film with the front-facing camera so it looks better, but still see yourself as you perform to make sure you look right.

It's pretty cheap, works super well, and frankly, I have one right above this teleprompter I'm reading off right now so I can check the shot. I also use this monitor to get better performances by showing whoever I'm recording what they look like. A lot of the time, if they're self-conscious and wondering if their makeup is smeared or something, that's gonna affect their performance. But if they can see their makeup isn't smeared in that monitor, they feel good. It really is a cheap purchase for a lot of self-confidence.

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

When a Video Blows Up, Make It Again (But Better)

This is the number one thing that even the smartest of my consulting clients who are blowing up often fuck up. Most of the most viral artists who really get views and drive streams on their songs through short-form video do a really smart thing. When a video blows up, they don't think "oh wow! I did it." They think about other ways they can make that video again and make it better.

I have this video where I talk about a snowman technique I use to generate these ideas, and it's in the roadmap.

What we see over and over is that the most viral artists get a video that does well, then they improve on the idea, and it does even better. Then they do it again, and it goes the fuck off even more. Eventually, it starts to flop because people get sick of this routine, but the point is: when a video overperforms, this is a hint that you should think about how to improve it.

Most of the artists we study who are going the most viral are doing videos four, six, eight, ten times, basically till it starts flopping consistently, improving upon the video each time. The mindset is: when a video does well, try to beat it and come up with an even better idea and way to flip it. If, while you're filming, you can think of four variations to flip the idea, you're already ahead of the game.

If you want a masterclass in this, watch my video on Joey Valence & Brae, who—whether you think they're corny or not—are probably one of the most creative and interesting groups literally performing and burning on all cylinders right now. Every format they work in, they do better. There's a ton to learn from them, and this is one of the main tricks they've employed for massive growth over the past few years.

You Don't Have to Keep One Look

So many of you ask me if you have to keep one look in your videos, and the answer is hell no. While recognizability and repeatability are important, when you see creators you like who are popping off, click their profile pages and look through and study what they do. I will bet you they often have a mix of three levels of video content:

1. Hi-Fi: color-corrected, nice-looking content (perhaps mostly extracted from music videos or content they paid a videographer to do).

2. Mid-Fi: where they put some effort into filming it themselves and then edit it a bit.

3. Lo-Fi: where they just pick up the camera and film, and are often not even in their regular stage look.

If you employ all that, you're probably off to a great start, making even better content.