Making music match your video vision

Music can be the element that makes your video come to life, transform the creative direction of it, and ensure that your audience is captivated, and makes your content shareable and relatable.

How do you maximise this?

Try to think about these tips before making your next music choice

What is your video saying, and who is it speaking to?
You should know this if you are now ready to start producing your video, but the music choice alongside the imagery will be key in making the connection with the potential viewers of the video.
Consider these questions, is it entertaining or informative? Are you selling a product or service, or introducing your company to your prospective customers?
You need to know your demographic to engage them, consider what type of music will hold them, and what will make them turn off.

Match the pace, consider the edit
What is the tempo of the video, is the subject matter and theme moving gently, and you want the viewer to be relaxed and calmed by it? Or is it snappy, with jump cuts and fast progression? With any video, it’s best to consider the music, and choose it prior to the edit, to ensure that the edit and music work perfectly together with no jarring or jolting.

Music, out front, or setting the scene?
Is the music the main form or aural communication for the video? Often if you are creating a motion graphic or animated video you won’t need a voiceover so choosing the right music is key to it helping drive your message to the viewer.
If the music is the backing for a series of interviews consider that it will need to lift and fade without being obtrusive or jarring, make sure that you don’t use music with singing or distracting sounds if you are using it for an interview.

Loops and length
When choosing your music, don’t forget that if it is a track without loops you may need to edit or fade out if you don’t require the whole track, or even worse, your music choice isn’t quite long enough!
Having looping music can give you more flexibility, and enable you to produce different versions while using the same music, you can search for looping tracks, and often they will give you a looping length too.

There are much more hints and tips for choosing the right music, and we will revisit this soon, let us know if you think of any specifics you’d like to know about?