Today I was going to tell you the story of how I shot my latest music video for only the 8€ I spent on a secondhand Louis XV chair that I ruined by drowning it in the sea while I was lipsyncing on it.
But after thinking on it for 3 and a half seconds, I figured it would be a little disingenuous.
Because in fact, I spent a whole hell of a lot more than 8€ on this music video.
Just because I didn’t spend the money specifically for this project doesn’t mean anyone could really do this project with 8 euros if they were just starting out, with no skills and no equipment.
So I figured I’d list and price everything I used to make my 8€ music video.
Venue and decor - 28€
We shot the performance scene in the parking lot of our rehearsal studio (free) and the story scene on the beach 25min from Montpellier (also free).
But i’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I could not have done this without a car. (And a licence, which is pricey here in France.) Yes, there is public transport or bike paths to both places, but I most definitely could not have transported my Louis XV chair and my camera equipment to the beach by tramway or attached to the back of a bike. (Also, I’d have had to have a bike. Which I don’t.)
But I guess I could have borrowed a car from a friend. So let’s keep this free. But add 20€ of petrol, because even a nice friend will ask you to pitch in, the price of petrol being what it is.
And let’s add the 8€ Louis XV chair that I got secondhand from a lady who was emptying her dad’s house because he was moving to a retirement home. Hopefully she won’t see that I ruined it in just one afternoon. (Am I ashamed that I ruined a perfectly good chair? Yes, a little. But not enough, apparently.)
Look - 260€
Most of my outfit came out of my closet and I bought the red skirt off of Shein for 10€.
My bandmates got their outfits from their closets as well. A black t-shirt and jeans is pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary. I won’t count it.
This is my everyday hair color. I get a professional hairdresser to bleach my hair every few months and apply the vivid colors myself. But if i’d wanted to get this look specifically for that day, it would have cost me around 200€.
On the day of the shoot, I probably only used 2€ worth of makeup, but applied and removed it with around 50€ in brushes and removal products. (I’ll gloss over the probably hundreds of euros of makeup I’ve bought and tested over the past couple of years to teach myself how to use makeup and to find a look that I like for this project. Let’s imagine that if you knew exactly what you wanted to achieve, you could do it with 50€ of tools and products.)
Camera equipment - 1100€
I have been filming content for professional and personal reasons for quite a few years now so I have a lot of equipment on hand. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t cost anything.
For this specific shoot, I used:
Camera: Sony ZV-E10 II (750€)
Lens: 7Artisans 7.5mm Fisheye (160€)
Tripod: Walimex Pro Tripod (50€)
Light: Zhiyun Fiveray M40 (100€). (I bought this one specially for this shoot because I needed a small, portable, battery operated but still powerful key light to shoot on the beach.)
Let’s not count the SD cards because I’m starting to get a headache from all these numbers. We’ll just round up to 1100€.
Editing software - 0€
I use DaVinci Resolve software to edit all my videos and as of yet, I still haven’t felt the need to upgrade to their paid version. So this section really was free. Yay!
(Of course we do have to, again, gloss over the fact that I used my pretty expensive Mac computer to download and use DaVinci Resolve.)
So all in all, this music video cost me 1388€.
A lot more than 8€.
‘But wait!’ you say. ‘What about the time you spent filming and editing? And what about the time you spent acquiring the skills to film and edit?’
Shit. I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice because that’s a tough one. But ok. You’re right. Let’s factor them in.
Time and skills ???€
As I said, I’ve been making and editing videos for a long time so in making this music video, I used skills I already had on hand.
But the crazy amount of time I’ve spent learning how to use my equipment, how to edit videos, how to plan a shoot so that I get the shots I want out of it, how to film myself, how to direct other people… that time has a price, of course.
People also get paid for being art directors on music videos, so I guess coming up with a concept and having a vision for it is also a skill one could put a price to.
Also, time is money (isn’t that what they say?). We aren’t professionals so we all took time out of our busy family and professional lives to make this happen:
A couple hours for the band performance shot, with my bassist/husband and my guitarist
Another few hours shooting on the beach with my husband as cameraman and Louis XV chair caddy,
A few hours of preproduction, prepping the shoot, my look, etc..
And three whole days editing. THREE WHOLE DAYS. Brutal.
But since pricing my own time and skills for something I do for fun feels a little odd, I asked ChatGPT to give me a price range for a music video shot in semi-professional conditions like this.
Between 2,000 and 3,500 euros.
So yeah. Most definitely not 8 euros. But it is a great video.