Three Live Performance Music Videos Only $299*

All three of these videos were shot in one evening with one camera operator, using a matched pair of Behringer C4 studio microphones and a Panasonic digital (tapeless) high-definition HMC150P video camera, with fill-in and “effects” shots taken with a hand-held Canon Vixia HF-10 hi-definition camcorder.

I did no post-production sound processing. What you hear in these videos is exactly what the live audience heard. I obviously played with the visuals a bit to add a little excitement to them for what we might call the “home audience.”

This is an inexpensive way to produce credible music videos for performers who want to show their talents online, on DVD or on TV to fans, potential fans, and booking agents. In this case, I didn’t use additional lighting to achieve a minimum number of lumens but worked entirely with The Boneshakers‘ standard stage lighting setup, which is more a series of lighting effects than actual “stage lighting” in the usual sense. For your group, it might be better to add a couple of can lights or diffuse umbrella lights if you’re playing in a bar or other poorly-lit venue.

Anyway, here are the videos, with production notes below each one:


This was the band’s set opener. I edited it as a dual-timeline piece by synching the two video cameras once and leaving them both running instead of using the b-roll (handheld) camera to take a series of discrete shots:


This is a single-camera piece, with most zooms, pans, and other effects added in post-production. The improper framing in some shots (which you might not even notice except for me telling you about it) is because I was away from the main camera trying to get b-roll, and drunks kept bumping into the tripod. It takes a little more creativity to work with a single camera, but I’m used to it, so no problem. In a lot of ways, this is my most comfortable shooting style. But I do whatever’s best for your situation, so it’s your choice.


This is an original Boneshakers song, which means we can legally submit this video to contests and cable TV outlets that run music videos. You’re seeing it on YouTube, but the original render is 720p high definition that meets almost every network’s delivery specifications.

Consider the possibilities!

Typical lip-synched music videos are tedious and expensive to produce. You need a cast and at least some crew to handle logistics for multiple shooting locations, and this takes a considerable amount of time and work to organize. Most local performers can’t afford the money (or time) to make good-looking music videos. Live-performance videos are a budget alternative — and show you at your maximum energy level, in front of a live audience, as a free bonus.

With my hyper-efficient production system, all you need to spend is $299 to have three good-looking music videos for your website and media kit, and it will take you essentially no (as in zero) time, cost or effort to set up your shoot. “One call does it all,” you might say.


How About Selling Live Performance DVDs To Your Fans?

Every guitar player in Florida who does Jimmy Buffett covers in a tiki bar seems to have CDs for sale. And people buy them. (My wife does, like mad; when she hears local performers she likes, she inevitably wants to have their music available at home, in her car, etc.)

Why not offer your fans live performance DVDs, too? For a basic production cost of only $599, including 5 master copies, you can now afford to sell DVDs alongside (or instead of) your CDs. You can now get DVDs manufactured, including color sleeves, for less than $2 each in 100 lots, and less than $1 each in lots of 1000 or more.

In other words, your first 100 ready-to-sell DVDs cost you less than $800 total, so if you sell them for $15 each you are doing *really well* and even at $10 each you’re making $2 each on the first hundred — and $8 each on every additional hundred!

Or, if you have the confidence to spend $900 for 1000 DVDs going in, your per-unit cost, including my production fee, drops to $1.50 per unit. Heck, at this price you can damn near give them away with each paid admission to one of your shows…

A Note On Production Styles

The Boneshakers videos on this page are fast-cut, high-energy, kickass pieces because that’s the kind of band they are. If you’re more mellow, your videos will be appropriately mellow.

And if you have stills or video clips (scenery or whatever) you’d like to have dropped into your videos, I’ll add the first 5 (supplied in digital format) for no extra charge, and I’ll only charge like $10 each for additional… err… additions. But the main thing is that I match your video production style to your style.

Hip hop? Cool! Relaxed folk? I play acoustic guitar (badly) myself. Jazz? Love it! Classical? Grew up on it. R&B or soul? Major P-Funk fan here, and I’ve met George Clinton and found him to be just as cool in person offstage as you’d expect. Rock and Pop? Country? Been, there, done that, happy to do lots more. Go-Go? Hell, I’m probably the only white person in Florida who knows what Go-Go is — and probably the only person of *any* race around here who can do video justice to a high-energy Go-Go band. Or a hot reggaeton or salsa group, for that matter.

In other words, I’m genre-independent. I’m a video craftsman. My job is to make you look and sound your best, not to fit you into someone else’s preconceived notion of what your music should be.

Need Non-Music Videos Made?

Music video work is what I do for fun and side money. By day (you might say) I make online promo videos and TV spots for lawyers, appliance repairmen, motorcycle dealers, veterinarians, hair salons… really, just about any kind of business or professional service. I also make software training and marketing videos, including screen capture and greenscreen work when it’s called for.

And non-music live events? Sure. I’ve taped news footage for TV stations, cable & broadcast TV networks and news websites, and made corporate live-event videos for companies up to and including Sony. Whatever you want, I can probably do it for the lowest price around — at least, the lowest price this side of some guy who just bought a consumer camcorder and watched a “how to shoot videos for profit” video on YouTube.

* One little “fine print” note: prices shown on this page apply to Florida’s Sarasota/Manatee region. Clients have been known to pay my way to Tampa, Fort Myers, Orlando, Miami, San Francisco (CA), Portland (OR), and even farther afield. But that obviously costs extra for both travel expenses and travel time.

But hey! Wherever you are, give me a call — 941-746-2602, cell 941-565-2957, or email me — robin@roblimo.com, and let’s get going!