Planning a one-day music video in a studio

By James Jones, founder of Granary Digital · 10 November 2026

A performance music video fits in one studio day if it is shot in the right order: the whole track, top to bottom, several times on the first look; then the coverage for that look; then the next look. Days that go wrong usually start with the looks still being decided on the floor.

Two pieces of paper first

A treatment says what the video is: the idea, the looks, a reference image for each and what the artist wears in them. A shot list turns each look into setups: wide, mid, close, the moving shot, the cutaways. Neither needs to be long. Both need to exist before the day, because every question they leave open gets answered at studio rates. If a director is shaping the idea, directors on our crew list start from £750+VAT a day.

The arithmetic of a song

Say the track runs three and a half minutes. Ten full passes on one look is thirty-five minutes of playback before anybody has reset a light, moved a camera or fixed a strand of hair. Three looks at that rate is nearly two hours of pure performance, with the artist singing along to every second of it.

That is why the plan starts from passes, not from the number of looks you would like. Three looks in ten hours is comfortable. A fourth fits only if it shares a lighting state with one of the others, because each new look costs a relight and a wardrobe change on top of its passes.

A ten-hour day on the cove

A full day in the White Space is ten hours for £395+VAT, and this is the shape we would sketch for three looks.

1. Hour one: in and lit. Kit comes in through the doors at ground level, playback goes up, and the first look is brought up on the desk. The house rig is already on the grid, so this is aiming and plotting, not rigging.
2. Hours two and three: look one, performance. Full-track passes, wide first, then mid, then close. Every pass is the whole song, so the editor has a choice at every bar.
3. Hour four: look one, coverage. Hands, details, the moving camera. Wardrobe for look two starts in the dressing room at the same time.
4. Hour five: lunch, while the light changes. If the gaffer eats early, look two is lit by the time everyone else is back.
5. Hours six and seven: look two. Passes, then coverage, as before.
6. Hours eight and nine: look three. Usually the black-box look, for reasons below.
7. Hour ten: pick-ups and wrap. The shots someone remembered at lunch, then the cards copied before anyone drives home.

White first, then black

The cove is two stages in one room. Lit evenly it is white and endless, and it takes colour washes cleanly from corner to corner. Draw the blackout curtain round the perimeter and it becomes a black box in about twenty minutes. Going there and back costs forty, so group every white look together and draw the curtain once.

The black look usually goes last because that is where the haze goes, and haze takes a while to clear. In black, colour comes from six Arri L3-C LEDs, mixed on the desk without a gel in sight, and the tungsten fresnels move round to the back to put an edge on the artist. Haze on set covers how much to use and what to tell the studio. Why the rig mixes tungsten with LED is in tungsten and LED.

Playback loud enough to sing over

Lip sync only looks true when the artist is really singing, and they only sing out when the track is loud enough to sing over. Put the playback speaker facing them and turn it up. Loud playback through the day is fine at the barn.

Start every pass from the top with a slate the editor can find: timecode if your playback can show it, a clap on camera if not. It saves the editor a lot of squinting at waveforms.

For slow motion that still lip-syncs, play the track at double speed, have the artist perform to it, and shoot at double your frame rate. Played back at normal speed, the movement is slowed and the mouth lands exactly on the words.

Wardrobe in order

Every look is a change, and every change is a trip to the dressing room, which has a Hollywood-style mirror with bulbs, a long counter and a garment rail. Hang the looks on the rail in running order, with shoes and accessories bagged on the same hanger. Hair and make-up artists are available on request if you don't have your own.

What doesn't fit in one day

• More than four looks, however quick you are.
• A built set, which needs build days before the shoot day. A custom set build as a signature element starts from £600+VAT.
• A cove painted a colour, which needs a day to cure first.
• Rain, which is its own build and quoted per production. Building a rain rig in a barn explains why.

If the label also wants vertical cuts for the socials, decide before the day, not after. Shooting for vertical and horizontal in one day explains how the framing changes. And book a gaffer: colour, haze and a moving artist reward someone who lights for a living, and ours start from £450+VAT a day. Our music video page has the rest of the detail.

If you have a track and a treatment, send them over and we will sketch the day with you.

More from the Journal

• Building a rain rig inside a barn
• What to wear on camera for a video shoot
• How much does a corporate video cost? A studio's breakdown
• All Journal articles

The picture at the top of this article is an illustration generated to show the set-up. It is not a photograph of a client or of a real job.