The Art of a DIY Music Video

Hello my lovely reader,

I will never forget the first time I sat down and watched Lana Del Rey’s self-made music video for “Video Games.” I was so captivated by the simplicity of it, but also by how much depth and emotion she was able to create with what was essentially a montage of different pieces of footage. I couldn’t look away. I loved seeing how someone could take the emotions of a song they had written and translate them into a visual world without some giant label budget behind it.

Since I started releasing music, I’ve been an independent artist, and one of my favorite parts of that is how much it forces me to get creative. Obviously there are moments when I would love to have an unlimited budget and an entire team to make every crazy idea in my head come to life, but there is also something really special about having to look around at what you already have and figure out how to make it beautiful.

The first DIY video I ever made was actually for the very first song I released, “sweet n low,” on September 18, 2020. It was during the pandemic, so I was spending a lot of time by myself and there weren’t exactly a ton of people around to help me make a music video. I ended up downloading a bunch of videos of lights, colors and different textures from a stock footage website and projecting them onto my face. I filmed the entire thing in my bathroom with a white shower curtain behind me and edited it afterward on iMovie. I think that is what I love so much about making things yourself. You start realizing that almost anything can become part of the art if you look at it in the right way. A shower curtain can be a backdrop, your bedroom can be a set, an old camcorder can give you the exact look you were trying to recreate with some expensive camera in the first place.

I’ve made a lot of DIY videos since then, but my favorite one I’ve ever made is probably for “Cinematic,” the title track of my debut album. That one turned out even better than I imagined it would. For years, I had been collecting archive footage, public domain films, vintage clips and footage I had taken myself on Super 8 cameras and old video cameras, mostly because I loved it and always thought I would find a use for it someday. When I was shooting the cover art for this album, I also filmed a bunch of Super 8mm and video camera footage, so by the time I started putting the music video together I had this huge hard drive filled with little pieces of my life and all of these beautiful old images. I went through everything, picked out the clips that felt right and then spent almost twenty-four hours editing it all together, playing with layers, coloring, lighting and different pieces of footage until it finally felt like the song looked. I love that so much of what ended up in that video had been sitting on my hard drive for years with no real purpose yet. Sometimes I think we collect little pieces of our lives before we even know what they’re eventually going to become.

Most recently, I made another DIY music video for my next single, which I’m not going to share with y’all quite yet, but I will definitely do an entire breakdown of how I made that one because it was so much fun. This time I was working outdoors, which is a whole different adventure because suddenly the sun, weather and everything happening around you gets a vote too. I cannot wait for you to see how it turned out!!!

Until then, I’ve linked some of my other favorite DIY music videos I’ve made below. I hope they inspire you to make whatever it is you have been wanting to make, even if you don’t have the budget, equipment or perfect circumstances you think you need yet.

I really believe there is something beautiful about creating with what you have. Use your imagination, use your heart and use every gift God has given you. Art doesn’t have to be expensive to mean something. Sometimes the limitations are what make you come up with the idea you never would have thought of otherwise. Love you so much always and forever.

Xoxo, Lily