This is a ‘lyric video’ I made for personal use, to clarify to myself what the vibe or aesthetic is for a particular song. A ‘mood board’ for music.
I don’t start with a genre or style in mind so it’s helpful to have something visual to constrain myself within, lest I feel the idiot need to go off on a ska/polka tangent in a ballad. I can watch movies to inform the sound, or make films of my own for every song if money, but for the price of an Android phone I’ve edited together other people’s hard work into a cursory style guide.
Really I’m just moving text around like I’m some Grocery Outlet Saul Bass doin’ graphic design. Freeware VCR and MS-DOS font banks, ~4:3 (1.33:1) format (standard boxy TV), and chromatic aberrations render it all a blurry, comforting shittiness. The lofi vernacular of our current times.
A movie, a photograph, an old magazine spread, etc. can be underrated sources of musical creativity. There’s always some 70s ‘New Hollywood’ film (or a baseball game) on my TV while I’m pretending to ‘work’ on ‘music’; you never know when some scene or color palette explodes a song in a different direction. Just have shit on in the background, create an atmosphere. Most of us can’t afford to be a slick getaway driver or travel to a cottagecore fantasy cabin in the mountains to ‘find inspiration’.
That’s all I got for now. Get outta here.
Using Visuals To Shape The Sound Of A Song