Making a Gospel Music Video

I've been in the creative process and business of making films and cinematic content for the past few years now.
Each project I've worked on has been a new opportunity to latch on avenues for exploring innovative and creative styles in telling stories in the most relatable but yet unique ways.

Recently I shot a music video for a gospel music group in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria.
And for our budget we had to make do with what we had to still create a fantastic narrative.

_{Final result at the end the post}

THE IDEA

First, for the genre and the purpose, it would be wise to make something people can read meaning to without breaking so much of a sweat - the idea was to 'reach out' with a Redemption story of what Christ did to save man.

The idea was to create a music video that told the story around the theme of the song - "Christ saving man".

So I was pretty conservative, yet still somewhat creative with the shots.

The creative director, my good friend and gospel artist - Sammy Acoustic, had some time with me to discuss the creative process of the music video.

With Sammy Acoustic during the final shoot

We took pen and paper and discussed the possible options as regards the location, the scenes, the acts and the number of takes.

FINDING LOCATIONS

The themes that resonated in the song, were around salvation, Redemption, freedom, realization, gratitude and joy.

We wanted to explore locations that sort of gave this vibe. We had a number of options and gradually coned them down to the best available ones.

We would have loved to explore certain locations because of their serenity and feel they gave, but the entry fees were too expensive.

At the end, we coned down to these locations based on the ideas we were going to execute at these places. We ended up using locations within the University of Ibadan, to reduce transportation costs:

• The Chapel Auditorium, Chapel of The Resurrection, University of Ibadan

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• The Cruxifix, Chapel of The Resurrection, University of Ibadan

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• Botanical Gardens, University of Ibadan

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• Music Room, The International School School, University of Ibadan

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EQUIPMENT/SET AND SHOT BREAKDOWN
Now that we had chosen our locations, the plot, the set and the scenes were next.

Setting up the camera and the gimbal

A gimbal has gears and motors that prevent shakes that can make a footage look all shaky. Mine is able stabilize footage in 3-axes. I'm able to do fast and rapid movements without any jitter in the shot.

I used an extension rod with the gimbal to be able to lift the camera beyond eye level and take drone-like shots

This is a shot showing the result of using a gimbal extension rod

I used an ND filter on the lens to facilitate shooting at f1.4 without overexposing the shots. ND filters act like sunglasses for your lens when shooting in very bright conditions or in direct sunlight

I used the following equipment/settings:

Camera	Panasonic Lumix GH6
Lenses	Lumix 35-100mm MFT f/4-5.6, Meke 35mm f/1.4 Prime Lens
Lighting	Natural Lighting/Sutefoto P100 RGB Light
ND Filter	4 stops
Stabilization	Feiyutech Scorp 2 (with intelligent subject tracking)
Costume	Black Gown/White Native-style apparel
Shoot time	2 Days (4 hours each)

Video footage edited on Capcut PRO for PC.

We divided the plots into 2 days:

• On the first day, we shot at the Chapel Auditorium.
• On the second day, we shot at the other 3 locations.

We kept it as simple as possible.
The shots revolved around a soulful, heartfelt performance of the songs and the lyrics.

My shot list looked like this:

THE FINAL RESULT

Though we had some modifications to the shots, these shot outlines formed the baseline from which we developed the shots.

And here was the final result:

	CREDITS
DOP/Post Production	Ayomide Adeyemi (that's me)😎
Lighting/BTS	Abiodun Ayinde
Creative Director/Vocals Director	Sammy Acoustic
Colour Grade	Ayomide Adeyemi/Favour Victoria

All pictures taken/edited by me.

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@draysax_shotit}