Music Video Production for a Russian Indie Band

A music video is a short narrative or non-narrative film that coexists with an artist’s song and is used as a promotional instrument. This particular project focuses on developing a music video for a Russian indie music artist. Our aim is to release a music video of “idst” band, which will raise such topics as toxic masculinity, confrontation of the old and the new, the cycle of violence, etc. We also aim to enhance and deepen the listener experience of the band’s music fans and to attract some new audience. We have the project tasks, the legal tasks and the creative tasks that have been completed listed in our paper. Those are the band’s research; profound examining of some existing concepts and creating our own new ones, studying the technical and the creative aspects of creating a music video, studying the Russian Federation laws in terms of visual content, drawing up documents, preproduction, production and postproduction, etc. The literature review reveals the list of skills and competencies that are necessary for a successful fulfillment of the aims: knowing the particularities of a musical video format, understanding the basic principles of video content making and storytelling, being skilled in visual language, being able to conduct a music band research, knowing the basis of producing, knowing the basis of directing, knowing the basis of art-direction, etc. The paper illustrates the details of producing a music video for an indie artist using authors’ personal experience to reveal the nuances of the process in circumstances of harsh deadlines, limited financial and human resources, and short technical supplies. It may be used as a guide by debutant content makers who are interested in music video production, or by independent music artists who want to promote themselves by the means of creating music videos. Key words: indie, rock music, music video production, promotional instruments for music artists, audiovisual content