Pop videos of the 80s: Could be a nice DJing niche if there's a market for it where you happen to work.
Last week we introduced the idea of video DJing, and looked at the various types. We also focused on what this eight-part series is primarily going to cover: DJing using music videos, and adding your own visuals to your DJ sets. The kind of stuff you can do on your own.
This week, though, we’re going to first consider why you should look at video DJing in the first place. What is to be gained from investing the time, effort and money into adding some form of video DJing to your skill set? Here are three reasons for adding video to your DJing efforts:
1. It differentiates you from nearly every other DJ
If you ever feel that it’s practically impossible to stand out from the crowd as a DJ nowadays, then video DJing is one way of doing just that.
Video DJing may be your ‘passport to success’. After all, 99% of DJs simply don’t do it…
We always reel off the following to DJs who want to get famous: Make your own productions. Start your own club night. Get into mashups. Be a social media whore. Does all of this sound familiar to you? Are you not really interested in doing any of it?
If so, then video DJing may be your “passport to success”. After all, 99% of DJs simply don’t do it. You can be a bigger fish by virtue of choosing to live in a much smaller pond!
2. It can get you work where other DJs can’t compete
In all big cities there are video bars. Now many of them (most of them) are highly commercial places – but commerical places pay money. If you’re happy playing the latest pop videos, you could have regular paying work there. And if you have more underground ambitions, that’s going to help you to fund them.
But thinking just a little wider, there are many bars, lounges and clubs with fitted video systems, projectors and so on. It only takes a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit to come up with your own show that uses videos or visual elements, to pitch it to these people, and end up performing something a bit different – for which you can them command a premium price.
Coming up with your own DJ/VJ concept and selling it to a venue owner can get you taken more seriously, and ultimately mean you earn more than a normal DJ might.
For instance, the style of music I DJ, Balearic – which basically means a really broad mix of often non-EDM sounds (rock,reggae, latin, chill-out, yesteryear pop), but with a definite dance groove and mixed as technically as possible so dance crowds can “get it” – lends itself perfectly to cratedigging old pop videos and DJing with them.
Alternatively, say you’re a DJ in a ski resort (it’s a great seasonal job, by the way). Why not chop up and use winter sports videos like snowboarding and the like interspersed with other visuals, or with videos of tracks you can get visuals for, as part of the apres-ski scene?
3. It can allow you to be creative in a different way
Art and being artistic isn’t all about music, of course. We know that – you can write, and paint – but also, you can express yourself through creating visuals, collating visuals, and simply DJing with pre-prepared visuals, song videos and the like.
You can express yourself creatively with video visuals in a way you can't with music alone. Performance: KBK
If you’re a music fanatic who loves DJing but you’ve also got a visual arts leaning, then VJing may be more suitable for you to express yourself than straight audio DJing alone.
Once you learn what’s possible and what your source materials could be, maybe you’ll feel just as strong a pull towards video DJing as you do towards straight audio DJing, and then be able to develop into the creative person you always felt the potential to become but haven’t yet quite managed with “normal” DJing, If this happens, you can rest assured that it will help you with the two other points above to.
Remember…
Just like “normal” Djing, video DJing, VDJing or whatever we choose to call it really does seem easy when you’re loving it, but can feel very difficult when you’re just not feeling it.
Even more so than audio DJing, video DJing takes vision, commitment, effort and practice…
Even more so than audio DJing, video DJing takes vision, commitment, effort and practice – not least because there are far fewer people to look up to who are already doing it. That’s partly why this series exists – to life the lid on it and to ensure that if you have got inklings in this direction, you’ll at least know how to start.
So with that in mind, next week we’ll be looking at why if you’re considering video DJing, you should forget about all old-fashioned hardware-based routes and instead – just like with normal DJing – go down the digital route.
Are you a video DJ or VDJ? Why did you decide to add video to your skill set? How has it worked out for you? What venues in your area have video DJs? Please let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
Now go to:
Video DJing, Part 3: Why You Should Take The Digital Route
Getting Started In Video DJing, Part 1
Over To You: Where Do I Get Music Videos For DJing?
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Tags: video djing, visual djing, VJing
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This series is great, I’m going to have to give it a shot now. I’m all inspired to break out Virtual DJ again!
[ link ]here here … im excited
it makes scence to be a vdj + dj clubs pay you to do all the work not having to pay a vdj +dj only having to pay you
[ link ]The one reason why i don’t consider Video Djing : Traktor doesn’t support it!
i really don’t like VDJ and i’ve never tried serato nor have the money to invest right now…
so many people have asked for video within traktor but all they care about is the sample decks that i bet not even 3% of traktor fans use it!!!
nice article by the way. really enjoyed it !
[ link ]He Pedro, I am a DJ who does mobile work most of the time and prefer to use virtual dj for that reason. I sometimes use video for clients who request and pay for the option. I wonder if you simply might add virtual dj to your service if considering it for video clients. You can always keep traktor for your music sets. Just a suggestion. Keep rockin’ whatever you choose. One Love, DJ Malarky out.
[ link ]Hey Pedro, I am a DJ who does mobile work most of the time and prefer to use virtual dj for that reason. I sometimes use video for clients who request and pay for the option. I wonder if you simply might add virtual dj to your service if considering it for video clients. You can always keep traktor for your music sets. Just a suggestion. Keep rockin’ whatever you choose. One Love, DJ Malarky out.
[ link ]I would warn people to the dangers of doing too much (all at once) by themselves.
My background in Video Production and DJing tells me that a lot of people will try this and feel like these forms of media work against each other and feel stymied. It still takes a very long time to produce appropriate effects for entertainment and unless the effects are “canned” you’ll probably be pulling your hair out with too much to think about in too short of a period of time. If there’s anything that the “Multimedia ’90s” taught us is that you can do one thing well and many things at once… not as well, which leads to mediocrity, especially when having to keep different things in mind all at the same time… the limiter here isn’t computer processing power, it’s human processing power.
The art of juggling focuses on rhythmically tossing objects into the air to be caught and re-tossed again. Juggling is hard enough, but juggling different types of things becomes much harder when you’re not juggling something with the same rhythm… especially chainsaws and flaming torches.
Controlling Video and Audio at the same time is like juggling Torches and Chainsaws. Unless your “video show” is as good as the DJ set, the video will degrade the audio performance. If your video show is great, but you don’t have good grooves going on, a lot of people will not care about your video performance and just stop dancing and watch the videos.
As discussed earlier, the best DJ performances come from reading the crowd, interacting with them and trying to work with the stuff you have to give them a good show. Real-Time video is much harder to make interactive unless you’re using pre-rendered video clips, which tends to be boring because it gets repetitive.
Cross-fading two “MTV style videos” is… like watching Videos on TV (which is not why you’re in a club in the first place). I’d STRONGLY suggest adding a “Video Person” with a background in theater lighting to your DJ team if you’re considering doing this.
[ link ]Well, you have to remember there are plenty of programs out there that do a lot of it for you. Lately I’ve been using Milkdrop, which you’ve probably heard of, which is a pretty advanced programs with thousands of visual presets that interact the music. It is relatively simple to run it through Traktor or even VDJ, and produces AMAZING results
This is definitely becoming the future of DJing.
Even in my town, a lot of the DJ events feature a group called ‘The Root System’ who specialize in visual effects, and do a damn good job at it. They kind of run things in that department, because NOBODY else does it.
[ link ]DJ Forced Hand makes some good points.
As a VDJ for several years I have enough experience to pull it off to what seems like the pleasure of my audiences. As ForceHand mentions, it is not for the weak, as it requires an extra level of concentration.
I have managed to simplify things using some tried and true methods, which I am sorry to be selfish about sharing.
However the point is that it can be done very effectively, but you have to know what you are doing. The good news is that knowing what you are doing should command you more respect and $$$, ….. but I am still waiting for those… lol.
[ link ]Sorry you’re not prepared to share with us, selfish is so last century!
[ link ]One site I really enjoy watching is boilerroom.tv and at every event they have with the guest DJs a looping logo is played in the background. That maybe be a good start if you just want to dabble in the VJing world. Also the world renowned Senor Frogs Nightclub has that circus video that play continuously. Find something that fully defines who you are as an artist and work with it.
[ link ]Lewislace right about the logo. If the place you’re playing at has any kind of video system playing, you should consider making an “over” with your logo… The fastest, cheesiest way to make one is with Blender. Think about the simplest way to portray who you are as a log… Mine’s an open hand with the fingers closed and the thumb pressed in tight to the hand indicating international sign for “Stop” over a Record (I made the line art in Illustrator and imported it to MAYA, added some lights and extruded the image to appear to be cut out of metal and did the simple “flying logo” technique and rotated it on the Y-axis)… I also have one that “pulses to a beat (meaning rapidly scaling up and then scaling down slowly) It’s a task to get used to a 3D program, but once you “get it”, things can go smoothly. In both cases I rendered the background with an alpha channel so it could be used over anything else. Find out what format the video person uses and you will make them a lot happier when you’re spinning… (yeah, it’s cheesy to have a spinning logo while you’re spinning tracks, but people enjoy the eye candy). It’s just that not a lot of people have the background in design and 3D animation that I do… and this is the easy stuff. I wouldn’t want to imagine people playing with particles, character animation or environmental simulations, because it takes a long time to get right.
Last note… it is occasionally good to make Title for your DJ name and animate that. I suggest making each letter it’s own object instead of using the line of text as one object because you can do more with individual letters (parented to a group), but hey, this is an article about being a DJ, right?
[ link ]Has anyone thought of using video DJing with their mix tapes on YouTube? My friends who produces and promotes himself does this and it is way more entertaining than staring at a bland logo while his mash up/mix tape plays.
[ link ]cant wait for part. 3
[ link ]Mixing while paying attention to videos is defenetely not easy, but once you get used to it is just like DJing audio only so I would recommend it. It all depends on the crowd as well. Music videos will always be welcome in clubs where there are lots of tables to sit and have drink with your party, but people won’t even notice it in a hard core dance club unless you have a giant screen behind you playing mostly random graphics instead of music videos. I use to play for a venue that rents to weddings, 15s, and the like, and ever since I can, I play music videos adding “beat only” background to some videos that are just not great versions of the song but are good videos to include, but it is always better to find or create your own video for that version of the song you know works best in your mixes.
[ link ]So, if you have the media and computer power to do it, go for it. Playing videos will make you stand out as long as your DJ personality and talent don’t suffer from the extra concentration to the newly learned skills.