How To Prep For Music Video Distribution

In this piece we offer some advice on how to prepare your next music video for distribution, both in regards to technical specifications as well as the actual content of the video itself.

Guest post by Vanessa Schiano of Symphonic Blog

Before you send over anything, you need to make sure your video has certain details in place so we can deliver your music video in a timely manner. We’ve put together some video distribution tips for your next release to make everything go as smoothly as possible.

How to Prepare for Video Distribution:

Technical specifications

• Video should be high quality (1920 x 1080 with a high bitrate of at least 50 Mbit/sec). (4K is now accepted by most video streaming platforms.)
• Video should be Pro Res .mov or .H264 .mp4.
• You should send your distributor the highest quality version of the video you have.
• Each video platform has their own format for video delivery, and you don’t want your video looking compressed or blurry on some sites because you submitted a low quality version to begin with.

Content specifications

Your video should promote your music and your brand as an artist. Do not use videos with stock footage/public domain footage. You wants fans to get to know YOU. Regardless, most platforms require music videos to contain 100% original content. Your video should be shot with a high quality camera and edited well, with multiple angles. It should look professional!

• Your video can’t contain full frontal nudity, explicit drug use or graphic violence. This will cause your video to be rejected. However, the video may have explicit language, and will be marked as such during delivery.
• Video should not have any promotional content like social media URLs, hashtags, album art, release dates, shoutouts, etc. The video platforms (and fans!) want to see the video itself and no on screen distractions.
• Socials and video credits can always be put in the video description

For LYRIC VIDEO content:

Lyric music videos with lyrics stylized into a produced video are accepted.

• Other lyric videos that fall under the following styles: karaoke, static text over graphics or stock elements, and lyrics on the lower thirds of the video will be rejected and honestly are not visually appealing to fans. Here’s a good example.

Marketing

You should have a solid plan on how to promote your upcoming video release and then a plan for after its release.
We recommend submitting your video for distribution at least a month before your release to give our marketing team time to pitch it on our end, but also give you time to promote its release.

Vanessa Schiano is the video coordinator for Symphonic Distribution. She is an avid Disney fan with a healthy obsession with cats and also speaks fluently in movie quotes.