Almost everyone who wants a music video takes the same first step. Open Instagram, watch a reel, looks good, send a message. And a fair share of it goes wrong, because a reel shows the twelve best seconds out of two years of work and nothing else.
A reel proves someone once made a good frame. It doesn't prove they'll get your video finished. The decisive part happens before and after the shoot, and that's exactly what a reel shows you nothing about.
Here are the seven things I'd ask about myself.
1. Can you see a complete video?
Ask for two or three finished videos in full length, ideally from your genre. A full video tells you whether someone can hold tension across three minutes or just produce nice individual frames. That's where most of the difference sits.
2. Do they ask about the song before talking about images?
That's my fastest test. Anyone who jumps straight to locations and cameras without having heard the track is selling you an off the shelf look. The song decides the image, not the other way around.
3. Do you get anything in writing before the shoot?
Concept, schedule, call times, who's where when. It doesn't need to be a 20 page treatment. But if nobody can tell you two days before the shoot when it wraps, it's going to be improvised on set. Improvising costs you takes and, in the end, quality.
4. Who's actually on set?
Ask directly. One person doing camera, lighting and directing at once can work, but it has limits. On bigger setups I work with a fixed network of more than 25 people, because I want to focus on directing on set instead of juggling three jobs.
5. What exactly do you get at the end?
Just the 16:9 file? Or vertical cuts for Reels and TikTok, snippets, a Canvas for Spotify? Get that in writing beforehand. I've heard too many stories of someone realising after the shoot that everything they needed for promo was missing.
6. How are revisions handled?
How many rounds of feedback are included, and what counts as a change? A different look isn't the same as a cut two frames earlier. If nobody defines where the line is, it ends in either frustration or an extra invoice.
7. What happens when something goes wrong?
Rain on the shoot day, location cancelled, artist sick. Just ask what happens then. The answer tells you more about experience than any showreel. Someone with 250 projects behind them answers immediately, because they've had all of it already.
What to take away from this
You're not looking for a camera operator. You're looking for someone who carries a project from the first message to the master file. Otherwise the difference costs you exactly one release.
If you want to know what professional results really hang on, read where professionalism comes from. And if your budget is tight, this post shows you what to look at first.
Feel free to ask me these seven questions directly. Message me and I'll answer every one of them.