How are music videos generally made? What is the production process?

 Film/music video production has 3 main parts:
Pre-production
The first stage of making a music video in the music industry is to choose a production company which they know will produce a good video and be known by the public and well respected. If a famous band/artist was to choose an unknown production company then the public may think they are not so serious about making it. It my also not be to a very good standard and therefore people would not enjoy it and want to watch it. It also includes hiring the crew and building/planning sets.
In this stage there should also be ideas and a story board in mind with a structured plan of what they want to happen. This should be discussed with the crew and production company. This could take several months to get right and have several meetings with everyone involved.

Production
At this stage more crew will be hired to help with the production of the video, and then once they know everything is in place, filming will begin. Hundreds of takes will be taken so that they have plenty of footage to work with and create the video.  Stills will also be taken and used if necessary. This is probably the most important part of the production process, because if this part goes wrong then the entire video will gowrong and the video may not be made, wasting alot of money. It is also possible that they will begin to make the video, or even be half way through, and they will not like it, and have to begin completely again. However, as the video will have been drafted so many times this should not happen.


Post-production
This final stage is where the video is put together, and edited. If animation is necessary then this is the part of production where it will happen. There would be a separate team of crew who work in the graphics department who specialize in putting these parts together and making the lip syncing and everything else perfect. This music video will then be duplicated hundreds of times ready for different formats and also ready for distribution. Parts of the video may also be used for advertising the video, as well as the stills being used for digi packs and posters.