MUSIC VIDEOS ARE A WAY TO TEST IDEAS, HAVE a platform for experimentation and of course get a little publicity for your music. Today, the climate is totally different from the MTV heyday of the ’90s. Now, for the most part, it’s a labor of love on every level, and a struggle to break even. Budgets are slim and every video demands to be viral. In the ’90s, popular bands produced videos; today, bands can get popular based on their videos alone.

With those stakes, it pays off to have fun, collaborate with the bands and try new things. Since the dawn of MTV, music videos have developed a pretty broad stylistic spectrum. At Focus Creeps, we’ve produced videos for a diverse group of artists and tried a broad spectrum of approaches, from lo-fi to hi-fi to documentary to cinematic narrative to classic stylized performances to big budget to super-8—the field is wide open today.

Working with Arctic Monkeys, for example, we tried most of those different approaches and still created videos that have a sense of continuity. Similarly, with a recent video we did for the Beach Boys, we again blended together all kinds of formats, a nod to the legacy of music videos and a reflection of where the medium is today. Working on visuals for a Beach Boys video was intimidating because they are the most influential American band of all time. They’ve influenced every decade of rock ‘n’ roll. There are still direct and undeniable influences in rock and indie music today. We wanted to demonstrate that in the visuals, and capture the style and fashion of every decade the Beach Boys have influenced, to pay homage to the band.

No matter the approach, making a video means experimenting with how much can be said in as little time as possible. With the cultural impact of reality TV, audiences are now capable of free-associating stories at a dramatically fast pace—you can tell a story that used to take hours in mere minutes.

Today, music videos are essential for sharing the music. If you want to show someone a song, you send them a YouTube link. If there’s a video attached to the music, it’s more memorable. If something happens in the video that makes you laugh, or feel grossed out, or inspired or surprised, you probably show your friends, they share it and it just takes off from there.

—Aaron Brown

Aaron Brown is the co-founder and lead director of Focus Creeps, a production studio.