What you're working from
A narrative film hands you 100 pages with scene numbers. A music video usually hands you a four-page treatment with reference stills, a track, and a director's voice memo. The treatment says things like "she walks through a laundromat where every dryer is spinning a different color" and "intercut with the band playing on the roof at golden hour." It doesn't say how many dryers, which roof, or how many times she lip syncs the second chorus.
The breakdown has two jobs here. It turns images into setups someone can prep, and it maps those setups onto the song so the edit has coverage for every bar.
I'll use a fictional track: "Spin Cycle" by a four-piece band, 3:32 long, lead singer Dani.
Map the song first
Get the final master (or the version the label says will be released) and write the structure with timecodes. Everything downstream refers to this table.
| Section | Start | End | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | 0:00 | 0:14 | 0:14 |
| Verse 1 | 0:14 | 0:44 | 0:30 |
| Pre-chorus | 0:44 | 0:58 | 0:14 |
| Chorus 1 | 0:58 | 1:28 | 0:30 |
| Verse 2 | 1:28 | 1:58 | 0:30 |
| Chorus 2 | 1:58 | 2:28 | 0:30 |
| Bridge | 2:28 | 2:52 | 0:24 |
| Final chorus | 2:52 | 3:22 | 0:30 |
| Outro | 3:22 | 3:32 | 0:10 |
Check the math: the lengths add to 3:32. If the director or label wants a shortened edit for social, map that version too, since it changes which sections need coverage.
Pull setups out of the treatment
A setup here means one camera and lighting arrangement in one place with one look. Read the treatment and list every one:
| Setup | Type | Location | Description | Song sections |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | Performance | Rooftop | Full band plays, wide and mediums, golden hour | Choruses, outro |
| S2 | Performance | Rooftop | Dani close-ups, same light | Choruses, outro |
| S3 | Story | Laundromat | Dani walks the aisle, colored dryers spinning | Verses, pre-chorus |
| S4 | Story | Laundromat | Dani sits on a folding table, dryer door opens, smoke pours out | Pre-chorus, bridge |
| S5 | Performance | Laundromat | Dani lip syncs to camera inside the aisle | Verse 1, verse 2 |
| S6 | Insert | Laundromat | Macro of coins, spinning clothes, soap | Intro, anywhere |
| S7 | Story | Street outside | Band carries gear past the laundromat window | Intro |
Then cross-check coverage against the song map. Every section should have at least two setups to cut between, so the editor isn't stuck on the same angle for thirty seconds. Here the bridge only has S4. Raise it with the director during prep, while there's still time to add a setup.
One sheet per setup
Each setup gets a sheet, the way a scene would in a feature. S4 is the busy one:
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Setup | S4 |
| Location | Suds City Laundromat, 14 dryers along the north wall (practical, after hours) |
| Time | Night, after the laundromat closes |
| Song sections | Pre-chorus (0:44 to 0:58), bridge (2:28 to 2:52) |
| Artist look | Dani Look 2: yellow slip dress, wet hair for bridge only |
| Cast | Dani |
| Dancers / extras | None |
| Playback | Yes, from 0:40 (pre-roll) and 2:24 |
| Performance passes | Est. 6 for pre-chorus, 8 for bridge |
| Props | Laundry basket, folded towels, coins |
| Effects | Colored gels inside dryer windows (art and electric); smoke from one dryer (hazer hidden in drum, SFX); spinning colored fabric in all 14 dryers |
| Special equipment | Slider; high-frame-rate camera body for bridge slow motion |
| Hair / makeup | Wet-look hair for bridge: shoot pre-chorus first |
| Notes | Owner requires dryers not run hot; spin on air only. Haze in a closed room: check smoke detectors and location agreement. Bridge slow motion needs playback at double speed |
That last note is the one people forget. If the bridge is shot at 48 frames per second for a 24 fps edit, the artist has to lip sync to the track played at double speed so the mouth matches when the footage is slowed back down. Mark it on the sheet and tell whoever runs music playback which sections need a sped-up file, prepared in advance.
Count the looks and changes
Artist looks drive the schedule more than anything else in a music video. Build a looks table:
| Look | Wardrobe | Hair / makeup | Setups | Change time estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dani Look 1 | Denim jacket, band tee | Dry, natural | S1, S2 | n/a (starting look) |
| Dani Look 2 | Yellow slip dress | Dry, then wet for bridge | S3, S4, S5, S6 | Ask the stylist |
| Band | Street clothes, matching palette | Minimal | S1, S7 | n/a |
Now the day's order starts to show itself. Rooftop at golden hour in Look 1, then the band loads out past the window (S7) while Dani changes, then the laundromat after close in Look 2, dry hair first, wet last. Once hair is wet, you can't go back.
Performance passes turn into minutes quickly. The bridge in S4 runs 24 seconds, and playback starts 4 seconds early for pre-roll, so each pass is 28 seconds of track. Eight passes is 8 x 28 = 224 seconds, under four minutes of actual playback. The real time goes to everything between passes: clearing the haze or resetting it to the same density, re-wetting hair, resetting the dryer door, and checking slow-motion playback on the monitor. Ask the DP and the SFX person how long a reset takes, multiply by the passes, and that's the setup's real length.
Group the setups into a day
| Order | Setup | Location | Look | Why here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S1 | Rooftop | 1 | Golden hour is fixed |
| 2 | S2 | Rooftop | 1 | Same light, closer lenses, fast |
| 3 | S7 | Street | 1 (band) | Company move downstairs; Dani changes |
| 4 | S3 | Laundromat | 2 dry | Laundromat opens to production after close |
| 5 | S5 | Laundromat | 2 dry | Same lighting as S3, reverse angle |
| 6 | S4 pre-chorus | Laundromat | 2 dry | Before the hair goes wet |
| 7 | S4 bridge | Laundromat | 2 wet | Wet hair, haze, slow motion |
| 8 | S6 inserts | Laundromat | none | Artist wrapped; small crew finishes |
The insert setup at the end is how music videos save artist hours. Anything without the artist in frame goes after they wrap, or to a separate small-crew day.
What a music video breakdown adds over a film breakdown
A few categories matter more here than on a narrative shoot:
- Playback and timecode for every performance setup, including sped-up or slowed files.
- Performance passes per setup, which set how long each setup takes more than page counts ever could.
- Artist looks and changes, as above.
- Choreography and dancers, with rehearsal time and a floor surface that works for dancing.
- Label and artist approvals, which can add a review step between the treatment and the final shot list.
- Location rules for noise, since playback at performance volume in a residential building at night is its own permit and neighbor conversation.
From breakdown to paperwork
The setup sheets become the shot list (setup, lens, movement, song section), the call sheet (looks and call times per artist), and the budget. Our music video budget template and how to budget a music video cover the cost side, including playback gear and hair and makeup time.
Most breakdown software is built around screenplays, so a music video breakdown often starts in a spreadsheet like the tables above. If you write the treatment as short scenes with headings (EXT. ROOFTOP - DUSK), tools that read scripts can work with it. Storiara imports PDF, Word, and Final Draft files, and its music video solutions page explains how the modules apply to a shoot like this one.