Before someone books an artist, hears them live, or even reads their biography, there is a more than a good chance they will watch them. A clip in a programme email, a reel on a phone, a concert excerpt on YouTube. Video has quietly become the front door to an artist’s work, and for a lot of organisations it is also the most daunting thing on the to-do list.
I have spent most of my career behind a camera and an editing timeline, almost all of it filming classical musicians, so I want to make this feel manageable. Because 2026 has added a new layer of noise. AI video tools such as Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora 2 can now generate startlingly realistic footage from a sentence of text. That is exciting, a little unsettling, and for most people in our world, quite confusing. So let us sort out what actually matters.
Make every minute of footage work harder
The archive is gold. One properly recorded concert can become a full performance video for YouTube, three or four short clips for Instagram and TikTok, a striking moment for an email header, and a snippet for an artist’s website. Before you commission anything, ask what you are going to do with the footage once you have it.
The three videos worth having
You do not need a sprawling library. For most artists and ensembles, three things cover the ground.
First, one strong performance clip. A single piece, well filmed and well recorded, that shows the artist doing what they do best. This is the one promoters and programmers actually want to see.
Second, something human. A short piece where the artist talks, even briefly, about a programme, an instrument, or why a particular work matters to them. Audiences increasingly book the person, not just the playing, and a little personality goes a long way. Artist profile films are something we specialise in, finding the person behind the performer. We have always found these films are extremely effective in conveying the message of the whole package of an artist in a short watch, which in this era of short online attention spans, is a big win.
Third, short social clips. Snappy, vertical, twenty to thirty seconds, designed for a phone held upright. These are not meant to be polished broadcasts. They are meant to stop the scroll.
Lean into short-form, and do not over-polish
Here is a finding that surprises people. On short-form platforms, slightly rough and authentic content often outperforms the glossy stuff. A real moment from a rehearsal, filmed on a phone, can travel further than a costly production. YouTube and TikTok have genuinely helped drive a wave of younger interest in classical music, and short clips are a big part of that.
A few simple habits make a real difference. Hook fast, ideally with the most arresting few seconds of music right at the start, not after a slow fade. Film vertically for social, or shoot in high resolution so a clip can be cropped to fit. Add captions, because a large share of people watch with the sound off until something makes them turn it on. None of this requires expensive kit.
Where AI video genuinely helps, and where it does not
Now to the tools everyone is asking about. My honest view is that AI is most useful around your real footage, not in place of it.
Where it earns its keep is the fiddly, time-consuming work that surrounds a clip. It can help you cut a long concert recording into sensible highlights, suggest where the strong moments are, and rough out short versions for social without you scrubbing through an hour of footage by hand. It is genuinely handy for the connective tissue too: tidy title sequences, animated concert announcements, lower-thirds with an artist’s name, captions and subtitles, simple motion graphics, and atmospheric background visuals behind text. For a small team with no dedicated designer or editor, that is a real saving in both time and budget.
The thing to hold onto is that the performance itself stays real. The whole value of a classical artist is the playing, and that is what audiences come for. So think of AI as the capable assistant that handles the packaging, the trims, the graphics and the polish, freeing you to spend your time on the music and the message rather than the mechanics.
One thing to try this week
Spend twenty minutes looking through whatever footage your organisation already holds. Find one strong thirty-second moment, add a caption and the artist’s name, and post it. You will learn more from that single clip, and from what your audience does with it, than from weeks of planning the perfect production. Then you can take that knowledge into your next commissioned production with a far clearer idea of the end product you need.
Video does not have to be the scary item on the list. Start with what you own, keep the real performances real, and let the new tools quietly help round the edges and learn what works so you can use the pros more effectively to help you get more of it.
Need a hand with this?
If you would like help making more of your video, whether that is filming a concert properly, turning an archive into a year of content, or working out a sensible, honest way to use the new AI tools, I would be glad to talk it through. At Knight Classical we work across film and video, websites, digital media, social media and audience engagement, always focused on helping artists and arts organisations be seen and heard at their best. We have been making videos for classical musicians for over a decade, so we know how to film and present this art form at its best, and how to help you get the most from every minute of footage. You can reach me directly at martin@knightclassical.com.
