Taking your DJing to the next level might be on your agenda right now. Using animated visuals for such things as live streaming (green screen backgrounds), or supporting your live DJing can really give you a professional and unique edge to your “DJ Brand”.
Here’s an article to help you get started with DJ animated visuals, especially if you’ve just started looking for animated visuals.
Types & Use Cases of Animated Visuals
To clarify what we mean by animated visuals and the uses of them let’s explore some ideas and options:
- Live streaming (green screen) backgrounds
- Live DJing e.g. playing on TVs in the club or behind / on you via projector
- YouTube video backgrounds to support your DJ mixes (you might not record yourself DJing (audio only) and want to simply show off branded logo graphics
- Website imagery / video creative
- Social media, could be for organic posts or maybe even ads to promote yourself
FREE – Learn to Create Animations Yourself
This is a great option if you have the time to learn a new skill using software such as Adobe After Affects.
Once you’ve got the software and understood how to use the software the creative options are endless. And to a point a FREE, minus getting hold of Adobe After Effects obviously.
Here are a couple of great options online to learn from and get you started.
Check out this article with video tutorial here from Adobe themselves, or another great option is to check out the video below.
Employ a Creative Person on Fivver.com
If I’m honest, the quality on Fiverr is not that great, however after some time and searching around I found a couple of unique, creative and professional looking demo examples.
I’d suggest that you shop around on Fiverr if this is the avenue that you know you want to pursue.
Always check the amount of reviews and ratings of the person you’re employing. Check their credentials, social media and demo videos on their Fivver account too. Finally, sense check the exact details of what you’re purchasing. In the past I’ve made the mistake of rushing to make a purchase and have got a different image or animation to what I expected (in terms of quality).
https://www.fiverr.com/yashahindine/create-unique-tour-visuals-for-djs-and-artist
Employ an Animator Directly via Google or Social Media
A few Google searches online I found a really great creative person who runs Abyssal Visuals.
He creates really trippy but amazing looking animated backgrounds, specifically for DJs.
If you’ve got some cash to splash then a repeating animated background will cost you around £100, and potentially more depending on how customised it ends up. For example you can add your own DJ logo to pop up and hover on top of the background at regular intervals. This is great for DJs to stream live with a green screen or adding to video screens in clubs and bars.
Buy Stock Animated Footage
Storyblocks.com
Storyblocks is great example of one of the many video platforms to buy stock footage out there. If you’re a bit savvy with using software such as Davinci Resolve (which is FREE btw) you can stitch together some great footage.
A great way to make some live streaming interesting in the background or even for your club sets. And the visuals aren’t too dissimilar to animated backgrounds found on Fivver and Abyssal Visuals too.
Examples:
Find FREE Animated Video
If you like platforms such as Storyblocks.com but aren’t keen on spending money just yet, or at all for that matter, there are some FREE visuals you can grab online.
Below are a couple of great examples that I’ve found online.
Again my top tip here would be to stitch together some of the free visuals and moving animated backgrounds to create a longer loop. This will help keep your visual animations a lot more interesting and eye catching, as opposed to a single video clip that repeats for the duration of your DJ set, e.g. 60 minutes.
Top Tip: Practically Implementing DJ Visuals Live
https://www.visualzstudio.com/
Visualz is an amazing bit of software that changes visuals in real time according to the music that you’re playing in your DJ sets. Amazing!
This is a great solution for DJs looking to play live music and have visuals running alongside their specific music style.
Great Examples of DJs Using Animated Visuals
Amon Tobin is a music producer, but I wanted to give you the actual Wow factor when it comes to live visuals animated during a performance.
Example 1: short snippet
Example 2: full live set.
Sonny Federa DJ set with logo branded colourful visuals.
Related Questions
What program do DJs use to make visuals?
DaVinci Resolve or Visualz Studio are two great softwares to start putting together existing video animated clips to last for longer, such as 30 or 60 minutes.
