Filmmaker and digital creator Landon Bytheway has worked with iconic brands like Amazon, LG, Hyundai, and others. His secret to always finding the right music for his compelling work? Being proactive in your search (and utilizing Musicbed’s favorites feature). Keep reading to learn more about his creative process, what inspires him, and why he trusts Musicbed to provide the perfect music for his work.
Musicbed: What sparked your passion for filmmaking and storytelling?
Landon Bytheway: I was heavily inspired by many early YouTube filmmakers like Freddie W.—Rocket Jump was his channel. He’s one of the earlier Corridor Digital Guys, as well. Devon Super Tramp. The 2014-2015 era of YouTuber filmmakers is what sparked that—a lot of heavy after-effects and stuff like that. The fact that you could create lightsaber effects, fire, and different glitch effects and whatnot on your home computer was wild. What drove me is that I could do those types of things, and no one else except a couple of people that I already knew in my school were capable of doing them. Because it was such a unique skill set at the time, even though it wasn’t that long ago, that’s what drove me more than anything. It allowed me to be different and flex my creative muscles.
What keeps you motivated and creatively inspired?
I have a community that likes the stuff that I put out. They’re actively learning from the different things I do, which is very inspiring and motivating and very humbling. I’m not that good of a creator—I just happen to be in a position where people tend to follow and trust the things that I do, which is crazy to me but super cool.
I also come from a family of artists. My mom is an insanely talented artist. A couple of my sisters are also really good, and a bunch of different mediums: painting watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal—everything. In that regard, I’m not a very good artist, but I at least got the creative gene. There’s something internally for everyone who’s born with that gene—they constantly want to be creating stuff and improving. The community is a huge driving force for me. I look at work that other people do, and I get inspired and want to create my own version, or it sparks something else. Being surrounded by creatives is huge.
What makes a story visually appealing? What role does music play in storytelling?
Lighting is everything when it comes to making that type of content and then up next is audio. If you can have music that evokes the right emotion, you’re on the right track. Lighting and composition, and the story, the mood, and the emotion that you want to evoke behind the shot are the most important things in creating a visually compelling piece.
With music, there are so many examples. If you replace music in a movie with something totally irrelevant, it just ruins the shot. It doesn’t make it. And so you have to pair stuff that’s visually appealing with stuff that also matches the audio and audio that sounds nice. You must match it up if you want things to look good; they must sound equally as good. Audio is half of the viewing experience.
What elements are essential for crafting a compelling story?
Curiosity. You can look at almost any piece of content, and it’s curiosity that makes people click and stay. If you can pique someone’s curiosity the moment they see your thumbnail or the first frame, you’ll hook them quickly. If you look at any visually pleasing movie, short film, or whatnot, it almost always starts with curiosity. The other would be emotion—creating something that evokes a specific emotion you want your audience to feel. That’s what’s gonna make a really nice, compelling story.
How important is music in your work?
Music is absolutely crucial. It completely sets the tone for a video. I always hand-pick the music to match the right emotion illustrated through the screen. Music is half of the viewing experience. What I tend to do is almost always find the song I want to use first and then edit everything to that song. Now I come across a song, and I think, ‘I can make such a cool piece with this,’ I then make a video around that song specifically.
Go through the Musicbed collection or browse on Instagram to see some trending audio or cool stuff people make. You get hit with all these different types of music. Even Spotify songs that I saved five years ago, I think, ‘What an interesting piece. I have a really cool idea, the cool concept for a video that I can make to go with this song specifically.’ Music is crucial; sometimes, it’s the first thing that comes into my brain before I’ve even started thinking about the visuals.
What’s your advice to filmmakers/creators just starting their careers?
Make content in many different categories, and then figure out which one gets you the most excited. You’ve hit the jackpot if you do that type of work for free.
Being a full-time creator is awesome; I’m not going to pretend like it’s not the goal and the dream I’ve had since I was a kid. I own a full-time filmmaker now. That’s how I make my living. But if you had told me five years ago that this would be what I’m doing now, I wouldn’t believe you. Don’t limit yourself to just making content. It’s not just about the content but also about your business savvy and desire to create a lifestyle that excites you and works with your goals and ambitions.
You can have all the best products and the best marketing strategies in the world and have a lot of cool things that you’re working on. But at the end of the day, revenue drives the goal, and hitting these different goals is creating content for those products and those things. Creating content that drives interest in those things and appeals to the audience that you’re trying to get to purchase a product or be interested in something that gets them interested in something so that you can potentially sell them on later or build a community, whatever your goals are. If you can create a bigger plan that goes beyond just making content for the sake of making content, it’ll be a lot more exciting, and you’ll still get to make content along the way.
How do you balance pushing boundaries creatively and delivering what your client or audience wants to see?
If a client wants 100% control over the end product, it’s probably not a partnership I want. Yes, they’re hiring me for a reason. If they can give me the parameters and the elements that must be in a piece of concept, then allow me to use my creativity to bring it all to life. It’s a good relationship.
I adapted my look, style, and content for so long to fit what the audience or client wanted to see. Now I’m getting to a point where I understand that whoever’s hiring you wants you to be creative. They’re hiring you for you. They want you to create stuff that gets you excited and passionate about and then find a very easy and seamless way to integrate the brands into it. I’ve had conversations with my buddy Garrett Shortstash, and he’s the main person that opened my eyes up to be a hard ass when you’re working with brands.
Standing your ground and being firm in creating projects and opportunities to do work for a brand to create something that you personally are excited and passionate about is amazing. But not a lot of creators actually do that or are able to reach that full potential. Take a concept that you are excited about and then seamlessly integrate the brand. We all know the best branding is branding that is pretty lowkey and not directly in your face, because people don’t like to be sold to anymore.
What is the most challenging aspect of being a filmmaker/creative?
There’s a lot of pride in this industry. A difficult aspect is allowing yourself to just be unapologetically creative and not worry about the nonsense and the noise that you hear in the industry.
I get shot down fairly often on social media in ads because I run an online film school, and I’ve been making content for a decade. I’m not new to this, but some people have been doing it for longer. It doesn’t mean they’re better, but they’ve just been doing it for longer. There’s a lot of pride, so they see an ad where I say that I can help you make better videos in ten days, and they get really defensive.
There is a stigma in the creative industry with this new wave, and it will die down. Many of these newer creators are a lot better than many of the old creators, and they’re going to continue taking over. I don’t want to discredit some of the best film directors out there and people who have been doing it for a long time. But one of the hardest parts is realizing that you can’t please everybody in this industry.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on?
I move on really quickly from project to project, so I don’t really have a favorite. The type of concept that I make is usually a lot of short-form content. My favorite medium right now is fun, quick 15 to 30-second videos. A cool piece is the Beginner vs. Pro, the most recent one, Beginner with Ronin 4D vs. Pro with Osmo Pocket 3. I’m proud of it because I shot it on a camera you wouldn’t typically shoot that kind of video with. It turned out really well, and it’s always fun to shoot a $3 million hypercar.
How do you search for music on Musicbed?
I like to use keywords like lo-fi or hip-hop and just search directly on the home page. Even if I find a song I like, and I wouldn’t use it for that specific project I’m browsing for, I still save it to my Favorites. I have that collection that I can look back at and use in a different video in the future. That’s key.
Be proactive and save the stuff you like. If you casually browse (even if you’re searching for music for a completely different video) and you like the song, just save it. The more you save music that resonates with you, the easier it’s going to be to get music for upcoming projects. Then, when you need a song for a video, the first thing you’ll do is go to your saved songs and check those out.
Why do you utilize Musicbed in your work?
Musicbed has the best selection that doesn’t feel like corporate jingles. They’re real songs by real artists. Musicbed consistently just has some of the best music. I use Musicbed when I need stuff for YouTube, and I don’t want to risk any sort of demonetization of a video.
With client work, we’ll also use Musicbed if we need stuff for different ads because it’s not just the Fulltime Filmmaker YouTube channel—it’s also my studio productions. Even occasionally with influencer-type clients—I need music, and Musicbed is a great spot to get that.
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Explore a curated playlist of Landon’s favorite songs to use in his work—available to license only on Musicbed.
