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G versus B is not a reference to gerardvsbear – but rather Gaga v. Beyonce.

The biggest bit of recent video battling (sorry Breezy and Rihanna) has been BK from Texas tryna stop the onslaught of Lady Gaga. So far, it isn’t working.

Gaga released her Francis Lawrence directed clip for ‘Bad Romance’ last week and it has been getting all kinds of attention. Troy Patterson on Slate does a good job of dissecting what it all might mean for Gaga. It seems unlikely that any critic (other than I) will lavish that kind of attention on Beyonce’s Hype-directed “Video Phone” – even though it has Gaga as a co-star.

It seems clear to me that B’s video has been rushed to air, in the hopes of not letting Gaga get ‘too far ahead’ in the super-stardom arms race. This approach is silly, since THIS is Gaga’s moment – her videos and music are everywhere. Why step into your opponents best possible punch? But if Beyonce was desperately trying to compete with the top-dog why would …

There be un-finished shots in ‘Video Phone’ of the male dancers wearing the chroma-key blue masks? The blue bags are a technique for replacing the head - like when we see the male dancers sporting camera-craniums with lenses pointed at Beyonce (a cool look). So why, only complete the effect part of the time? Did they run out of money or time? Both?

Why is Beyonce in such a hurry to get this video to market? There was no way this is going to truly compete with the fat budget of ‘Bad Romance’ and the ‘Video Phone’ video suffers by comparison.

I know this new B clip supports the ‘deluxe edition’ of the Sasha Fierce album that came out last year – but it doesn’t really add anything new to the conversation. AND, ‘Video Phone’ tries to get B caught up to Gaga by using a video that has Gaga in it!

Beyonce looks gorgeous in this clip and she should ditch all her other wigs for that ‘Bettie Page’ model. Hype mines the colorful and vignetted pin-up world he worked on Kanye’s ‘Goldigger’ – but now with toy guns! Gaga is definitely a secondary star in ‘Video Phone’ but I still can’t help but think Beyonce is trying just a bit too hard here.

I have written about this before – how the Knowles management team rushed a Beyonce record out that ended up trampling on the promotion for the movie ‘Dreamgirls.’ The impression I get is that Jennifer Hudson got the Oscar push from Paramount after the studio was peeved by Beyonce jamming the airwaves with product in the months before the studio had her in their big holiday release. That post from 2007 is here.

It makes sense that ‘Bad Romance’ is a better clip – the budget was much, much larger than what Beyonce had for ‘Video Phone.’ But what if Beyonce wasn’t dedicated to making a video clip for every last song, remix and outro on all of her special edition re-released CDs? I might suggest that B would get more mileage focusing her video budget on 3 or 4 singles instead of spreading the money over every song in her catalog.

Why not save the even more precious resource that is our attention for Beyonce until they have a fresh, new record with an un-rushed and well thought-out clip? Even if the visual FX for ‘Video Phone’ were completed, this would still be a ‘Beyonce dances against a non descript backdrop’ kind of clip that we have seen before. The video for ‘Diva’ even started with B outside the main set on the industrial street getting her strut on before she heads inside to perform – exactly like ‘Video Phone.’

I understand that all artists must strike while the iron is hot. But Beyonce’s iron does not seem particularly hot right now AND she is faced by a whole burning truckload of irons in Lady G. So why not relax a bit Beyonce?



Watch Beyonce - 'Video Phone' - ugh, the YouTube got pulled so here is the Peres link. Shudder.

Watch Lady Gaga - 'Bad Romance'

Labels: Beyonce, Lady Gaga, music video, philosophy, video link, YouTube

Hey, did you hear? There is a new Britney Spears video. It hasn’t been getting much press (well that and the Radiohead pick-a-price adventure) – so I thought I would let you know about it.

I do not want to get into piling onto Britney’s personal life or pointing out all the substandard elements of the clip. Anyone with eyes can see that. This is an actually decent pop song with a flat and effortless music video. Not much more needs to be said about the clip itself.

How and why this particular video got made does interest me, though. The director is listed as Jake Sarfaty. Some have said this is an Alan Smithee name for Jake Nava, a director who has worked with Britney before with some success.

The director of “Gimme More” is not the well known director of highly professional clips for Beyonce and Mariah. Jake Sarfaty is a real guy, a gaffer/grip with a reasonable amount of below-the-line credits on a variety of productions. So how does this guy end up directing a video for one the most (in)famous artists around? I certainly don’t know for sure – but my guess is that no one else would do it.

There had been talk for months and months about Britney making her OWN video. Jive didn’t want to pay (they thought the market wasn't ready for a "comeback") and yet Britney wanted to get out there right away and answer her critics. Is answering one's critics ever a good idea? How about answering the critics with a pole dance? That'll do the trick.

So this other, never produced, self-made Britney video was probably a different song, but I recall the story being that she wanted to shoot a clip where she was crucified on a cross made out of tabloids. Brilliant! This rumored video was supposed to get shot at Britney's own house and she reached out to some real directors – who came back with budgets and the like but it never took off. The story was that Britney was paying with her own money, so perhaps a professional was gonna cost too much or maybe someone talked sense into her and she decided to wait a bit on her “comeback.”

But finally, Britney gets the video she has been wanting to make - over the protestations of Jive it seems. There are soooo many mistakes with "Gimme More." Britney clearly needs some time off, both personally and in the marketplace. I don’t think people are ready to see her as an artist again, right now. She is still the “train wreck” in most people’s eyes and we are not ready to hear what she has to say musically. We are still more interested in whether or not she wears shoes into public restroom or gets her kids taken away by Sheriff’s Deputies. This is too soon, but it seems like Britney is not getting the best advice these days, or at least not listening to it.

Spending one’s own money is almost always a mistake. Anyone that casually watches Entourage must know this. It makes sense that Britney wouldn’t want to spend too much of her own money on a music video, so that is how a gaffer with zero directing credits gets the job.

The whole thing comes across so half-assed it is actually more like quarter-assed. It seems thrown together and almost completely unplanned. The song ain’t bad, but this isn’t gonna spark any kind of lasting comeback - despite the current surge of popularity on iTunes. Videostatic posits that we are watching for all the wrong reasons – and I have to agree.

The video for "Gimme More" doesn’t come across like a career move, but rather a desperate grab at keeping the mercurial flame of fame alive. All I can say is that Britney’s gonna need to find some more flammable stuff to throw in to keep it smoldering, because our attention is gonna burn through this balsa-wood thin distraction in way less than fifteen minutes.

Watch "Gimme More" on mtv.com.

Labels: Beyonce, Britney Spears, insider, mariah carey, MTV, music video, trainwreck, TRL

This is a (sort of) sequel to another post.

FM Rocks was the largest music video production company in the world over the last decade and a half. They were the home of directors like F. Gary Gray, Paul Hunter, Dave Meyers, Bryan Barber, Benny Boom, Jake Nava and Erik White. FM Rocks did videos like Notorious BIG’s Hypnotize, Beyonce’s Crazy in Love, Outkast’s Hey Ya and hundreds of others. FM Rocks produced multiple clips for Missy Elliott, Mariah Carey, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Britney, Creed, Celine Dion, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Lopez, LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes and so on.

If the music video industry were the auto industry – FM Rocks would be General Motors. And they closed their doors at the end of the year. Check out the “FM Rocks” tag on videostatic to see all the videos they did since the beginning of 2005. And that was while they were "going under."

That’s right, the biggest music video production house in the world went under (or simply 're-organized'). These photos show the building in Santa Monica where FM Rocks was officed until the end of 2006.

By looking at the building you can tell their overhead was probably just a bit high. This building is about four blocks from the Pacific Ocean. Prime real estate to be sure. That kind of extravagance is part of the problem.

But, the industry also changed. That’s probably a good thing – unless you worked here or they owed you money. Maybe they went bankrupt, maybe they just moved away. You can rent the building and find out.

Most of these pictures i took myself driving past one day, but below is a photo I got through a friend of a friend. It is a dumpster full of three-quarter inch video tapes that got thrown away as FM Rocks cleared out.

Try the phone number, (310-587-1501) – it is disconnected. I pity the next person that gets assigned those digits by AT&T and is inundated by collection calls from post houses and camera rentals joints trying to get paid.

Labels: Beyonce, death, music video, prod co

Beyonce is everywhere. From the cover of Sports Illustrated’s no-longer-controversial swimsuit issue to the red carpet of whatever awards show is shutting her out this time. Miss B is gorgeous and talented and every-fucking-where. And it looks like she is blowing it.

Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” has topped the singles charts since the last BSB record (or so it seems) – so how can I say she is blowing it? She is fixing to marry Hova, right?

This piece was on Idolator Thursday, referencing how Beyonce’s dad, Matthew Knowles (manager of both Kelly and Beyonce) has decided to push back the release of Kelly’s new CD.

Now Kelly's album is once again being pushed back but this time to make room for the re-release of Solange's "Solo Star"

For Solange?!? Ouch! That lets Kelly know where she ranks.

This is just a rumor, but what a juicy one. I have heard that Kelly’s first single (with guest rapper Eve) has gone out to video directors for treatments – so Kelly’s album might be out real soon. On the other hand, Matthew and his Sanctuary Urban Records (hey, they manage the fat guy from D12) have pushed Kelly’s record before, but at least then it was for big sister B.

Maybe Beyonce and her father are pushing around the career of Kelly Rowland, but how is that “blowing it?” Well this latest “scheduling change” is just the latest in a line of decisions Sanctuary has made to “help” Beyonce stay on top – but this maneuvering might end up burning out the public’s interest in their star talent and sour the rest of the entertainment industry on working with them.

No one in Hollywood cares if the Knowles’s screw with one of B’s back-up singers, but movie folks definitely care if they mess up the careful marketing plans of major motion pictures. As of mid-February, Dreamgirls has still not broken $100mil in domestic BO. It was a pricey film to make and I imagine this financial performance is considered a disappointment.

The original plan was for Beyonce’s album to come out in March/April of ‘07 – well AFTER the release of Dreamgirls. That would have left the Autumnal months of 2006 as a Beyonce-free zone, whetting everyone’s appetite for B’s December appearances to promote Dreamgirls and the soundtrack of same. By the time the video for “Listen” came out in early December – viewers had already seen three Beyonce videos from her “B’Day” CD in the past 2 and a half months. Instead of eager, I bet most audience were burned out on B.

Dreamworks and Paramount were NOT happy that they were getting much, much less mileage out of the song and video from the movie since TV and radio were already saturated with Beyonce. There were some rumors of complaints from movie types, but no one came out to directly criticize the decision to move up the “B’day” release. Imagine how much more excited B’s fans would have been to see the clip for “Listen” if they had not already seen the videos for “Crazy in Love II”, “That Weird Basic Instinct Video” and “The One Beyonce Song Everyone Likes” so recently.

One of the main reasons a movie studio casts any star in a film is for promotional purposes. Brad Pitt does the cover of Vanity Fair and Leno to promote his new movie. That is part of why he gets paid millions to be in movies – because he gets the word out better than someone who is a good actor (Geoffrey Rush) but people don’t care about. The producers of Dreamgirls must have thought they were getting the same thing when they signed Beyonce. “She can sing like crazy AND she will get us major press.” Then she goes out and over-exposes herself on every TV show in the fall and much of that promotional value Dreamworks/Par paid for is lost by the time December rolls around.

It is it any wonder that the producers started talking about and hyping Jennifer Hudson so much? I bet that there were conversations at 5555 Melrose about pushing the “other” Dreamgirl to the forefront because of Beyonce’s lessened promotional value AND to punish her and her father for their hubris.

By releasing her own album in September 2006, Beyonce hurt her own value to the producers of her star-making movie “debut”, she made her cameos on Jay-Z’s record less interesting, she got less out of Jay’s appearance on her own “Déjà Vu” single, AND she messed with her “best friend” Kelly’s release date once again. Beyonce and Matthew just couldn’t wait and they choked the marketplace with too much of the one thing the should be keeping special – Beyonce. Sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.

Going forward, Beyonce will still be famous. She will sell many records over her long career. She will still be a great singer and a gorgeous young woman. She will still be way cooler than me. But, what Beyonce seems to really want is to be a movie star and after crossing up the promotion for a big-time holiday film, Beyonce will probably find it harder and harder to get what she wants out of the studios.

And now Beyonce is shooting a slew of new videos to create a multi-media re-release of “B’Day.” Talk about coming on strong. I’m gonna be seeing more of her than I do of my real-life girl. It might be time for an intervention. “Beyonce, you are hot and all, but I need my space. Let’s talk again at the end of the summer, okay?”

Labels: Beyonce, music video, philosophy, selling