30frames

I am interested in WHY this conversation about references and who is ‘stealing’ ideas seems to be coming up more and more in 2011 than it has in the past. It does seem to get mentioned a lot these days, or am I tripping off my Tigerblood again? Discuss.

Anyway, the recent examples of Rihanna, Kanye and Gaga are what prompted this noodling. Maybe the internet makes video directors - who have always borrowed from others - more open to criticism. The rise of commenting on the 'Net is certainly a small part of this. No one was whinging that Fincher had copied from Fritz Lang back when Express Yourself came out – mostly because there was no place to do said whinging.

A bigger factor in my mind is that record labels are now asking for videos that look like specific references. It seems clear to me that IDJ wanted a LaChapelle day-glo bondage kind of concept for the Rihanna track. Why wouldn’t they? The song practically begs for it with a peppy beat and the tile being ‘S&M.’ Joseph Kahn’s Tweetage about how the label on some un-named job was asking for exact photo reference ‘guidelines’ further convinces me that the powers that be on that Rihanna job are at least as responsible (if not more) as the director for the law-suit threatened state they are in.

Most music video briefs to directors, however, do not come with a pre-made visual direction from the label. What the labels usually want is for the director is to create a concept and provide a sheaf of visual references – photos, Youtube clips, whatever – that will show them what the finished clip will look like. In order to win many jobs, the prospective video director in 2011 has to pull dozens of images that illustrate everything from the locations, the wardrobe, the lighting, the hotness of the hoochies, and so on.

Even with all that, I have still had conversations where the label is looking at a reference picture in a treatment and they’re confused that there is a blonde model in an image when the artist for the job in question is a brunette. “Yeah, well that picture, as you can see with the words across the bottom, is a lighting reference, the video we’re gonna make will have your artist in there, not a blonde Czech model.” I usually have to bite my tongue to not add – "and you’ll be able to hear the song and the image will move" and other snarky, ‘won’t get hired’ kind of things. I usually don’t say that stuff out loud. Usually.

In this bidding environment it is dead obvious to every director that while a reference picture is good, ten reference pictures are better. And a commercial/video clip with the soundtrack replaced by the song they’re writing on is even betterer. Even more than when labels were spending $600k on a video – they now want to see exactly what the finished clip will look like before they sign off. Not on every job but on many - the more a director can say ‘the video will look like THIS’ the more likely it is he will actually have a video to direct.They don't just wants hints or elements, they'd rather see the whole thing before they buy.

My guess is that music video budgets are ever tighter so the risk is higher for the label and they want to ‘know’ what they’re getting before they write a contract. Hollywood does this with many films being ‘inspired’ by other movies, video games, theme park rides and the art-work on breakfast cereal boxes. Somehow, having pages of reference images pulled from magazines and gathered off Flickr makes this whole MV game seem less risky. However, a completely fresh idea that no one has truly ever thought of before is unlikely to have any cool, high-quality images depicting it. Even in Italian Vogue.

This batch of ‘that video director stole from XYZ’ conversations is happening not because the director is lazy, it’s because they won’t win the job without it.

Labels: insider, label, Lady Gaga, music video, treatments, YouTube

Thursday, March 03, 2011 posted by 30f :  3 comments

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.’

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

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 posted by 30f :  3 comments