30frames

A decade ago in music videos, if a label wanted a director for a specific job, and the director knew he was the first choice, that director could come up with a concept that cost more than the label’s desired budget. If they wanted to spend $400k on a budding pop-diva’s first single, the director could add in some helicopter shots or post effects and get the budget up to $550k – and a lot of the times the label would agree, because they wanted THIS director just that much.

Obviously, those days are long gone. The seller’s market has become a buyer’s market and the labels barely care which director they hire – as long as the final budget hits their target number. As a business strategy, this makes a lot of sense for the labels – they aren’t moving units like they used to and cost-certainty is key.

That ‘back in the day’ director was over-amping his treatment because he wanted to shoot some helicopter shots for his feature reel or try a new post-effect AND to drive the budget higher so his ten-percent (and the exec producer’s as well) would be worth more.

But today’s video directors write outlandishly un-doable ideas for a whole other reason. It seems that everyone in 2009 is ‘stuffing his bra’ to cut through the treatment clutter and deliver an idea that might actually get them noticed by the over-worked commissioner.

The over-the-top concept may jump off the page and get the label folks interested – especially if they are new-ish to the game and don’t know what production actually costs. No matter how wonderful this new and super-expensive idea might be, there is still no more money coming – so the 'too big' ideas simply end up being a waste everyone’s time. Sure, modern technology and ‘one man band’ directors who do their own editing and/or digital effects (and art department AND cinematography) can get a lot done for small bucks – but ‘getting creative’ with the budget only goes so far.

I saw one concept recently that had the whole video shot with the artists and a gorgeous actress (possibly famous! – yeah right) suspended in harnesses above the floor. Not a single scene, or a cutaway was done with this wire harness ‘floating effect’ – but the whole freaking video. Do you know how hard that is? The talent has to get into position with their legs dangling and then try to look cool/sexy/whatever while not letting the strain of mega-wedgies effect their performance. Wire shots are accomplished a few minutes at a time so the talent can be lowered to prevent gangrene of the leg from setting in. Doesn’t matter how much you can record on the latest high tech digital video camera without reloading – most of the footage will be of the artist reaching for their aching crotch or struggling to sway themselves in the desired part of the frame. Plus, this idea took place inside a typical suburban house – which would have low ceilings and no place to rig the wires out of frame above the action. It would take three days (at least) to shoot this idea and I am not even talking about the cost to remove the wires in post – because that was part of the idea as well. Oh, and the budget for this job was UNDER $20k.

That is just an example. I have seen concepts that involved the whole video taking place at night on the slanted roof of an old church (not via green screen). How does the talent stand up there? How many hours does it take to hand-carry all of the heavy lights and equipment up to that unstable and dangerous roof? I have seen concepts with the artist photographed in dozens of different cities, but minus any explanation how or why the artist and the director would take months out of their lives to shoot this multi-state concept for under forty-thousand. No amount of cutting edge technique or film-school endeavor will bend the laws of physics. The Red Camera doesn’t magically create 47 hours of sunlight in a day.

The capper on lots of these impossible to pull off concepts is that the ‘look’ is explained as being like some amazing photograph (Crewdson perhaps?) or a feature film that won awards for the DP. Really?!? So you are going to shoot in some crazed state (hanging from the ceiling, on a roof trying to beat the dawn, rushing to a million locations) and at the same time, generate world class photography?

Certainly the labels must bear some of the weight of this craziness. Commissioners say things like ‘Yeah, this (something actually do-able) idea is fine but it doesn’t seem special.’ That is the kind of ‘creative brief’ that sends directors off into a fantasy-land of un-affordable gags and effects – trying to find something, anything that will catch the eye of those with money to spend. The director wants the job, so they add in more stuff until the treatment feels ‘special’, and everyone’s time is wasted. But it is on the director’s shoulders to come up with a variety of ‘special’ that isn’t just throwing more (imaginary) money at the problem.

I bet the director that submits the second act of Apocalypse Now as his treatment for the $12k job is also the one complaining about the crappy job done by the director that eventually DID get hired when the video finally gets posted on antville. Comparing what someone else did in the world of reality with their own fantasy inside their head, probably has them always coming out on top.

Commissioners and labels like the idea that their measly budget will go as far as possible. And they LOVE the idea that talented and creative people are willing to scrap over the tiny opportunity they have on offer. But, even if the swinging on invisible wires extravaganza grabs the attention of the label, and even if the VP of Brand Marketing loves the idea – it is going to eventually land on the desk of a line producer who is going to enter real numbers into a real spreadsheet and call ‘bullshit’ on the whole process. Or even scarier, maybe the line producer drinks the kool-aid (under duress from the exec producer?) and then the director has to go out and actually turn the overblown concept into a finished video.

Punishment equals answered prayers and all that.

Side note, Mark Cuban wrote something quite fun about the opposite problem – hyping up and overselling a nothing idea with catch phrases and buzzwords. I think every director writing a concept should take this message to heart as well.

Labels: antville, death, insider, music video, on the set, philosophy, prod co

In casino parlance, a Whale is the kind of big time gambler that gets all the comps and upgrades – because despite the effort and expense, the high-rolling whale ends up pumping major cash into the house’s pockets. In the world of music videos, the whale is just as profitable and the opposite of the mirage – but the whale is rare and getting rarer.

As a side note, did anyone else who saw "Ocean’s 13" think that Pacino’s tremendously ugly casino skyscraper looks like the strange twisting obelisk from the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Presence” album? Probably just a flashback from Journey being the last sound ever heard on the Sopranos. Anyway …

Whales are the kind of jobs that can really make the year for a prod co. Whales are ultra-high profit jobs because the paying party is never a regular record label. The entity cutting the checks could be – a movie studio, a video game or dot.com firm, a plutocratic family member, or even a coffee company named after a character in a whaling book. (Hmm.)

What all the whales have in common is that they are NOT used to commissioning videos. They don’t know the territory and they are easy pickings for a smart music video production company looking to, um, maximize profits. In this situation the prod co and director can come up with a grand concept (which the Whale will love since Whales are always looking to make a splash) and the music video pros have the advantage in that the people commissioning the job have no freaking idea what stuff is supposed to cost.

Labels are usually pretty good at knowing how much it costs to make a video and they have all kinds of mechanisms in place to monitor the price of the videos they are commissioning because they do it all the time. A Whale doesn’t know that a camera package should rent for less that $50k per day – how would they? The Whale has been off in their own world, very busy making scads of money in a field they understand completely. But now they are up the creek.

Whales are marked by having an excess of cash, a lack of experience and (this is key) a burning need to make a very special video for this particular project. Like Adam Goldberg’s (un-credited?) trust-fund baby-turned-movie-producer character on Entourage – the Whale has money burning a hole in their pocket and they want to spend it on something. Anything.

Some Whales are making a video to promote a movie and they are going all out. What is an extra $300k on a film that costs over $160million with prints and advertising? I have even heard of clips that were paid for by the ultra-wealthy (cough, cough, robber baron) parent of the artist. Daddy must love his baby daughter a whole bunch to hire Joseph Kahn, no?

Now that Starbucks has entered the world of making music videos – they are the new money getting jacked by the old hands. The talk is that Gondry spent US$1.5mil on the latest Paul McCartney clip – and that is just nuts. Starbucks Music got boned by He Whose Name is Always Spoken – and all the other directors and prod cos are sad that they didn’t get THEIR chance at the defenseless checkbook bloated by all those no-whip fraps.

That is what the whale does, they come to Vegas an puke up all their cash to the house. Ain’t life grand? As long as you’re not the whale.

Paul’s boy had an expression – something about karma.

That is probably why there are way more Mirages that Whales these days.

Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead

Labels: antville, He Who Is Always Named, insider, music video, on the set, prod co

I know the topic of fan created videos has been covered before – both here and other places, but I though recent events justified a new mention.

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal had a whole article dedicated to the “downside” of fan created videos. Seriously, it is sub-titled “Hundreds Enter, but Some Complain Winners Are Often Pros Seeking Exposure, Not Loyal Listeners.” You can read the WSJ piece here, but you already know exactly what it is gonna say.

Once a mainstream media outlet gets a hold of something from the “fringes” of society – crunk, flash mobs, Scott Storch, lipstick parties, et al – you know the gig is up. If it is getting major ink in Time or the Wall Street Journal, you know the cool factor is already long gone. So I was assuming that fan video contests were deader than Ja Rule’s Reunion Tour until I saw …

A new contest on the horizon. No, not Spielberg's "The Lot" reality show. Seriously, this new competition changes it all. This is a new paradigm. The website even gives prospective directors some great advice:

Think original. Be creative. Impress us. Actually, wow us! Is the idea behind your video fresh and new? Will it make people say, "That was really clever!" Or is it just another version of an idea we've all seen a million times already?

Win us over. Regardless of how original your idea may be, is the video appealing and interesting? Will people enjoy seeing it and watching it over and over?
And be sure to keep it clean. [ARTIST X] is a good guy, so we’ll ask ourselves, “Is it respectful of [ARTIST X]?”

Details, Details. [ARTIST X] sweats the details and knows that even the best ideas fall apart if they're poorly executed. Have you paid attention to the details? Have any embellishments you've added strengthened the idea or do they just distract?

Who could save the world of fan created content and make YouToogle relevant again? Why Mister Clean of course? The above creative advice is excepted from Senor Spotless’ website and you can even watch a sample of their idea of a creative concept on the splash page. (is that Gondry-esque stop motion?)

Check it out and rejoice that fan made video contests will live forever.

Labels: antville, contest, music video, YouTube

Movie reviewers like to criticize certain films that they perceive as being over-cut for their “music video editing” – and it is not a compliment. Some old school filmies blame MVs for ruining the attention span of the planet’s young. But I would say that many video directors and fans are less obsessed with super fast edits than they are with …

One take videos. Every director who has ever made (or thought of making) a music video has considered the idea of a one taker. Even if it is only in his/her mind, every director has their own personal take on how they would do it. Kind of like the Aristocrats of promo clips.

Kev over on Antville compiled a massive list of one take videos a few years back and many added and added to it. Check it out, it is a mighty list indeed. A brand-new addition to that list is …

Patrick Daughters’ new Feist clip. Everyone loves it. Well most everyone.

The reason that this one-take video stands out is because the structure of the clip actually works with the feel of the visuals and the building low-fi emotionality of the music.

So many one-take videos have a forced feel where I end up noticing how much of a strain it is to maintain the paper-thin conceit of no edits. Most one-take directors (MV and otherwise) seem to be shooting for “bravura” and end up missing the point all together.

Watch the Feist "1234" video and try not to have a smile on your face by the last choruses. It is a joy to watch.

Obviously there are many other things the director did right, from the not-too-slick dancers and the whimsical Jet Li wall running choreography, the ZOOM-like wardrobe. The artist and the song are (of course) pretty good, too. But the one-take “gag” never overwhelms the vibe of it all – which is why the video works so well. My only minor ding is that you never really get to see the performer's face very well, a common one take issue.

This clip is about the artist and the song and not the director waving his arms to draw attention to his technical achievement. Like seduction, flatulence and refereeing a basketball game - technical achievement is done well when no one even notices it is being done at all.

Labels: antville, music video, review, video link

I guess this is just continuing the Zoolander theme established in a hilariously truthful post over on Shots Ring Out. You should check it out, both for the Mugatu image and for the “so crazy it can’t be real” reality of it all. Anyway, read on, once you come back …

In the recent Los Angeles edition of City Beat (our second-tier free medical marijuana and massage parlor ad paper) there was an article about the unintended consequences of the revitalization (or “fascist gentrification” for the antville types) of downtown Los Angeles. For years, downtown LA has been creepily empty after the sun goes down – but the city and developers have been trying to turn the old, decaying downtown around and it looks like they have finally made some changes. Too bad that looks to be bad for production.

As downtown L.A. becomes the city’s newest upscale community, motion picture and television companies are learning the hard way that they are no longer lords of the empty streets. Now, smells wafting from catering trucks and the roar of generators from the 2,235 permitted productions in 2006 alone are barely tolerated and there always seems to be new rules to follow. To date, the city has imposed 150 rules on downtown production, 15 percent more than in other area of the city. – City Beat

It would certainly cramp everyone’s style if shooting in downtown LA became like New York with no audible playback rules and seven block walks to the grip trucks. But at the same time, I would not want a production crew running playback of a Pretty Ricky song until 6am outside my cave.

Downtown is home to such famous music video shooting locations as the rooftop from “Where the Streets Have No Name”, the back of the sign on top of the Orpheum Theater and the Alexandria Hotel where David Fincher used to live. The grungier the place, the more likely it has been in a music video, and that got me thinking …

Why are so many videos (and other stuff) shot in crappy, abandoned, run-down places? I understand (at least some of) the social implications of the underclass or the youth taking over the structures abandoned by the powerful of society. I understand that it is cheaper to shoot in an empty building than it is to rent out the top floor at the new CAA headquarters.

I was recently going to a video location on the edge of downtown near the LA River and taking a kid who had never been to a video set before. I was telling the boy about how grungy the place would be and he asked why. The kid assumed that videos would be set someplace cool and glossy – aren’t musicians rich after all?

The kid had good questions and I stammered to answer them. The one thing I settled on was that abandoned buildings are cool. That’s it, dirty=cool. It’s all I got.

Derelicte!!!

Labels: antville, insider, music video, on the set, prod co, u2

Driving down the coastal highway in Baja, south of Tijuana, I noticed two things – one, a preponderance of places to buy enormous ceramics that would crowd my vehicle for the rest of the trip and two, unfinished construction. I am not talking about a house that is almost done or a store that is party way complete. All along the main highway past Ensenada and Rosarita there are massive concrete and rebar first floors and foundations that look abandoned. Many of these construction sites look to have been deserted for years and years, their incomplete arches and cement columns hinting at the soaring vision that went into the planning stage but not the financing of the project. These are not single family homes, someone clearly spent big bucks on what they have so far – but then ran out of steam.

This applies to music videos how? Like this. There are quite a few clips out there where the director (and others involved) clearly had dreams bigger than their budget. I see too many videos where something starts and is never completed. That could be a conceptual thing – like a “one take” video where they abandon the “one-take-ness” part way through as they realized how boring it is – or a budgetary thing where the director wishes he could have lots of cool FX but ends up with a few mediocre comp shots.

Dreaming is cool. Take a big sheet of paper and sketch out all those dreams. Brainstorm and draw some shit up. Some of it will be good, some not so much – it doesn’t matter during the dreaming stage. But once you start expecting other people to pay attention (or money) – you better have something coherent and attention worthy.

Dreaming is fun, watching someone else dream is less so. Watching a video with art-direction that cost $37 but is supposed to be a "castle" or something else it obviously isn't is the least fun of all. Whose fault is it that the $37 set didn't "read" on camera? Not the art department's.

The web (on places like antville) are filled with odd-ball videos with tons of effects that just look like crap. Lots of commenters applaud the effort and balls of directors that try to do things they clearly cannot actually do. Maybe I am just too linear to “get it” but why put something in your video you just can’t do. As Yoda said, “Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.”

A guy trying to play the piano and failing is not “a guy almost playing piano” it is “a lot of annoying noise.” A director trying some camera angle, lighting technique or post effect that he doesn’t have the budget or skill to accomplish is not noble, he is simply boring to watch.

Trying new things is great and the only way to grow as any kind of artist. But music videos are also a craft and the client (label, artist) are gonna expect more than half the first floor of a palace – they are gonna expect the dream you sold them on with the treatment. Clients won't grade on a curve or give a mark for "effort."

The audience deserves more than half-baked, quarter-planned effort and if we expect them to watch, we better deliver it to them. They don’t give a shit if the 22 seconds of rendering that did get completed will “look good on your reel” if the rest of the video has rebar sticking out the top and smells of damp concrete.

UPDATE: A couple of commenters have said things that makes me think that I didn’t really get my point across. So, I’m going to try again.

I am NOT saying that directors need to play it safe or they should limit themselves creatively. I AM saying directors need to actually accomplish what they set out to do.

Metaphor alert. It is like those automobile design contests where they get design students to dream up new car ideas and the fresh, young designers come back with wild concept drawing of six-wheeled cars that go under water or burn old coffee grounds for fuel. As drawing and ideas, those concepts are all great. But a finished music video for a real band with a real career is the NEXT stage of that car-design competition – where the student has to actually build the car. If the car doesn’t drive or it bursts into flames or it only starts half the time, then it is a piss poor car – no matter how cool or new the design ideas are. No one who has to drive the non-moving six-wheeled coffee ground car as part of their actual life is going to say – “Sure, I am stuck here in my driveway, but this is a genius idea and I am so happy I have an outside the box kind of vehicle.”

Music videos are not about ideas – they are about music videos. Drawing an un-build-able blueprint doesn’t make you an artist, it makes you a fraud. The finished product is what matters.

Labels: antville, baby director, music video, philosophy

This is sort of “part deux” for my preaching to the choir post from last week.

Several commenters here and on antville took me to task for not acknowledging the power YouTube’s “viral video” effect. It is true I neglected to include the upside of video sharing in the last post. I was lazy, the post was already long and I believe viral videos are much, MUCH less infecting than many people believe.

When Gutenberg invented the printing press and movable type – it was decades before someone came up with the idea for page numbers, so those original, un-page numbered books were far less useful than they would be once “book OS technology” had the kinks worked out. Today, we are in that “no page numbers yet” stage for the internet. The technology exists, but the way it will REALLY be used once it becomes fully integrated into our lives has not yet been established. In 2007, the intratubes (and viral video) are still in their pre-adolescent stages and there is no way to know exactly how they will turn out.

Reason #1 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:
They have not made anyone on the music-making end of things much money as of yet. The YouTube guys are billionaires, but that hasn’t helped Weird Al make any scratch off of “White and Nerdy” despite the fact that the web clip has been watched more than 6 million times. Clicks are NOT cash. Attention does not pay the bills. (Hey, I love it when my blog gets an extra hundred hits, but I can’t use that to pay my rent, unless my landlord starts taking GoogleAd Sense.)

Part of this is on the music industry. Why can’t record companies turn people sharing video clips into a living for recording artists? Because labels are run in old fashioned ways by old fashioned people. Maybe someone will turn this around, but that looks to be a long ways off.

Reason #2 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:
Even hyper-successful viral videos have made little to no impact at retail. OkGo is the best example to date of the positive power of viral videos and even they have not been all that successful. Here is a blurb from their (press release-ish) wikipedia page:

"After the band's performance at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, their album moved up to #2 on the ITunes Music Store album sales charts (as of September 3, 2006). Their album sold 8,250 units in the following week, a 95% increase over the prior week, rocketing from #87 to #69 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the highest position ever achieved by any OK Go album to date."

Wow, I would not call moving from 87 to 69 “rocketing,” especially following an appearance on the VMA show. This is NOT all that impressive to me – or the record labels, either, I would imagine. These numbers are very good for a small indie band and all that, but if this the BEST case one can make for viral video it is not a very strong case at all.

The treadmills video has been watched over 11 million times and OkGo even won the Grammy for video of the year (as well they should have, IMO) so they have gotten lots of attention – too bad more people didn’t actually pay for the music. This is not a rip on OkGo – but rather pointing out that the concept of viral videos, even in the best of best of best case scenarios – has a long way to go. OkGo created something great (along with a far better written and far more market friendly song than most viral visds are attached to) that points the way to where the industry might/should/will go in the future. But Ben Franklin and his kite getting over with the key, is still a long way from people having electric bug-zappers on their patios.

Many, many bands have tried to get the same viral video buzz and only OkGo has turned their clip into mainstream attention. Bands expecting YouToogle to make them stars is like school kids expecting that they will be NBA/NFL stars when they grow up. It might actually happen to a tiny handful of athletic hopefuls, but the percentages are not in the kid’s favor. AND (to extend the metaphor oven further) the OkGo example shows that the rare kid that does make the pros will spend his time on the bench earning the league minimum salary. Kids are better off studying for a career other than sports if they want to stay above the poverty line and bands are better off trying to get signed to a major label and go about things the more “traditional” route if they wanna stay above the poverty line.

The viral video might (and I stress "might") help out a baby band that few have heard of, but it holds almost no value for an established band or artist - like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance or Ludacris. The music industry, as currently constructed, is set up to make money off the later kind of artists - not the unknowns. To the music industry, viral video looks like something that "helps panda bears manage their stock portfolio" - a solution to a problem they don't know or care about. The music industry is definitely changing, and possibly to something where pandas need to check their mutual funds, but I doubt viral videos will still be the rage when that happens.

Reason #3 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:
Because people on the internet think it is a sure thing. When everyone tells me something is a can’t miss deal, (eToys, anyone?) I get very suspicious.

"Viral video" is the kind of catch-phrase that jumps into marketing vocabularies - ala synergy, click-through, tweens and so on. There is certainly some value in all these concepts, but when they become "hot" - they get over-used and beaten into the ground in the rush to apply their new media-ness to any and every situation. Remember when CD-ROMs and those added value CDs were going to change the record retail game? Maybe viral video will be the thing to make that change, but so far, I see zero signs that it has happened.

Labels: antville, controversy, music video, viral video, YouTube

The way music videos are seen by people (a topic endlessly discussed here) today doesn’t just change the way labels/prod cos/directors profit from them – it changes what music videos do.

Obviously, music video discussion sites like this one, SRO or antville are not for the casual fan. If you are interested in what other commenters think of the long-awaited Grizzly video, whether a thirty year old film is a music video, or what technique was used on some motion control shot, you are not a normal music video consumer. And videos on the web are perfect for you.

The Intratubes are great if you want to find a particular video from the past or, a new clip that hasn’t really hit TV yet (onsmash is great for urban new-ness), or a video that will never, ever get on television. But the web is NOT good for introducing viewers to new artists. Web videos don’t reach new record buyers, but Disney Channel does.

If you are YouToogling “LCD Soundsystem” you have already purchased or downloaded all the music of theirs you care to have. If you sought out a particular file out of the billions on the world wide web, you are already a fan and watching the video on-line has no chance of turning into more sales for the musicians involved (which was the original goal of MVs, by the way).

The reason radio did (does?) rule is because it reaches new ears. MTV (back in the good ole days) did the same – sending out music that the audience may not have heard in the hopes of creating new fans. On radio/music television people can stumble across something they haven’t heard before and that is how an industry expands.

If anyone is watching a video on the band’s site, they are not exactly new fans. And that seems to be the way 85% of videos are viewed these days – dialed up by the folks that already know about the music and the artist. Like a politician making a dynamic speech in his home district, the impression might be strong but it means nothing – since the audience is already on board.

Some videos have gotten a lot of heat in the video dork community of which I am a member. The whole Death Cab for Cutie makes a bazillion $353.28 videos thing was a big story on antville and the like but very few people bought that album. The fact that all us insiders heard about the videos or watched them all a dozen times and commented on which one was best means about nothing to record labels that are busy trying to not go under or decide what the budget for the next video should be.

Music videos have become more and more like the VW keychain that Volkswagen dealers mail out to people who have just bought a new Jetta. The keychain is cool, but it is rewarding existing fans – not building new ones. No matter how cool that keychain is, it can’t convince your neighbor, or the guy across town who has never seen it, that he too, should look into buying a VW.

I love music videos and I think that they can connect audiences with artists in ways that almost nothing else can. I just wish it didn’t feel so much we are preaching to the choir.

Labels: antville, insider, label, music video, selling, viral video, YouTube

This was inspired by another conversation over on antville and shots ring out.

There has been much talk about YouToogle and possible replacements for the titan of web video. No one is happy with the picture quality of Das Tube – other than R Kelly who enjoys the graininess because it allows Kells to claim that ain’t him sexing the underage girls on the home video.

There will someday (and soon) be a new and improved YouTube. Maybe Google will upgrade their new purchase to HD or maybe some other new site will come in and have better tech that pushes out Das Tube. It will happen, but the details don’t matter. Not to me and not to the regular people who have made YouTube the hit it is.

I use a car. Every day. It has a complicated motor inside. I don’t care. Add gas. Change oil occasionally. Do that and the car takes me where I want to go. I care about the destination, not the process. That doesn’t mean the process isn’t important, but if the engineer/designer/builder does their job right, it doesn’t matter to me whether my car has a five speed automatic transmission or a six cylinder engine. If they do their job right, I only have to care about my goal – “get to store for more Mickey’s Wide Mouths and non-fat cottage cheese singles”.

In the early days of cars, like 1911, drivers had to know how to crank the vehicle to start it and have some knowledge of repairing/maintaining the ungainly beasts. These cars never really took off in the market-place. But when the Model T came along with radically better reliability and simplicity – people started ditching horses for Fords.

Das Tube is great at simplicity. I click and the video plays. Every, mutha-farking time. No ifs, ands or buts. That is what matters to me. I get to see the video when I click. It seems pretty simple.

If you find yourself thinking, “Well all you have to do on (name of higher tech video service) is be sure your browser accepts cookies and download the driver that will …” then you are a tech nerd. Tech nerds were the guys out buying those early horseless carriages because they liked the challenge as much as they liked getting from point A to B. Tech nerds are great. They read websites about music videos. Hell, they often direct music videos. But tech nerds are NOT normal people.

Web videos need to be 100% easy or they will get ignored (Hello, MTV Underwhelm). Video links/files are useful if, and only if, I can instantly send it to a co-worker or friend and it will definitely play for them. The last thing you wanna hear when you send a buddy a video of Britney’s pastrami curtains is that the damn thing wouldn’t open. Of course, a better quality picture is better, but only if we can launch the video on your computer or otherwise it won’t matter.

At some point, the new service(s) will be all that, but for now, YouTube is the best option for normal folks. When that change-over happens, the tech guys will have known about the new service for months - but it won't matter until us regular types figure it out and flock there like lemmings.

Labels: antville, download, music video, YouTube

Many of you will wonder, “Why in the hell is this guy writing the same freaking post again?” Well, I wonder that myself sometimes. On the automotive industry blog call “The Truth About Cars” they have written over a hundred posts about the inexorable demise of General Motors, so I am just biting their style.

Over on the ‘ville there is a discussion about a contest to finish a video for The Decemberists. More details on video static, since my Mac-loving makes logging onto any MTV related site painful to impossible. Overall, this is a great marketing concept by Capitol, especially since it has been picked up by The Colbert Report and smacked around on a REAL television network (sorry MTVu).

The prize for the contest from MTV/Viacom? Ironically, a Mac laptop. But that’s it. Oh, and airplay on MTVu. Whoop-de-doo. That’s fun as a lark, but it showcases once again how directing music videos is no longer a career. MVs are now something to be done in one’s spare time – since you will need to keep your regular gig making lattes, driving a UPS truck or working at a sullenly-unkempt indie record store (oops, scratch that last one) to pay the bills.

Making music videos is slipping away from being a profession and moving into becoming a hobby. Videos air on websites and not television networks. Or they do air on TV, but in such obscure spots (MTVu) that they have the same viewer-ship as a website.

Addendum Dec 2: The Decemberists and this contest are not the problem, nor are they even causing the problem. This is a smart idea to promote a pretty cool band, but it does illuminate the creeping amateurism in what was once a professional industry. Back in the day, MTV had a contest called "The Basement Tapes" where baby directors made videos for their local bands and got airplay on MTV. That contest discovered Scott "Parents Just Don't Understand" Kalvert, one of the most influential video directors ever. That was different because it sought out amateur directors to do videos for small, local bands that would get major cable airplay. This contest is being sponsored by a major label band and only gets airplay on MTV's college network (which is viewed exclusively by non-CD buying "downloaders"). To me, that is a major step back.

That leads me too …

The Mine. Raw. A Few Miles North. Propaganda. Geneva Films.

Those are all music video production companies that have gone out of business. Some were significant players. Some probably still owe you money.

The most successful production companies – HSI, @Radical, Black Dog/RSA – keep their doors open by producing commercials. Music videos are only an afterthought. Yes, Paul Hunter is at HSI, but he makes more commercials these days than videos. HSI is not a “music video company” any more than your local McDonalds is an “ice cream parlor” because they have a soft serve machine behind the counter. It ain’t music videos that keeps Stavros in Aston Martins.

Things are changing. Things always change. But the business of music videos – at least the big-budget "Hollywood" end of the pool that I swim in – is “changing” by going away.

That might mean more opportunity for young directors who are hungry enough to enter contests and beg favors to get $5k jobs shot. Let’s just hope your prod co stays in business long enough to pay you.

What are these dark, empty parking lot photos doing here? This is the former executive parking lot for Band Apart. You remember Band Apart – Tarantino, John Woo, Robert Rod …

This used to be the exec producer's parking spot. It is where I park now, when I go to my gym.

Labels: antville, contest, death, music video, prod co

The driving force in the changes taking place in music videos is distribution – how videos make their way (or don’t) from the artist or label to the end consumer. Music consumers who watch videos only know about videos if they see them and they only know what the screen and speakers tell them – even if those speakers are on a cheap lap top or the screen is a smudged cell phone LCD. I have been writing about the effect distribution and MTV are having since the early days of this blog. Distribution is, obviously, key.

James over at the ever-useful SRO has written a great piece about the way YouTube is changing how music videos are delivered. He believes that the horrible image quality of Das Tube is and will have a negative effect on music video – both creatively and financially. He makes a lot of sense on the topic:

What if paintings could only be observed as 250 x 250 jpegs? What if your favorite band only sold their albums as 22 Kbs mp3s? You’d be pissed, that’s what. The reason is simple: the distribution quality would be detracting from the artistic integrity of work. You may not notice a song is great because you couldn’t tell from the shitty recording. You wouldn’t be able to notice the subtle nuance and brushwork that makes a painting jump from pretty good to brilliant.

The capper is that he has an embedded YouTube link (and who doesn’t love those) of a music video made using the camera function of a cell phone. Seriously, click over there now and watch the damn thing. Due to the constraints of the streaming video, you can barely tell the camera has a 12-cent Malaysian lens. I certainly wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t known.

I agree with much of what James opines – and his assertion that labels finding out they can get a video for $50 is not a good thing for anyone in the industry is spot on. However, I do disagree about a few points.

One – Picture quality is NOT everything
Most directors and label types are overly concerned with the look of the film in their videos. Of course, the picture should look good – but I have sat with many directors watching a clip for the first time (theirs or another directors’) and their initial comment is always about the look of the film. Not if the artist looks fat or wrinkled or if the video is boring or makes no sense – the quality of the image is paramount in director’s minds.

However, most music consumers care about other stuff. They like to see their favorite artist clearly – but they do not share the director’s obsession with pixel count. Directors often come across like that one room-mate I had in college who was sooo into the audio quality of his stereo we had miles of cables strung around the room and you couldn’t move the chair over by the window – because if you sat in the wrong spot the treble wouldn’t sound exactly right. Dude, I just wanna hear “Rock Lobster.” Relax.

Once again, better picture quality is good – but it is not everything as evidenced by the career of Sam Bayer. Technical sophistication is often downplayed on purpose by antville favorites like He Who Is Perpetually Named. Besides, to me, the biggest problem with YouTube is that the lip synch is often way off. That kills a video for me way faster than poor image quality. Though James is 100% correct about empty space being ruined on the Tube when it becomes a squiggly mass of maggoty pixels.

Two – The quality will improve, FAST
All the “new” ways to see videos these days are kind of crappy visually. YouTube, iPod, cell phones. Even the high quality mpegs of rough cuts I see from post houses are no match for digi-Beta. But that will change and fast. Picture quality will improve with lightning speed – just watch.

Within a year, I predict, YouTube will re-launch with greater bandwidth and improved picture quality. It still won’t be perfect, but the amount of data that is streaming at us increases exponentially by the year. Them there intranets change so fast, I did not even mention YouTube in that piece on MTV and on-line videos I wrote 11 months ago. I remember when MTV wanted to charge you extra to get stereo sound quality piped into your house (this was the 80s) because cable systems only pushed mono back then. Some, but certainly not all, of SRO’s valid concerns will fade as the quality of on-line videos improve.


Distribution will still be key as videos figure out how to reach viewers, new and old. Even if the image quality on a 2012 iPod (now with a 8-inch holographic screen) is 1080dpi – directors are still gonna have to find a way to get music buyers to pay attention.

BTW - click here for the discussion on SROs post over on the 'Ville.

Labels: antville, music video, YouTube

Co-directing. There is nothing a director likes less than hearing that the artist (or the manager, or the choreographer, or the post-house) wants co-directing credit. The director can fight this, but that is rarely smart. If the director wants to get paid, he usually has to buckle under and smile as the artist puts his/her name on the video alongside the actual director.

Who cares? Well, mostly the director cares – but not many other folks will even notice. Many videos are seen almost exclusively on-line and most internet outlets do not display the director credit at all (it seems). If the artist is a white guy with a guitar – your video will be on Fuse and they don’t list the director on screen either. The director credit is something very few people even realize exists, but it is one of the last bastions of the director’s dignity.

Hype has to share credit with Busta. Dave Meyers has to share with Missy. Even Floria has to share with Christina. Such is the way of the world. Even if the artist does little more than pick out clothes and show up to “help cast” the sexy dancers – they believe they ARE co-directing, because artists are children.

But, it runs much deeper than that. Almost all jobs (at least in the large label/budget world that I am familiar with) require thousands of creative compromises to integrate what someone from the label wants. I’m not talking, “We have to lose the helicopter shot for budgetary reasons” – I mean the label people saying, “What about if …” That is where things get scary.

I am not a big “auteur theory” guy in general, but working in music videos makes it crystal clear how much the input of others effects the finished video. Not because the director needs creative help, but because the label wants the things they want, or simply because some VP wants to justify their job by getting their fingerprints all over the edit.

I have seen the label take a super-simple concept and add in driving footage and a complex club scene and then complain why the budget went up.

I have seen a “brand manager” step in to place their young, female relative in a prominent role, only to complain that the relative was dressed too sexily. Duh. This also happened another time with the label exec putting their dog in the video, where the dog made zero sense. At least the dog being under-dressed was not an issue.

One job had a group of singers where the “issue” all throughout the development of the concept was – “make them look like three equal members.” That was the mantra – no lead singer, but three equals. We re-worked the storyboard and treatment many times to be sure the screen time would be split three ways. Then, on the set, one of the very top people at the label steps in and places one of the girls front and center. The guy is literally blocking the shots to be sure that there is way more of the one girl in all the close-ups. Mr. Big was clearly very, uh, familiar with the young and attractive girl he was pushing to the fore-front. This annoyed the director, but not nearly as much as it annoyed the other two girls in the group. I would assume that is why we spent so much time making the girls feel like equals ahead of time, because the other lower-level label types knew what would happen on the set.

One of the biggest places where the label and manager types step in is in the editorial process. They will go in and frame-fuck the edit, watching over the director and editor’s shoulder and suggesting change after change and then threaten to not pay because the completed video missed their TRL deadline.

One of the biggest “victims” of the frame-fucking (other than the ego of the editor/director) is the concept or narrative of the video. Countless times, we have worked with artists on a trippy conceptual setting or even an A-to-B-to-C narrative in pre-pro and on the day of the shoot – only to have much of it cut out in the edit in favor of more (and more) close-ups of the singer. I understand wanting to see the singer, but labels/artists often insist on a big, complicated story before the edit – but then when it comes time to put it on TV – they sacrifice the narrative footage they shot (and paid to shoot) for more "product" shots of the artist’s face. If you see a narrative video and it makes no sense – it may not be the director’s fault – his “co-directors” may have cut out all the scenes that made things make sense.

How does this work on the $10k-50k videos? Does the label “co-direct” on the smaller jobs as well? Any thoughts?

Labels: antville, baby director, music video

The Futureheads - "Worry About it Later"
This video is the model of simplicity. The look is low-key and places the song and the band at the forefront. I like this video alot, but I have always been a fan of this band. I have also, always been a fan of simple videos, but keeping it simple is easier when the song and the sound is this good.

I think more videos should be simple. In my opinion, good videos are about one thing. Not three things, just one. Even hyperactive Dave Meyers/Missy Elliot videos (or classic Hype/Busta jobs) with a new set-up for every lyric are unified by the crazy style and the fact that the one thing the video is about is showcasing the artist's eclectic, free-ranging lyrical humor.

Too many videos take a kitchen-sink approach to try and catch the audience's attention with sheer visual noise. This is a zero-sum game and is sure to leave the viewers wondering who the artist is and what the song is about. Putting more stuff on the screen is rarely the right answer, but it is the easiest answer to come up with.

What is an example, how about the new Janet Jackson "So Excited" video by Joseph "Torque" Kahn. This clip has lots of dancing (good), a flying, semi-transparent Lambo in a color not seen in the rest of the video (bad), and Janet getting freaky in a subway bathroom while her fiancee, JD, shaves somewhere nearby. It looks pricey, but left me wondering what they were trying to say.

This "more is better" ethos puts a strain on uninspired directors as budgets have come down, since with less money, how do you give the label more? Quality is better than quantity, but music video directors are not known for their restraint. To give directors some credit, artists and labels are often pushing for more and bigger, since they too are usually out of ideas.

This "keep it simple" strategy is certainly not always successful, as in this technically impressive but still flat-feeling NIN video for "Only" directed by Fight Clubbin' Fincher.

Once again, much props to antville for the post that started this train of thought.

Labels: antville, music video, review, selling

Music videos are expensive, so it seems logical that record labels would not want to pay for them twice. But yet they do. A couple times a year, labels choose to re-shoot entire videos because they are not happy with the clip they got the first time around. Obviously this happens only for artists and/or songs the labels are really high on. This includes big stars like Kanye and Pharrell but also baby artists that the label wants to support (because they have signed them to big contracts, because they have powerful managers or simply because they like their potential).

Here are two different versions of the video for the song "Angel" by Pharrell of his 2006 solo release. The first version was never finished, as you can tell by the time code in the corner and the unfinished post effects. I believe this was directed by Little X, or Mr. X as he sometimes goes by these days. The clip seems fine, but obviously the label (or the artist or the manager) was not happy. I'm not sure why, since I was not involved in this project, but it could be something major (We wanted dance numbers) or seemingly minor (The artist looks too old/fat/tired). The reason they re-shot this particular clip is even murkier when you see the "new" version they did.

This is the version that got released to music television, directed by Hype Williams. Why go to Hype when you didn't like the X version confounds me. These two videos are not significantly different. The lighting and colors and hoochies are new - but why pay so much more for a whole new one? I don't know. The labels paid big bucks to get Hype, and then the video got very little run on TV anyway.

Up next is a video by "Mr. Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" himself - Kanye West. In 2005 he released a song called "Heard Em Say" and he originally commissioned Michel Gondry to do the video. Kanye pretty much makes his own decisions on videos and I have heard (though I have zero personal knowledge of this) that Kanye spends his own money on videos and then charges the labels to use them to promote his music. (This is actually something I want to write about more, later on.)

Kanye shot the first version with Michel Gondry in NYC and Gondry did his stop-motion child-like wonder thing. Gondry is one of those guys who is very respected, especially amongst the white, film-school kids who comment on websites like antville and other places. There is a cool article here about the process of Gondry making the video. The final video, in my opinion, is an "okay" version of the Gondry thing - not great but certainly in the wheelhouse of what one might expect when you give the Frenchman some money.

Now, while this video is being finished - stop motion animation means a long post process - Kanye decides he wants another video for the track. Why? I dunno. Maybe he didn't like the look of what Gondry was doing. Maybe he thought it was taking too long and radio was already playing the single so he couldn't wait. Maybe he realized that French storybook visuals might not play in the hood (though, who in the hood is into songs with Adam Levine on the hook, I'm not sure). In any event, Kanye does a new version of the clip with a simple b/w performance and animation by Bill Plympton.

When video production companies and directors wonder why the labels cannot come up with more money to do a two-day shoot instead of a one-day rush-fest for some artist - they all remember that the labels spent twice on clips like these.

Are the "new" videos better than the original ones? Are they worth the dough? What do you think?

Labels: antville, He Who Is Always Named, music video, on the set, review