30frames

Sign up for new cable/Netflix/phone/porno-website service for just $12 per month. Of course, that is only the first three months, after that the twelve bucks becomes $59 – the REAL price. Most adults are familiar with the bait-and-switch strategy and won’t fall for it. At least not more than once.

Hey, I was in Thailand, and it sure LOOKED like a pretty girl, how was I supposed to know ...

How does this apply to music videos?

All music video jobs go out to directors with the standard stuff: MP3 of the song, the lyrics, the brief from the brand manager and the shoot dates. The label also includes the budget number. These days, it is more and more likely the budget number is a lie.

Okay, maybe lie is too strong a word. How about “wrong?”

I see lots of jobs that come down the pike with $150k price tags. That number (as low as it once seemed) can, in 2008, get some very high-end directors to pay attention. Directors start formulating ideas, reference photos are pulled, exec producers open spreadsheets, but then ...

A buck and half becomes a buck and a quarter. The budget just lost some of its juiciness. The director and the rep and the prod co ponder the situation but decide to plow ahead even at the lower price. Everybody wants a job.

What happens if the $125k budget, then drops again? Is $100k enough? Not enough to do the same creative, so some of the reference photos are tossed out and spreadsheets get shorter.

What made the budget drop to two-thirds of the original number? What if it drops more? Maybe the label reviewed their finances and realized they genuinely had less than they thought (something I often encounter when I go out to buy my weekly Hypnotiq and Triscuits supply). It is possible that the label has been testing the song with radio stations and the music is not the hit they had hoped it was, so a smaller budget makes better sense. Perhaps the entire label’s financing structure with our Chinese overlords is being changed, so there are less yuan around for dancers and smoke machines. Maybe, but why do I believe none of that?

It seems clear that many labels are starting off budget numbers at a level that will attract lots of director attention, but they know the number won't end up there. This can get treatments in the door, and often from impressive names. I think that an artist reading (or having read to them) ideas from Applebaum or Kahn or Robinson makes them feel like they are well taken care of super-duper-stars, a label specialty. That the actual video will end up being directed by someone who watches a series of DVDs after all the quality directors drop out when the budget is cut to $12 and some Best Buy gift cards, let’s hope the artist and manager don’t notice that.

Is it shady for labels to float one budget number when they know the actual budget will be much, much less? Sure, but these are record labels we are talking about. They screwed over Bo Diddley! Some director with his reel on Wiredrive getting jerked around won’t even disturb their REM patterns for a moment. It should be no surprise that labels are trying anything they can, times are tough (or so I have heard).

Maybe these ‘Oops the budget just dropped again. We are SOOO sorry’ moments really are accidents. For a smart director they shouldn’t be a surprise.

Labels: baby director, insider, label, music video, philosophy

Ever wonder how to get started directing music videos? Check out the Music Video Training Center.

Drill down through the site. Watch the videos, read the success stories and get all the technical advice (many amateurs forget step #2) you can't find anywhere else.

If this doesn't give you the break you need, I don't know what will.

Drop me a comment and share what you have learned.

Labels: baby director, music video

This is the first in a series of anonymous email interviews with music video industry insiders. Up first is a major player at a very major music video production company.

What kind of things does an executive producer do on a daily basis?
I’m not sure how it works at other, bigger companies, but at my company the executive producers are involved in every aspect of the music video process. My impression of EP’s at other companies is based on my previous life on the other side of the equation and it seems that they are less involved, less hands on and wear fewer hats than me and my co-workers.

So with that said, my duties are as follows:

One – Sales. Ultimately I’m a salesman. I could be selling cars, but instead I am selling directors. Selling starts like Glengarry Glen Ross – with cold calling. This is my least favorite part of the job. I feel like a telemarketer, especially when clients don’t take my calls and don’t reply to my emails.

Luckily, we represent directors who are in demand, so to a certain extent the work comes to us. A client will send us a track and it becomes my job to ask the client a bunch of questions – are they really interested in our director directors they have solicited? Who else is writing? When does it shoot? What is the budget? Will they spend more for our A-list director, and can we have our B-list director write since the budget is too low for our A-list director and/or our A-list director isn’t available. Once I get all that information, we are on to step two…

Two – Interfacing with the director. This is still sales because all directors are picky and I’ve got to sell them on why writing on a no-budget, mediocre rock track with a nightmare client is a good idea. Or it’s the pep talk with a junior director about why they should write on the new Gnarls Barkley track even though they have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting the job.

With our younger directors, we’re very hands on with their treatment writing. Our A-list directors have earned the right to have us just spell check their work and forward it on to the clients. With our babies it is much more involved. This is the part of the job I like the most. It is occasionally the most pure moment in the process of making a video. It’s about ideas – it’s about finding references, refining the pitch and making the writing clear and concise. It is also about protecting directors from themselves and their tendency to over-promise specific things in their treatments. Why write “massive sea of fans” or massive club scene” when you only have $50k?

Three – Budget. Once the treatment is in and the label or artist says that they like it, the next step (unless there is a re-write) is budgeting. We prefer to have producers work on budgets so that there is some accountability (even though we end up hacking away at most bids anyway). We like to pretend we’re not handing the producer a pile of shit.

Four – Overseeing production. Besides spending time on set, we try to stay involved in the day-to-day production. At the very least, we’re in the loop on most decisions that are being made on a job. At the most, we are stepping in to help produce jobs because the producer is semi-retarded and has let things get completely out of hand.

All this stuff is happening simultaneously so when we’re busy, we end up doing a bad job at all of it.

Talk a bit about the way MV world has changed in the last few years.
The business has just gotten harder and harder. Budget reduction is only one part of it. Labels are in turmoil, so there is a level of stupidity and chaos that is mind-boggling. People are afraid to make decisions, afraid to do anything new and creative. Everything ends up being really last minute, and the people we are dealing with as commissioners have less and less power. As far as I am concerned there is only one really good commissioner left in the business. She’s good because she has real power, she can make real decisions and she’s able to manage people’s expectations because she understands production.

Do you think that some of the "blame" for the current state of the MV industry belongs to MV production companies for their behavior during the "glory days"?
No. When the entire industry is badly behaved, you can’t blame one part of it. The only thing I would say is that production companies are their own worst enemies. Unlike the commercial world (although, this seems to be changing as well), MV production companies have never banded together in a positive way to make a stand with their client base. It’s no coincidence that the commercial standard is to have three directors compete for any given job while in videos it’s not uncommon three of our directors write on a given track. [That is just at one company,] so do the math, it’s possible that 10-20 directors are writing for certain tracks. That is insane and foolish.

What is the craziest thing you have ever seen (heard about ?) a director do on the set?
I wasn’t around for the crazy years. Coke and booze on set is old school. I don’t see anything wrong with calling out Wayne Isham since he stood up at this year’s MVPA Awards and did a shot [of liquor] as the finale of hiss speech. He’s famous for his hard partying. It’s why certain bands still want to work with him.

The worst I have personally dealt with is yelling. “So and So is the stupidest fucking idiot I’ve ever met!” Most of our directors are really nice and relatively normal.

What is the one thing that labels do (pay late, string directors along, screw with edits, etc.) that annoys you the most?
Making everything last minute. Especially with the budgets we’re now dealing with, working with really last minute situations is a nightmare. With the down-grade in quality of commissioners, there has been a huge drop in the condition in which jobs are done. Because the commissioners have no power, they’re afraid to tell their bosses, who really know nothing, that they need to push the dates of their shoot if they want a good video.


What is the most over budget one of your jobs has ever been? The most under?
$50k over is the worst. I have heard stories from the old days of being $200k under budget, that just isn’t possible any more.

Do you think about the long-term of a director's career much, or does that take care of itself if you get them doing good work on a day-to-day basis?
Our company’s philosophy (that I don’t really agree with all the time) is that work begets work and that directors shouldn’t be picky. We want directors who want to work, we’re not interested in developing “artists”.

What is the most extravagant "gift" you (or your company) ever got for an artist/manager/exec?
Huge amounts of weed. $15k to a manager who approached us and guaranteed a single bid for his huge artist. That’s only happened once or twice. I’ve heard stories about companies that have a more serious approach to the kick-back game. That’s never really been our thing, but good clients do get nice meals and nice Christmas presents.

Ever had a gun pointed at you (music video related only)?
I was in Miami recently and walked past the artist’s car, when I peered inside in the open door and saw a hot groupie polishing a Glock.

What director do you wish you had gotten to work with? What director are you glad you have avoided?
I know it is a cliché but I would have liked to work with Michel Gondry. I’ve heard he’s a nightmare but I’d like to have seen how his mind works. I have not been able to avoid the worst.


That was great! After the Glock polishing, my favorite part was the coining of the term “a more serious approach to the kick-back game.”

Labels: baby director, Cone of Silence, He Who Is Always Named, insider, Isham, music video, on the set, prod co

Some jobs seem just over the horizon and that is where they will always be – tantalizingly out of reach for a director or production company.

Most directors have worked on concepting some job that seems to be within their grasp. They talk to the label. They might talk to the artist. The re-work the idea based on the input and then – the job goes to someone else. As frustrating as that can be, I am NOT talking about that.

The “mirage” is a job that doesn’t really exist from the very beginning. It looks real, but your eyes are deceiving you. It will never happen and anyone with enough perspective can spot the mirage for the time-vampire it is. Unfortunately, a director eager to get the job, almost always lacks that perspective.

So why do mirages happen?

Make the label happy
The commissioner might know that they have no money in their budget for a video for the mirage job, but if they admit they have no commissioning to do, their job could easily go away. So the commissioner types up the spec sheet and creates a brief for a job that they know will never go anywhere. And this is assuming the commissioner doesn't have ulterior motives.

There is also the “third bid” phenomenon – a phrase stolen from the commercial world. It is telling that ad-types are civilized enough to have three, and only three, bids on any job while us MV-ers run around by the kajillions chasing the same gig. The label might already know what director they want but policy/tradition dictates they have a certain number of directors writing on a job – even though they may already have a contract drawn up with someone else.

Make the artist/manager happy
The artist might want some crazy big concept that requires a huge budget (space ships ain’t cheap) so the label puts out the addled suggestions of the artist to prospective directors. Perhaps, the manager is trying to appease the artist and reassure him of his status, and gets prod cos and directors to bid on the wild concept. Directors try to make it work and come back with an idea and a budget that is more than the label wanted to spend (shocking!). The label tells the artist “sorry’ and they start over with a do-able concept and budget. Now the production company looks like the bad guy and the label can insist that they tried to get Paul Hunter for the job. This kind of mirage might actually end up happening, but never in the state the gig originally goes out in.

Make the director happy
Yes, sometimes your production company will lie to you. If a director wants write on the job for U2 and the label has never heard of the director, the rep just might tell the director to write up a treatment. The label won’t be looking for it and they will probably ignore it like the “Lost” producers ignore all my emails about how they should make the island into a Mortal Combat style fight-off. The prod co wants to keep their directors happy so why not tell them they just missed out to the biggest name directors in the business. (Hint: if you never get to speak to the commissioner, this could be happening to you.)

The tournament
Let’s say the label has money in this quarter/year’s budget for one more video, but they have tracks coming out for three artists. One track could be a pop-diva and another a rapper and the third a hard rock group. The label is not sure which artist they should make the video for so they send out all three tracks to three different groups of directors.

They know only one video is getting made and they want to see which concept can catch their eye and win the tournament. That’s right, a director might be pitching his idea against directors writing on other songs in completely different musical genres. Of course, at the last minute some label president steps in to say that one of the videos is getting made – based on a completely different criteria (he just golfed with the rock band’s lawyer, sorry pop-diva).

The realization
Directors are sending in treatments for this big-time artist and the battle over the budget has begun. It is the third or fourth video off the artist’s CD so it is not a sure thing the job will ever get made, especially if the budget is too high. Director A’s concept is more popular with the folks in the boardroom, but his budget is 50k higher than Director B’s. Now everyone likes A better, but $50k better?

And then the manager demands that they go out to a big name director who everyone knows is probably not available and will definitely come back with an even higher budget number, but the process stalls while everyone waits for the new guy’s treatment. A and B have no idea what the hold up is and they deluge the commissioner with phone calls that she cannot really answer.

During all this, the prod cos working on the budgets discover that the cost of the artist's glam squad and posse travel will be higher than they thought so their budgets climb even higher. Now what about if we bring in a guest rapper and shoot the remix at the same time as the original song? (Wait, there’s a remix?) If we spend a few dollars more, everyone can save money.

Now, after all this tsuris, the label executives have a “life’s too short” moment and they pull the plug and the job goes away. As one quasi-celebrity said “[Why am I] spending tons of money and going through lots of hassle that adds nothing to the underlying product. Can't we shoot near L.A. for a fraction of the money?”

The directors (and heads of productions) that worked so hard are left with nothing but the memory of the sand they gnawed on when they dove into that cold pool of “water” that turned out to be just a mirage.

The director swears that “next time” he will not be fooled, but when the new track comes in …

Labels: baby director, insider, music video, on the set

There is a new Ludacris video for the track “Slap” directed by Philip Andelman where Luda plays the Travis Bickle role from Taxi Driver. Now that is a weird and inspired choice (though not quite as weird as that Three Six Malkovich clip from a few months back). As I was starting to write about the Luda video I saw that the gloriously “elbow-patched corduroy jacket of videos” that is Obtusity had already gone through all the layers of meaning behind the choice of Taxi Driver as the motif for the new Ludacris video.

Obtusity does a great job at examining what the clip means. Read the post, he is way deeper than me. But the key reason directors pick feature film ideas for the videos is not because of the psychologial weight of the film they are homaging, not just because the video directors are lazy, and not just because the idea appeals to the bloated ego of the artist (though that helps) – but because the label and artist will know (or think they know) what they are gonna get when the director pitches them the idea. Nothing fancy, the “video as movie” style’s main strength is that it books jobs for the director because there is a pre-laid structure (and implied success in the marketplace) to appeal to the people writing the check.

This job obtaining strategy seems especially effective in hip-hop clips from Nas starring in Casino to Young Jeezy biting the urban classic Paid in Full to Busta Rhymes acting out his Mr. & Mrs. Smith swordfight fantasies with Gabrielle Union. Though rock acts do it as well, like Tom Petty getting his Mad Max on to Pat Benatar and the rest of the Dirty Dozen.

Benny Boom is a director who definitely knows what will sell to artists and labels – and everyone loves a good movie. Plus, it seems that Boom provides the voice of the couple's counselor in the Busta clip. Note that guns are verboten on music television so that explains Busta’s sword as well as Luda’s self-destructive finger pointing.

The number of movies that became clips is huge (somewhere on Antville there must be a list of music videos with plots taken from films but I couldn’t find it). Number one on that list (of course) would have to be Scarface – the film that has launched a thousand videos. I don’t have the energy to go into how many times Tony Montana has showed up in music video or dissect why rappers looove them the drug-addicted incesting Italo-Cubano psychopath. (Okay, quick theory – rapper’s DVDs never play all the way to the end so they don’t know Pacino dies, or rappers have even more suicidal thoughts than dentists).

The phrase “mini movie” is job-booking gold. Trust me. “Mini movie,” the labels will eat it up.

Labels: baby director, insider, music video

How NOT to get the job

Before you can shoot the job, you have to get the job. Here is a quick list of the best ways to not get hired to direct a music video.

10. Focus on the part YOU like
If you really want to blow your shot at the gig, never make the treatment, the pitch and the reference images all about the performance, or the artist’s chance to show off their acting chops or polish their street cred or whatever it is “they” want to be the focus. To completely screw up your chances, tell them you are going shoot a weird art movie about people who have TVs where their hearts should be or spend all the budget to composite some cutting edge effect that only other compositors will understand the difficulty of or break a million fluorescent light tubes in ultra slow motion. If the label knows that you are only interested in the video to add some new element to your reel and couldn’t care less about the artist – you are well on you way to not getting the job.

9. Spell the artist’s name wrong
Or even better, leave it out all together. Or write about your indie movie idea for three pages and then put “I will also shoot a performance in an alley” at the bottom of the last page. That gets ‘em every time.

8. Use confusingly technical terminology
“Slow motion” is such a prosaic term – and you want to really show off how much you learned in film school, so be sure you call slo-mo by its rightful name “high speed.” Those label people will be impressed by your knowledge of filmic technique and they will definitely understand that fast means slow. Trust me on this one. Don’t tell them what they will see on screen, tell them exactly how you will do it.

7. Reference other music videos and directors
Name names. Put in a list of your favorite directors. Name photographers as well. There is no chance they will read that and say, “We should hire that guy” whilst pointing out one of the suggestions you so kindly included in your concept.

6. Annoy the commissioner
Even if the commissioner says “Here is the brief, that’s all I know” – keep pestering them for more details. Since video commissioners are amongst the highest ranking execs at any label they always have a super-secret stash of good info that they will give out to only the most nudg-y of prospective directors. If they exasperatedly say “I dunno, just write something great” – you should always come back with something like “What kind of great?” or “Does that mean a rooftop performance or a narrative about taxi drivers dressed as angels?” Commissioners LOOOOVE those questions.

5. Be indecisive
Labels are usually looking for a director with a vision of some kind, so be sure your treatment encompasses everything under the sun. Vague and poorly thought through ideas like “We could shoot at the beach, or downtown, or possibly even in the middle of the desert” are sure to make them think that you are the decisive captain to sail their ship.

4. Bug the commissioner for the names of who else is writing on the job
(self explanatory)

3. Work out your own personal issues
Girlfriend just break up with you? Make the video about that! Who cares if the track you are writing on is an upbeat pop number? Work with the choreographer to have the dancers form the shape of your broken heart. (P.S. Inserting your own strident political views also works great.)

2. Write a concept that is impossible to film
Waste all their time and get them excited about some idea that really cannot be done for anywhere near the money. This will lose you this job and make them mad at you for years. No better nickname to have than “That Time-wasting Sunovabitch.” That is MV gold, right there. Writing a treatment that would cost 3x the budget to produce might make them suddenly cough up all the extra cash or even fall in love with your genius. This is called “Get them pregnant with the idea, then figure it out.” Great strategy.

1. Get the commissioner pregnant
Seriously. Knock her up. Make her with child. This might work.

Labels: baby director, music video, on the set

Directorial Style

Developing a distinct style as a music video director can be tough to pull off in the marketplace – with the realities of satisfying the desires of labels, managers, artists and product placers making a director’s reel jump around like Everlast.

Do directors WANT to develop a distinct style to call their own? Should they? I don’t think there is one answer to that.

Directors with a specific, easily recognizable style often get more props from the aueterist camp. Guys like Spike and Gondry have obvious things that connect their clips together. Does that visual cohesive-ness make them better directors than someone with a more eclectic filmography? I don’t think so.

Chris Cunningham has done some really cool videos, but I would rather not spend more than a few minutes at a time in the unrelentingly depressive world of techno-doom that Cunningham creates. Maybe Cunningham only likes the kind of song that calls for visual misanthropy, but I get creeped out and need to open the window after just a few minutes. Maybe that is the point – but does that make him a “good” director? BTW – In my eyes, Cunningham is a very good director, but on my own personal scorecard I take points OFF for the same-ness of their tone, rather than considering the Infini-Dread vibe a plus.

In my opinion, music videos are a craft that serve a lot of masters and the same-ness or unity of a director’s output has little to do with how they should be judged.

Hip-Hop videos have lots of the same things in them – cars, girls, shiny things – but then again so do the songs the clips are promoting. Many folks see nothing of value in urban videos because of this. Okay, but how is the output of Cunningham (or Gondry) exempted from the “same=bad” judgment?

When Dave Meyers was rulling the MV world a few years back, people were hiring him as much to get his name stamped at the front of the clip (and his entertaining presence on the “making of” show) as to get his skills behind the camera. But Meyers always delivered something really distinct. Meyers had a certain color transfer look and he was always great at getting fun, comfortable confident performances out of the artists (something recently noted here). This allowed Meyers to shoot videos for Jay-Z, NSync, Pink, Celine Dion and Aerosmith – the kind of varied client list most directors can only dream of. Meyers was also able to photograph a lot of the “same” stuff over and over again – people getting out of cars in slow motion and girls dancing in formation with a style that kept it feeling fresh, even if I had just seen another Meyers video with the same elements two minutes earlier on MTV. Kids, MTV is a TV channel that used to show music videos – oh, never mind.

Meyers was always interested in getting the job (or at least he must have been since he got 92% of the jobs from '99 to '01). If the label wanted dancing and car shots (which they usually do), Meyers delivered dancing and car shots, but with his own, unique spin – just like a true professional. His videos sold records and they all were completely watchable. Could Meyers have put his foot down and said “No more dancing”? Sure. Then, the labels would have passed the work on to Kahn or X. Instead, Meyers injected a lot of his own personal style into the framework of a major label video.

Chris Milk is a young director, who seems to be going in a different direction. I really admire Milk’s output and his stuff has a certain twisted classicism – but other than that his videos seem pretty varied. And rare.

Milk has managed to craft a career where he seems to not do the kind of clips that everyone else is. That certainly cuts down on the number of jobs Milk is up for, since I doubt Rihanna and Chris Brown want burning crosses or weed-whacking Jon-Benets in their clips. I’m sure Milk is fine with that, but it does shorten his filmography.

The best way to create a singular voice is for a director to simply take less jobs. Ignore the label briefs that call for the kind of close-ups or flattering camera angles you don’t want to shoot. I would imagine that guys like Paul Fedor and Milk simply write the treatment they want to shoot – if and only if they are feeling the song. On the flip-side, some directors are busy working with commissioner to write (and re-write) the kind of concept that will book them the job, something that is sure to enhance their chances of employment, but also make the finished product something that is sure to be judged as far less “visionary.”

Maybe THAT is the real determinant of music video director style. Not the framing, or lens selection or art-direction choices, but rather how many jobs he/she takes. How many songs a director wants to write on and how eagerly he/she crafts the concept to meet the brief from the label might be the real reflection of a director’s personal style. In a collaborative medium like music videos, style is where-ever you can grab it.

Labels: aerosmith, baby director, Chris Brown, jay-z, label, music video, NSync, philosophy, pink, Rihanna

No one likes to hear bad news. I certainly don’t. But few people care about bringing me bad news. They just go right ahead and lay out all the stuff I don’t wanna know. Why? Because I am not famous.

When musicians start being called ‘artists’ they start getting used to no one telling them anything they don’t want to hear. Labels don’t want to and the managers certainly don’t want to. Artists become like some delicate Byzantine ruler where the servants lavish them with praise and tell them whatever they think the godhead wants to hear.

On videos, this can be a problem. I have worked on jobs where the artist has had notes like “I want a video where you insert me into a classic TV show, like Laverne & Shirley” – two weeks after Spike's famous Buddy Holly hit MTV. Those notes got passed along from the manager to the comissioner to the director because nobody at the label had the balls to say, “Hey, that idea is on MTV right now, we should do something else for your video.” I guess the artist believes that anything inside their head must be theirs.

The artists being self-centered children is no shocker, but the whole structure built up around them reinforcing that stupidity does seem like a problem. Artists often want videos that are way more expensive that the budget the label is giving them will afford. I have worked on jobs where the director and prod co had to discuss all the details of the concept/treatment with the artists, but they could not, under any circumstances, bring up cost or money – because that might upset the delicate Dauphin.

This situation is especially bad with artists who made videos in the “glory days” and they remember three day shoots with techno-cranes, armies of dancers and Thomas Kloss lighting them. Artists often believe they can get ANY celebrity to cameo in their video – just by the power of their own stardom. I was involved in one job where the female artist wanted a particular NBA player (a sketchy-to-impossible “get” under any circumstances) in their clip and didn’t understand why the guy was unavailable, even as the hoopster’s team was engaged in the playoffs.

When the messenger keeps getting killed (or denied entry) the message obviously stops getting through. The artist becomes more and more separated from reality, and I am not just talking Mariah Carey, either. This isolation in a cocoon of illusory perfection is especially funny when the artist is a rapper who goes on about his street toughness and un-revoke-able ghetto pass – all while demanding a bigger wardrobe budget so he can keep the fur coat wardrobe is supplying for the clip.

This is not always the case. I have heard (unconfirmed rumor alert) that Andre 3000 often acts as his own wardrobe stylist after hearing how much the label (and by extension Andre himself) was paying for a person to choose the clothes he would wear. Apparently, Mister 3K gets cash from the budget and gets the clothes his own self, with just an PA to handle the returns - and doesn't charge the budget any kind of crazy stylist fee. This is a smart move based on how much $$$ the glam people can be.

The real drama in a video production comes when the DIRECTOR starts to be someone who needs protecting from reality. Part of a successful director’s appeal is their charismatic leadership. This is huge element that young directors often overlook. It is about getting the job and executing the job but a big part of those two elements is making the artist/label/manager feel like they are in good hands. That can mean coming across like a rugged street character to make the rappers respond, an artistic fashionista for the divas or a (just slightly) drugged-up rocker who truly “gets” the band’s brand of stylish desperation.

Music video directors are always playing a bit of a role. They certainly need to act calm on the set and smile to the commissioner – even if they know they just ran out of film or the generator is on fire. They need to act like the artist’s best friend when they are suggesting the beauty close-up would go better without the same, ugly shade of overly harsh lipstick the singer always seems to choose.

The problem comes when the director starts to get just as diva-ish as the talent. Not only does that sour relations with the artists – no star wants competition for the spotlight – it starts to keep the messengers away.

I have worked on lots of jobs where the director simply did not get told certain things. Of course, a good production team keeps silly details off the director’s plate (craft services ran out of peanut M&Ms) while having them focus on what is important. But if the director kills the messenger enough times – the team around him/her will stop bearing even the important bad tidings.

On one shoot the director was setting up a specific performance close-up of the artist, a profile look. The director thought this was a bit of genius to have the artist not staring right into the lens – but someone higher up at the label (who was not on set that day) had told the producer very specifically they did not want ANY profile shots since they believed the performer had a too-large schnozz. The producer is stuck now, since if they tell the director at this point, he will pitch a fit and slow things down while also possibly tipping the fragile ego-ed artist off to the label’s lack of faith in their facial structure. So the producer lets the set-up go forward, wasting everyone’s time on footage that is guaranteed to never make the final edit.

Part of the responsibility for this goes on the producer’s shoulders for not having the guts/skill to communicate with the director – but the majority of the blame lands in the lap of the director who responds so furiously to anyone “questioning his vision” that he has left himself messenger-less.

On that note, I am considering turning off all comments for this blog since I cannot take any more people questioning my vision.

(Just kidding, comments are still on. Post a thought about messenger killing on a job, MV or not, you have worked on.)

Labels: baby director, celebrity, mariah carey, music video, on the set, philosophy, prod co

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

Time for another run into the mail-bag. Please understand that nothing I write is THE answer. These are only my opinions, and should be treated as the ramblings of some dude with a laptop and the time to write this kind of stuff.

“A question I have as an aspiring MV director, (beside the obvious 'find a new career'), is how much of being successful merely relies on being at the right place?

I look at directors like *name deleted*, who are amazingly talented, but don't seem to be working much because they live in northern California. Then i look at directors like *also deleted*, who is amazingly terrible, but seems to be working all the time because he lives in LA.

Now is that just a showcase of the two parties ambition? Or a bi product of their location?"


Should I feel obliged to move somewhere to get more work? Or focus on doing the best I can and hope that the work finds me?”

First of all, I don't think anyone works or doesn't work because of where they live. There are so many factors that go into creating and maintaining a music video career - reel, representation, concept and so on (for my thoughts on those, read every other post in this blog).

The underlying question here is a two-parter. (1) Does being in LA help a career in music videos? and (2) should a given director move here to help their career?

Does being in LA help your career?
My short answer is “definitely.” The vast majority of big label work gets shot out here. A few labels are still back in NYC, but filming in the five boroughs is very costly these days. Simply for cost savings on flights to jobs shooting in LA – living in the 323/310/818 region is useful. (Note that for those in the Black Director Division - Atlanta is also a possibility.)

To a certain extent, living in LA helps all show-business jobs. Young actors who reside elsewhere take meetings with casting or agenting types and get told “Call us back when you move to LA.” Living in LA means you are in the game to a lot of people who might be looking to hire you – and those folks have a point. Show-business (whether MVs, screen-writing, whatever) takes a serious, usually long-term commitment and how committed are you if you still reside in the room with Mom’s sewing machine and your old Slayer posters on the wall?

Living in Los Angeles is like having a business card printed with your name on it, headshots or a nice navy suit to wear to an interview – it doesn’t mean that you can do the job, but people will struggle to take you seriously if you don’t have it.

Should YOU move to LA?
For directors who are NOT shooting big label jobs – staying where you are might be the plan. If you aren’t working on jobs where the commissioner demands you shoot in LA – then maybe you are fine where you are. Save your money (unless you live in the Bay Area, where it costs more than here) and stay put.

What is success for you? There are plenty of directors who live other places. They may not be making their sole living from videos – but maybe they are. If your goal is to do videos for Chingy or the Killers – you better be in LA. If a director likes doing the jobs they can get without too much stress or having to write on tracks they don’t really like – stay home. Being a part-time director and part time assistant at Paramount is very tough. If directing won't pay the bills here - you might want to stay put.

For example, I don’t know where Ben Dickinson lives but he made a great video in Brooklyn.

To the questioner I would say - Look at your reel and look at the reel of the people getting the kind of work you want to get. Not the guys writing and not getting the jobs – but the people who are booking stuff you wanna book. If your reel isn’t better than theirs – then moving won’t solve the problem.

I don’t believe directors book jobs just because they’re in the right place at the right time. That’s the defeatist “it’s not what you know it’s who you know” crap. Lots of Silver Lake film-school motherfuckas spout stuff like that, but they also complain that anyone who showers or gets a paying job is a “sell out.” Ignore those people, but it might be hard in the Bay Area.

Living in LA will NOT make you a better director. It MIGHT make it easier for you to get jobs IF you are already in the running for them now. Moving here will not jump start your career, but you might meet some bands and get friendly and meet some people and do some spec work that comes out well and so on.

The questioner added:

"a short anecdote a colleague shared on the matter of location:

Talented people with no ambition move to San Francisco.
Talented people with ambition move to NYC.
People with ambition and no talent move to LA.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on location, as I'm sure many other directors would too."

I guess. LA is full of very ambitious people. LA is scary as hell. It is THE place to be if you want a career in show business. Sorry, NYC doesn’t count unless your idea of show business is Broadway or publishing.

There are lots of people living in Buffalo or Austin who tell themselves they would be big stars as actors/singers/stuntmen/directors if they were only in LA. But move here, and all the excuses evaporate. After you’ve been in LA six months, who do you blame that your name isn’t up in lights? I blame my parents, but I'm a hack.

LA won’t fix what’s wrong with a director’s career, but it will definitely jump start the process of figuring out if you really want to do what it takes. By “have what it takes” I mean paying big $ for a crappy Venice apartment, avoiding Scientology types and sitting on the 405 for three hours a day.

Labels: baby director, mail, music video

The Chairman of EMI, one of the last five (or is it three? two?) major labels, says that the CD is dead. This realization may be a bit late, but at least he, and the other majors, are finally getting it. Maybe he read about all the Tower Record stores closing in “Ye Olde Newsprinte”

Labels are branching out and trying to make money anyway they can. Sometimes it works (ring-tones) and other times not so much (value added CDs, Janet Jackson). Record labels are an industry rooted in the 1950s and for years, they have been trying to put the genie of technology back into the bottle with poor results (RIAA). It seems like they have finally turned the corner and are efforting to find a new path that doesn’t lead to Bankruptcyville.

When iTunes started selling videos – everyone in the MV world was excited that some of that cash would start to trickle back down to us peons. Have you got your check yet?

Selling videos on-line may never work as a way for directors to get money. The whole structure of the contracts directors sign with labels would have to change and THEN they would have to make their way through the “convoluted” accounting system to actually receive royalties or residuals. Ask the old Motown artists how that record label accounting works. The Four Tops are still waiting on their checks, too.

My point is, don’t count on the old system to provide the new answers.

There will always be music. But there may not always be record labels. Is that bad news? Not really, it just means that things will be different. The hardship and confusion for folks thinking that things will be as they have been may create more opportunity out there for young directors.

Just like there was more “opportunity” for cheap castles and downtown Parisian real estate after the Black Plague swept through. Assuming of course you survived.

Labels: baby director, death, insider, music video

Music videos are fun, but I don’t know of anyone who got into video directing just to direct videos. Like the lame but attractive “comics” that crowd open mic night at the Comedy Store on Sunset because they see Seinfeld Dollar$ in their future, video directors usually want to also make money, direct features and get laid.

That is the way the world works, college basketball is a stepping-stone to the NBA and low-budget music video are the path to “bigger” successes.

Wannabe feature directors borrow money from Grandma and max out their credit cards to shoot indie movies and weird shorts that play at strange film festivals. They are not doing this because they wanna win at Slamdance, they are doing it because the want to be Scorsese or Coppola. Without the possible future “reward” of a big contract from Warners or Paramount – would anyone spend a whole year making an indie movie only to spend another year trying to get it distributed?

That leads me to …

Music video budgets are down, way down. Especially if a director is white, likes rock music and dismissively spits out the words “Rap videos” like he is saying “Kiddie porn” – he may never see a budget over $150k in his life. Nothing wrong with directing rock clips – but it is just a very crowded field without the prospect bigger-budgeted paydays to ease the way.

Directing micro-budgeted indie music videos is a lot of work with very little financial reward. That's okay if there is a pay-off waiting farther down the line. If a young director does indie and cheap well, there used to be the juicy carrot of a big budget Aerosmith or Chilipepper video way out on the end of the stick. Today, not only is the stick longer, there are more people fighting over it and I doubt there is even a carrot out there when we finally make it.

If a young video director does well, he hopes to catch the eye of a film studio. Fincher did it and so did Bay, but when labels are spending under $200k on artists with major track records – how can a director get noticed by Hollywood?

I wonder if there is not a ceiling developing. The budgets are small and it is hard to make a decent living on 10% of $80,000 when you may only get a handful of those jobs in a year. In the past, directors might be willing to play in the minor leagues if there was a shot at the big-time. The problem is, the "big-time" now has the Chilipeppers shooting their clips on HD and spending $120k. Is there still a big time?

Without the financial pay-off of graduating to the music video big leagues as a reward – who will want to direct the small stuff? For now, it seems like everyone does. Today, the fight over tiny budgeted gigs is still fierce. There are still many willing to do the audition job, but I believe that word is getting out. Visual minded people can make more of a living as web-designers or post-production types than they can as a music video director (the top ten guys in the industry excepted and you are not one of them, since you have time to read this).

Without the NBA – are high-school kids desperate to play college basketball? Without sit-com dollars, are actor types eager to slog through embarassing stand-up open mic nights? Without the Yankees and Dodgers handing out million dollar contracts, do baseball playes head to the minor leagues to ride the Bull Durham bus between Tuscaloosa and Sweetwater? Without “Big Pimpin” or “November Rain” level paydays, how long will there be directors willing to act like they don’t see the ceiling above their heads?

October 24 Addendum: This post is NOT about a creative ceiling. I have gotten some feedback along the lines of "People out there are doing great work." Of course they are. The thoughts above are about the financial/career ceiling that seems to be hovering above the music video industry - seen but unspoken about like a drunken uncle passed out by the TV at Thanksgiving. I think that the lack of a sustainable career will eventually drive talented people into other avenues of expression where they can pay their bills and feed their children - or cause them to never consider music video directing as an option in the first place. Like most things, being good at music video directing takes commitment and I wonder how many folks can/will stay commited to the be-ceilinged reality of the industry once they tire of having three room-mates, a car with no A/C and eating Top Ramen four times per week.

Labels: baby director, death, insider, music video

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

A rep is a director’s best friend (oops, don’t sleep with her). The rep acts as the sales agent – tracking what projects are upcoming and making contact with labels and independent commissioners to be sure their stable of directors gets work.

The rep will often also help with the concept/treatment for the job – assisting the director in getting what she thinks the labels wants on paper. The rep will also (hopefully) guide the director towards which jobs will help build their career and which jobs are wild goose chases or destined to birth videos too lame to ever end up on their reel. The rep is a powerful force but …

Most directors still get the majority of their work through their own, personal contacts. Baby directors often fantasize about the day they get an established rep and then all their problems will be over. That, however, is just a fantasy. Reps are vital, but at the same time they can only do so much.

If the label wants a trippy, conceptual video and a director has only straight ahead performance stuff on their reel, they are likely to be out of luck. Even if the rep gets the director in the door and gets the label to let them write an idea – it still will likely go nowhere. Let's say this director writes a great conceptual idea, the label will still probably go with someone who’s reel is more like their vision for the video.

The rep can only do so much. Most directors that I know who work a lot have just as many label contacts as their reps do. Directors should know artists and managers as well – all those “friends” help.

Shooting and editing a video is only a part of the job of being a “video director.” Getting the damn job is obviously the first (and somewhat important) step. I don’t mean just schmoozing (though that helps) and bribery (no comment) – I mean making a case that this director is right for this band or this track. That might mean wearing the right clothes and going to the right parties (black director division) or looking suitably angsty/arty/unkempt and having the right drugs (white director division).

All the elements have to be there for a director to get much work. I know some very talented directors who don’t work because they don’t “play the game.” Maybe these directors don’t want to work more – then they are going about it exactly the right way. But if a director wants to work, he better make good videos and play the game – as well as have a good rep on their side.

Video Static is great site to monitor the comissioning process. Anyone serious about a career as a music video director should look at Video Static every day.

Labels: baby director, music video

When a label wants a video made they reach out to production companies that rep directors the label thinks might be right for the job (more blowhard details are here). Other reps will often sniff out a job that one of their directors did not get tapped to write a treatment for and then beg/threaten/cajole/bribe their way into the process. This is how a single job can mushroom into an all out cluster-fuck.

Which job? Well this one, is the example I am using. Tony P is a fine choice to direct the new Rise Against clip. I am in no way questioning the decision, just the process. It seems that 30+ directors submitted treatments for this job. More than THIRTY treatments?!?!

Did the commissioner read them all? Of course, the commissioner learning to say “No” would save them some work. Did the band/manager read all the treatments? Did anyone? Maybe they put the treatments in a barrel and pulled them out like a raffle.

Besides proving that there are way too many rock directors out there, this also showcases what a crapshoot the commissioning process has become. The industry standard has been 3 or 5 directors writing on a given job. With more than thirty treatments to pick through – they all must start reading the same.

Labels usually give a direction, for example - “We want a live performance video with the band also playing a role in a slight narrative about the theme of the lyrics (a break-up song).” With a brief like that – how many different ideas could there be? With 30+ treatments – several of them are bound to be pretty damn identical. How does having that many treatments help them come to a good decision. Note that the brief above is one I made up and has nothing to do with Rise Against, but is typical of the kind of direction record labels give out to director reps.

Another problem here is the lack of “classes” of directors any more. It used to be the label knew which directors they could get based on their budget. If they had $400k and up they called Hype, Dave Meyers and Paul Hunter. $300k and they called the middle class group and so forth. The big guys wanted nothing to do with the $225k jobs – so that left the guys in that “class” to fight it out. Nowadays – the difference between a “big" and a “small” budget is nonexistent. If Francis Lawrence and Chris Robinson are gonna write on $200k jobs, what chance do Bernard Gourley and Frank Borin have? I’m not arguing for a caste system, but the consolidation of budgets into one (tiny) range sure makes it harder on commissioners and directors/prod companies trying to figure what jobs they should write on and what is a waste of time.

Why spend hours writing a treatment when you are going up against every other “director” with a DVD-burning program and a Sidekick? Buying lottery tickets seems like a better investment.

Labels: baby director, death, insider, music video, prod co

Overall, budgets for high-end music videos are down over the last five years. Record labels and artists now spend less on locations, less on post-production, less on building/dressing sets and so on. There is one area of production where the labels are not spending less – the glam squads.

Glam squads are the make-up, hair and wardrobe stylists that make the artists (especially the female artists) look their best on camera. Glam squads are important, they make the “product” look amazing, which is obviously key to the video. But, glam squads are also often the “professional friends” of the artists – and they can ask for almost any amount of money if they know the artist will insist they are hired. Being tight with a famous artist can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars of work per year if the artist will insist that they need a certain stylist.

Wardrobe, hair and make-up artists should be paid well, but the out-sized costs for these professionals are actually hurting the finished videos. There are times where the lead make-up artist ends up making more than the DP/cinematographer and nearly as much as the director on a given video.

The lead make-up artist will have at least one, if not more assistants. If travel is involved the lead artists fly first class and the assistants fly business class. Sometimes, these assistants are responsible for making up dancers and extras – but the real “superstar” female performers make sure that all the assistants are focused on them and the production hires other, lower cost make-up/hair staff to dress the less important talent.

The wardrobe stylists get large budgets ($10-20k is very reasonable for big-time female artists) to buy designer clothes – and then they often get the clothes for free or at a greatly reduced rate and pocket the left-over wardrobe budget. The wardrobe stylist may even be getting paid money by a clothing designer/manufacturer to have their brand name on the body of the video star.

Well how much do these glam squad types get paid? Lead artists often get $5000 per “day” and their top assistant gets $2000. If there is any work ahead of time (like a wardrobe fitting or production meeting) they often insist on a half day rate for that day. These fees are on top of the first class tickets and hotel rooms, plus a “travel day” fee. Multiply that by three for the hair, make-up and wardrobe pros. Whew!

These “day rates” are for only ten hours. Working ten hours may sound like a lot to “normal” people but in music videos, 14 or 16 hour days are very typical. What this means is that even when the rest of the crew is getting paid on a 14 hour day before their overtime kicks in, the glam squad types have already collected four hours of juicy OT. I am not clear on the exact math, but if a video shoot goes 17 hours (not rare at all) the 5 grand per "day" is now well over 8k. Plus the assistants and times three for the other glam departments. You might be thinking, “So what, if they work the long hours they should get paid…”

But what if the video goes past 15 hours, because the artist has been in the make-up trailer 2 hours longer than she was supposed to be? What if the hair or make-up person is the reason the shoot is going into triple deadly overtime?

Most female artists take longer to come out of their trailer than they are supposed to. In the production meetings the producer will ask how long the artist will need for hair, wardrobe and make-up. The manager will say two hours, and the producer will ask if that is really enough time. The manager will insist that two hours is plenty and the producer will set the artist call time at 9am, so they can have her in front of the cameras at 11am. But on the day of the shoot, the artist arrives an hour late and takes four hours in glam instead of two and now the artist is ready to be shot at 2pm (after the crew has already eaten lunch, since they started working at 7am). That is how budgets get away from productions and you end up seeing a video where the last verse and chorus look boring – because the director had two more set-ups planned, but they had to blow them off because they were already waaay into overtime.

Make-up and wardrobe artists do important work and they should have the time they need to get a good (and hopefully great) look. The DP lighting the set and the art department putting on the finishing touches are right there in front of the director and if they take too long, they hear about it from the AD. The glam squads are hidden away in their trailers and reading them the riot act might upset the artist, and that would mean more, tear-stained delays.

Which female artists take too long to come out of the trailer? Essentially all of them. If the word “diva” has ever been used regarding a singer – she will take extra time and slow production. Slowed productions mean extra money. A smart director and producer will build some of these delays into the schedule/budget but a certain singer noted for exposing an unusual piercing at a televised sporting event routinely takes nine hours befores she is ready to be filmed.

It is only money, and I personally don’t care if the label has to pay more. What I do care about is videos, and in the modern world, labels have very firm budgets they must stay under so extra costs like high-end make-up artists and crazy OT means less money is spent on other, more important (in my opinion) things like dancers, or more locations or post effects – but they never skimp on the “beauty clean-up” post effects they do to make artist look good after they have spent 6-figures to make them look good on the day of the shoot.

One ultra-famous female singer-actress was shooting in LA and insisted that her favorite glam people be flown out from NYC. The glam types were pricey and the decision to use out of town people meant more costs. When a winter storm shut down Eastern airports – the artist still insisted that her glam people be used so the shoot was postponed (more $). There are many make-up and hair types in LA that could have done a great job, but the production was put on hold while money burned and everyone waited for workers to clear snow off runways at JFK.

This has an “Emperor’s New Clothes” air about it. No one wants to tell the artist that their glam squad and the delays caused from getting the look just “right” are costing them serious money AND costing them a good video. Since shoots are two day jobs at the most and often one day – every hour lost to waiting around is a killer. Every artist wants a great video, but I bet they don’t know it might be their fabulous friends in the hair and make-up trailer that are keeping them from getting it. Even as they get rich themselves.

Update - 27 November 2006. Gossip blogs are not to be trusted but here is an example of the kind of thing I am talking about. Jessica Simpson allegedly lost out on a high fashion celeb-model gig by insisting on using only her own personal hair stylist.

Labels: baby director, music video