30frames

Let’s talk about references in music videos. Yes, again. But I don’t wanna delve into who copied whom or how the new Gaga clip is either aping a variety pack of science fiction films or maybe just the opening credits of Tom Cruise’s Legend. Anyone who actually makes music videos getting worked up about this stuff is either lying to themselves that they haven’t ever included reference images and ideas in a treatment or they’ve never really made a music video.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, what has been going on? Any news in the music video world. New Radiohead music, new Britney video ...

Oh yeah – the DefJam/Rihanna/LaChapelle battle over the provenance of the Melina directed video for ‘S&M’.

As stated over on VideoStatic, the specifics around what is and what isn’t stealing/copying/whatever is kind of well-trod ground and I don’t want to go over anything frame by frame except my new BluRay of ‘Hobo Porn 17: Dumpsters of Glory.’

We have all seen discussions like this before, like when Filter took a page from Crewdson and Lady Gaga has made a career out of doing the same to performance artist Leigh Bowery. Even LaChapelle himself has been on the other side of the issue with his J-Lo ‘Flashdance’ clip. What is NOT mentioned in this NYT piece is if LaChapelle and the label got permission before or after they started down Adrian Lyne's road. As I recall, the label decided to get (pay for?) studio approval only after the video was completed and once they realized they might be open to a suit just like this one.

One way that Lopez's “I’m Glad” clip is like Rihanna’s “S&M” video is that I doubt either idea originated with the director. I would imagine that the artist or manager or label already had aping LaChapelle in mind before they ever contacted a single director. To back that up, on antville kalstark references a cryptic Joseph Kahn tweet that seems to be (but isn’t necessarily) about this Rihanna video:

Turned down a vid cuz they wanted "visual references." That vid ended up complete steal of a photographer's work. Yikes.

I imagine Island Def Jam was pushing to get a LaChapelle-ian look. The track is called ‘S&M’ fer criisakes – and that is an area the photographer has explored extensively. Also, LaChapelle uses bright colors and a pop sensibility – things that would certainly lessen the scary vibe that might have been there if the lyrics of the song had simply been acted out in a video. Labels often adjust the message or intensity of a song with the visuals and since LaChapelle made bondage 'fun' in his photos, he’s a perfect reference point for this video.

So why not just hire LaChapelle for this Rihanna job? Directors at the level of LaChapelle don’t ‘need’ a music video job and I can’t imagine he’d want to go back to cover similar ground to those photos – many of which are years and years old. Tarantino doesn’t want to make Pulp Fiction 2 either. Perhaps LaChapelle might have been convinced to direct a video for 'S&M' but it would be something new and the artist’s people wanted the candy-colored sexual danger they had seen before – in their existing reference photos.

This whole thing has not yet made the ‘news’ section on LaChapelle’s website.

Also there is the small matter of money. LaChapelle's budgets are way, way higher than what Melina got to spend. The lawsuit references a 'million dollar fee' for music videos that LaChapelle has received in the past. I imagine that was the overall budget and not the director’s fee and the inflated number in the suit is a mistake or strategic to up the possible settlement amount. Also, the industry has changed a bit.

I am not a lawyer (I occasionally do play one on TV), but lawsuits like this hinge on damages. Real world, monetary damages. The fact that the Rihanna video is quite a bit like LaChapelle’s work and that hurt someone’s feelings is irrelevant to the legal system. Twitter and comments are all about who copied who and why that is so bad, and so on and so forth. However, proving damages (like, say, a million dollar fee that was lost) is the language of judges and lawsuits.

And here it gets to the interesting part, at least to me. Everyone reading this has submitted (or had submitted to them. Hi, label folks!) treatments with other people’s photographs attached. Sometimes they are stock images we haven’t paid for. Maybe they are location photos. Perhaps they were even photos taken by a famous fashion photographer and torn from Italian Vogue. The photos with this very post are culled from the internet. Hell, if the lawyers for Black Dog and IDJ are smart, they’ve already asked to see a gang of LaChapelle’s old treatments to show how common this practice is.

So we all have used reference images, but at the same time we are all SHOCKED that this Rihanna video looks like some fashion photos. Why?

Well, either because of label notes or directorial inertia – the final video looks a TON like the exact photos. The walls are the same pink. The female model is shot from the same profile. It looks like every effort was made to make as exact a copy as possible. In that way, this is ‘worse’ than most of the typical 'X is biting Y' discussions. But that also feels like an over-reaction. How was LaChapelle damaged – he wouldn’t be able to do the job for the budget they had, so maybe he shouldn’t care. At the same time, it would suck to feel ripped off, as LaChapelle must.

So there we are – I have no concrete conclusion about LaChapelle v Fenty et al. But this whole thing DID make me think of this awesome post by Devin Faraci over at Bad Ass Digest.

Faraci writes about that now-infamous Cooks Source thing where the editor copied a blogger’s recipe and then excoriated her for asking to be credited. The internet went NUTS over this theft and the rude reply – at least when they weren’t busy bit-torrenting songs online. Read the whole thing, Faraci makes some good points

Be outraged at what Cooks Source did here, but answer the question: how is this all that different from you stealing a movie online?

That is a very good question.

The internet is a place for Congressmen to troll Craigslist for strange, facebooking and downloading things you are too cheap to pay for. Studies have estimated that more than 50% of all internet bandwidth is absorbed by people illegally downloading songs or movies or porn (that they inexplicably want to save permanently on their hard drive for their significant others to find). That kind of stealing is much more of a real world threat to me (and probably you) than the Cooks Source thing or even this Rihanna-LaChapelle issue. But we creative types seem to get much, much more worked up about this kind of 'what is creativity' thing than people outright stealing the actual product.

I've been on about this topic for a while, but the best thing I've read is Faraci's headline, and it applies to this S&M issue perfectly:

The Internet Finally Finds A Kind of Copyright Infringement It Doesn’t Like

Labels: insider, label, music video, on the set, philosophy, selling, video link

Remember me?

Last week, Videostatic tweeted about this article in Newsweek – referencing how music videos are back. Back I say!!

I had missed the article for two reasons. One, I was unaware that Newsweek was still a going concern (I’m also weirded out by the new, TV Guide shape of Rolling Stone, so let’s say I have ‘issues’). Two, I can barely read.

The piece, by Ramin Setoodeh, makes some quality points. It even captured that brief sliver of time when Gaga was still ahead of Der Bieber.

The reason music videos have come back from the dead is simple. They are the perfect length—three to five minutes—for abbreviated online attention spans. They are easy to share, tweet, Facebook, and comment on. You can watch them from the comfort of your own home (or cubicle, when you’re procrastinating at work).

One thing I will add is that Setoodeh gives a decent amount of credit for the ‘revival’ of music videos to YouToogle. He also blames the standard villain for knocking MVs off of MTV – the reality show. Now I agree that once MTV realized the profits available with the Osbournes and the Sweet Sixteeners (let alone The Situation) videos were doomed on Viacom owned airwaves. But there was one villain (and I am using that word sarcastically, no one or no network ‘owes’ music videos airtime) left out of the piece – YouTube itself!

Once YouToogle unified all the disparate places people watched videos – the jig was up for MTV. Maybe the younger types don’t remember the earlier days of the web when finding videos online was almost impossible. During this era, the MTV.com site never really worked if you had a Mac. Hard to believe, but true. Assuming that this current ‘truth’ is not one of those interlocking dreams that I am waiting Juno to wake me up out of. Anyway, I digress …

Youtube came in and simplified the way we watch web videos. Search in one spot and pretty much every clip will available, and it will actually play. No more codecs or Windows Media blah-de-blahs to download. Youtube fixed all that and thus became THE place for videos on the web. Thus, YT (which always makes me think of Y&T – but that is another story for a more summah time) became the dominant place to watch videos and thus –

MTV stopped running them. Once any music video I want is available, ANY time I want it on the Internet – why do I watch a block of clips on MTV? The answer is: I don’t. If you’re a fan of My Chemical Romance, you don’t watch clips for Drake, drumming your fingers on your step-mom’s coffee table – you click on your computing device (hint: it’s disguised as a phone) and watch the desired MCR music video immediately.

When I was younger it made sense to sit through Pointer Sister videos to see the hoochie girls in short skirts get out of the car in that ZZTop video. There was no other way to see scantily clad women, or, for that matter ZZTop videos.

But in 2010, the internet does a great job of chopping our media consumption into smaller and smaller niches. If I want to read internet postings just from fans of MCR – I can do that. I can wall myself off in a narrow alley packed just with ideas I have heard a million times before (Hiya, Fox News). Or I can explore new artists and videos based on suggestions from my friends, or just based on what catches my Ritalin tempered attention span. That is how people see new videos now, and the benefit is that as soon as the song or the video starts to bore me - I can click away to something else. Under no circumstances am I going to sit in front of a television, watch through a whole video of an artist I don’t like, in the hopes that the next clip (that I also didn't choose myself) will just happen to be something I like. That channel has been changed long, long ago.

YouTube may now be ‘saving’ videos (If you consider $40k budgets for established pop acts to be ‘salvation’) – but first YouTube did a hell of a job kicking music videos in the nuts and ending video blocks on the biggest outlet, MTV. So for that, YouToogle, I say, umm, ‘thanks?’

Read the whole Newsweek article - here.

Labels: insider, MTV, music video, My Chemical Romance, philosophy, selling, TRL, video link, videostatic, YouTube

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

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 posted that in December of 2006. That is three years ago (checks math). Yes, three years ago. Nothing has changed except that the R Kelly joke is stale and the name of ‘possible replacement’ music video site has changed.

In 2006 I was commenting on the hype around a site called Zudeo which was going to change the face of music on the interwebs. Zudeo is currently down for maintenance so we can’t be sure if it has accomplished its mission of global domination.

The reason this has re-entered my egg nog and everclear infused brain is because in December 2009 we have a new and improved video savior – Vevo. This new site was started by Universal Music Group and has most of the significant labels on board, other than Warners. Saint Bono has called Vevo “the birth of a new model for our industry,” probably while UMG executives gave him the ‘thumbs up’ from the side of the stage. They even got some of that Ay-Rabb money to help launch the latest game changer.

The problem is that Vevo seems to be the exact same thing as the last UMG ‘solution’ – PluggedIn. If you don’t remember PluggedIn – don’t feel bad, I didn’t either.

Vevo has now launched and they have some exclusive content (for how long?) and the videos do look sharp and the lay-out is nice. Is this enough of a ‘plus’ for web users to stop searching and watching on the YouTube/Google axis? Google searches also turn up clips on daily motion, vimeo, vodpod and others - something that is an Achilles heel for Vevo, since their catalog is relatively limited. In 2010, are users interested in (willing to?) searching more than once?

When I was poking fun of Zudeo three years ago, the issue I harped on was compatibility. The question back then was would all videos play on all browsers, and what if you had a Mac or a Windows machine? Those nuts and bolts tech issues are largely gone (Thanks, You Tube) but Vevo, with all it’s high-def-iness, still seems like a solution to a problem from half a decade ago. Why does anyone (not employed at Universal) need another music video site?

It seems that the label/artists are going to get a slightly higher ad rate for the videos seen on Vevo versus the same clips watched on YouTube. More ad revenue is great, but how will people find these videos if they don’t pop up in the major search engines? What will make music fans go to Vevo rather than (the very similar) mtvmusic.com or YouTube?

Maybe I am missing something, but this sure seems the same as it ever was.


The video above was found with three clicks via Google and it plays on dailymotion.

Read the 30frames post from December 2006 right here.

And VideoStatic has a different (and more thoughtful) perspective here.

Labels: insider, media, music video, video link, viral video, YouTube

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

It's hard to believe I have neglected to link to this guy, perhaps I am just jealous that he is a commissioner AND out of the blogging closet. Tim Nash works at Atlantic UK, but I love him because he posts the good shit.

Anyone involved in music video production must read In Your Face. Yes, he jumbles up the capitalization, but my rum-and-silver-polish cocktail is really kicking in now, and there was no way I was gonna get that right.

My favorites are his posts on cliche-ridden treatment writing, spotty lip-synch, and riding the bus on Wilshire.

Delve deep and enjoy.

Labels: insider, music video, on the set, philosophy

I know, two posts in a week. It's like the old days.

Idolator linked to this post on Tripwire about a super-indie band called Team Robespierre and their recent, failed, efforts to get one of their videos played. The video has a very, um, “home made” quality to it – but apparently MTV was allegedly going to air the clip on Subterranean. The post is a blow-by-blow of how the band got the run around and felt abused by ‘the system.’

Here is a quote from the Tripwire article:

So a year after the record came out, over six months after the video debuted on Pitchfork, three months after it’s initially scheduled MTV2 air date and lots of wasted money we were given a “maybe” in early 2009. That was until we got the news that the person we had been dealing with was laid off in December. Now, not only was the status of the video up in the air, but we had no one to talk to about it.

Most of the commenters on Tripwire and Idolator have ripped the writer, who is not in the band but somehow helping them get their video not played. This does come across as some pretty spoiled baby stuff and it made me think of lots of articles I have been reading about employers, back when the economy had ‘employers,’ needing to adapt to deal with the self-absorbed attitude of recent college graduates.

This is from the Daily Mail:

Others expect to be pandered to and lack initiative, according to the report, based on responses from 217 graduate employers including investment banks, law and accountancy firms. In one case, a new recruit to a transport company was overheard on the phone to his mother saying: "I have got to go to London tomorrow and they haven't even told me how to get there."

Certainly the band misunderstood many, many things about the video airing process. All videos on television must be close captioned. Mean ole MTV didn’t make them do that – the FCC did.

The MTV programmer that liked the video enough to push it forward was replaced and the new person was not enthusiastic. Oh well, sometimes you drop your ice cream cone on the sidewalk and Allah/Jesus/Iovine doesn’t magically grant you new one.

Yes, there were silly standards and practices edits that seem hypocritical coming from he network that airs Tila Tequila. But you know what kids? Your Mommy and Daddy say you shouldn’t drink – but they (gasp) do it themselves. I could go on and on about how these kids don’t get it (too late, I know).

Obviously, Team Robespierre has already gotten more attention off this ‘scandal’ than they would have if their video had actually aired on MTV. So good for them, despite their ‘poor little hipster’ whines.

The larger issue, in my eyes, is this intersection of the amateur and the professional. Getting your band’s video up on Youtube is easy – you just post it and it is there. Granted, even YouToogle has Standards & Practices and rights issues. Once the video is there, who says it will rack up any more views than grandma’s birthday party.

As long as artists want the benefits of the professional end of the music industry – they are going to have to play by the pro’s rules. And with AMTV suddenly showing (shocker!) music videos on MTV – there might be more opportunity there.

The recent crumbling of the music label empire has made going amateur the rule – in recording music and in making music videos as well. We could argue about whether or not Team Robespierre would ever get signed to a ‘real’ label, and I am sure that the band might reply with, ‘We don’t want your smelly label, old man!’ But when the young punks want their precious video on the old man’s MTV, a label might come in handy.

Labels: insider, media, MTV, music video, trainwreck, video link, videostatic

If you read this blog, I am sure you have heard about the new music video site 99dollarmusicvideos. I realize I am a bit late to the game since the site has been getting talked up on Videostatic, Idolator and the Ville (where 99$V has drawn less commentary than the ‘controversy’ about Kanye and data-moshing).

The idea behind 99$V is a clever one and will surely draw attention to a few interesting directors and recording artists. This kind of site is not the ‘cause’ of anything bad, but it does indicate where the music video industry is right now – and that is no place very good. This is essentially a video contest, and (as I have written before) those do attract some attention but usually don’t make the best videos.

My first thought was that the glossy intro graphics package on the site (you can see it at the head of a ‘making of’ video) cost way more than the video that followed. Heh, irony.

Any video created within the constraints of the website’s rules – one day shoot, one day edit, spend only $99 AND make a video of how the shoot went down to prove the budget was followed) – is destined to have limitations. That is fine in theory, but for a director, putting an artificially limited video out there for all to see might be problematic – even if doing it in a day for less than a hundred bucks IS an accomplishment. Kind of like going on a job interview after strictly allowing yourself just 15 minutes to shave, shower AND type up a resume – that rumpled and harried person is you, but maybe not the best way to get hired in the future.

The triangle. Good, fast or cheap – you can pick two but not three. Guess which one is gonna get left out of the $99 videos shot in 24 hours?

The formula on the site works great – if you want to see the drama of 'the struggle' like a reality TV show. Watching the designer-contestants on 'Project Runway' rush to make a cocktail dress out of recycled plastics and $17 worth of buttons in less than four hours is much, much more interesting than seeing the resultant garment. Or wearing the half-junk dress, for that matter.

The goal of the 99$V site is to get viewers for Verizon ads – which is a fine and noble goal. The best way to do that is to show us the drama of a harried director grinding to get the video done in the allotted time for the tiny budget. If the resulting music video helps the band's (or the director's) career very much is secondary.

The ‘behind the scenes’ videos are more intriguing (at least to my drunken eye) than the actual music videos. More than anything, maybe that shows us where music videos are at these days.

Labels: contest, hipsters, insider, music video, video link, viral video

Lots of interest (okay, nerdly on-line levels of interest) about a recent study in the UK that seems to indicate that our economy 3.0 savior, the Long Tail, may not have nearly as much salvation on board as some have hoped.

Read the London Times article and the thoughtful response from Mike at Idolator. Between bouts of overdosing on rum balls and Kiefer-ing my Christmas tree I decided to add in my on two pence.

My understanding of 'the Long Tail' is that all those sales of obscure items (books for Amazon, music for iTunes) will eventually make money for the retailer. That is what makes it a viable economic theory, it works for the company selling the individual bits of rarely desired stuff – not necessarily for the creator of the things being sold.

If the overhead is low enough – cheap rent to store all of Amazon’s books in warehouses in remote Kentucky or Utah, or even cheaper hard-drives full of audio files in Cupertino for iTunes – then selling one of something per year can theoretically be profitable. As long they are also selling one per year of many, many, many other things.

This is where people seemed to get confused – the Long Tail works for the retailer, not the maker of the music or book. The Long Tail, and this new British study seems to back this up, makes no guarantees that this kind of economy of smallish scale will work out for the actual content creator. In fact, it kind of shows that it doesn’t.

For a long time (pre-digital) the record labels hunted for hits believing that the blockbuster (as in movies and most other entertainments) were the things that propped up the company while they searched for the next hit. A small number of really successful artists/albums would allow labels to sign and promote enough new artists to find the next hit-maker (and also the hundreds of duds and failures that actually soak up the majority of the profits from Michael Jackson or the Crue).

My take on this is that this study does not contradict the Long Tail theory at all. This study shows exactly what the Long Tail theory would predict – amongst the handful of things that do sell, there are many things not selling much if at all.

Look at the famous Long Tail chart with that sliver of yellow extending out to the right. That is the ‘Tail,’ the vein of gold that can be mined for unanticipated (and untold?) profits. This study from the Times does not focus on the narrow sliver of sales – this study is about ALL that white space above the yellow. All the digital songs that don’t get sold, or maybe not even searched for. The study doesn’t say there is no gold in the mine, their numbers just reveal there is lots of worthless dirt piled on and around the nuggets of gold. Lots and lots of dirt.

My two main conclusions:

1. The Long Tail might work in the real world. Maybe, maybe not – this study doesn’t seem to prove or disprove the relevancy of the theory. I think the main factor in the workability of Long Tail-style sales is how low the seller can get the friction. How little overhead can they have and how much raw earth can they have on hand to allow customers to sift through to find their own personal gold. Maybe it is not possible in the real world for this to truly work (like perpetual motion) – but these new numbers don’t really shine much light on it.
2. Being the artist creating the records that sell zero copies (or even the ‘winner’ that sells one) in a year must be no fun. But that, too, is not anything new.

Here’s to a fat tail (heh, heh) in 2009. Happy Holidays and a joyful New Year.

Labels: controversy, death, download, insider, media, music video, un-Indian Thriller, YouTube

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

Over on Videostatic there is post about the Pharcyde (sort of) reunion video, but the hidden gem in there is the original treatment for the Pharcyde video “Drop.” You know, the one in the alley where everything goes backwards. You can watch it here.

Now check out the treatment. One page from Spike, complete with teenage text0r spelling (see, he WAS ahead of his time). The concept and the execution were brilliant, but I especially love the low-fi presentation of the idea.

First of all, check out the date at the bottom of the treatment. 1995. How long ago was that? More than just 13 years. The Hollywood address was still in the 213 area code. There is absolutely no email or web address on the Satellite letterhead. 13 years is longer than I thought.

It seems clear to me that Spike was presenting this technologically tricky idea in a simple conversational way. Helped to make it seem like no big deal that the band would have to learn the lyrics in reverse. The way the treatment is written also captures the swirly, improvisational and hallucinatory feel of the finished video (and most Pharcyde music). Were all these things purposeful? I’d have to see more Spike treatments of the era to judge, but who am I to doubt the master?

When I see all the effort that must go into winning a job now, this Pharcyde treatment seems quaint. I bet Spike, caught in his current Sendakian nightmare, sighs and thinks back on when everything was simpler.

On even moderate budgets today, many labels want reams of reference photos and video clips included with the director’s pitch. They want adjustments and tweaks and input from the manager and commissioner – all before the job is ever awarded. And modern directors are competing against a much, much larger field of directors that anyone had to back in the mid-90s. The amount of energy modern MV directors put in to even getting themselves in the running continues to grow, even as the financial and creative pay-offs shrink up.

One Page Treatment Writing Directors UNITE!!!



On a side note, someone took that classic video for ‘Drop’ and re-reversed it so we can see the way the action really played out on set. Watching the clip again, my thoughts are that this was a lot of well thought out gags (disguised as an effortless goof) and that the alley they were shooting in must have really smelled like urine.

Labels: insider, music video, on the set, Spike Jonze, videostatic

When I was a kid I would (occasionally) shoplift a candy bar from the corner store in my neighborhood. It seemed logical at the time, after all these were adults with a great big store – they would hardly miss my 50-cents, right? Going past that place as a grown-up I marvel that it is still in business. So tiny, so few items for sale and how much effort must those people put in to be open so many hours every day. My perspective on that candy bar theft has clearly changed.

Young directors often see a big production company (and they all look big when you wanna get signed) as their golden ticket. The production company has a cool office, maybe there is even a vintage motorcycle parked in the lobby. To a wannabe Fincher – these people at the prod co must look like they have an endless supply of candy bars.

But … Record labels are truly massive enterprises, huge conglomerates with budgets for executive parking and office redecoration that dwarf even the wildest prod co office spending. No wonder they want to make more off the downloaded iPhone 2.0 songs.

So why would a major label screw with the relatively tiny production company? Because they can, and it saves them some cash. Same reason that an employer waits to hand out the checks to its employees until after the banks close on Friday to garner another night or two of interest before the payroll clears.

When a label hires a production company to make a video for them, the usual deal is that the first fifty percent of the budget gets paid to the prod co when the contract is signed – which seems to happen closer and closer to the actual shoot day, but that is another post. Then the next payment (usually 25%) is due when the first rough cut is delivered to the label. The final portion of the payment is owed to the production company when the final video is delivered along with all the elements (reels of film, video tapes, etc.) If the budget is really tiny the producers may get the entire amount (8 grand or whatever) up front. Makes sense, right?

That brings us to – record labels NOT paying production companies. Sure that first 50% shows up when they want to get the video made. The label knows that locations need to get booked and caterers (and deluxe hotel suites) must be paid for to service the “needs” of artists and label types alike. And the completed video isn’t in their hands, so - at least at this point - the label still needs the production company.

A lot of times that second payment also arrives as scheduled after the rough cut is viewed – after all the label still needs the producer and director to finish the damn video. But, when the video is done (and maybe even already on MTV or BET) – the last 25% seems to come just a bit slower.

The first line of label defense is to claim that they have yet to receive all the elements from the shoot, a provision specifically listed in the contract. In a hurried, complex production it is not surprising that the producers might have forgotten to send off one of the reels of film from the telecine house, or a DAT tape of audio recorded on set, a copy of the third different MTV re-edit or the final close-captioned version of the video that needed to be re-done because the original lyric sheet given by the label was wrong. What if the label acts like it didn’t get one of the legally required elements when it actually did, that would be shady, wouldn’t it?

There are lots of ways that the label can drag and drag their feet about paying that last bit of money. This is not just days, but often months of delays while the production company is getting invoices from vendors and crew members. This is obviously hard on the production company but what can they do?

The prod co can bitch and complain, but they don’t want to anger the label too much – because they are still waiting on the overages to come through. On a video shoot, if the production is going to go over the contracted budget – the label executive on the set can sign a form that they have authorized an overage of a certain amount of dollars to pay for a couple of hours of over-time or a dozen more extras (or bags of substances) as needed.

The problem with overages, at least from the prod co’s perspective, is that those payments are not due as part of the 50/25/25 contracted schedule. The label person (usually commissioner but sometimes another person) that signs doesn’t give over a stack of cash on set – this is just a promissory note, and more up-front spending by the production company.

The overage payments can take forever to come through from the label. I have seen checks arrive more than a year late. Some of this is to protect the label from fraud – they want to triple check to be sure they are not getting scammed by the video's producers (who would do such a thing?). I understand caution from the labels but …

Labels have claimed that the person who signed the overage sheet on set was not authorized to do so, or that the signature was forged. There can be confusion around this potentially pricey decision to spend more money – these overage calls are often made late at night after a long day of arduous shooting. Some prod cos have taken to having the signing of overages done while being video-taped – like a barely legal porn star showing her ID to the camera to be sure there will be no Traci Lords issues.

Adding to the likelihood of long-unpaid overages is the fact that labels are getting tighter and tighter with the budgets during the original planning stages, making it more and more likely that the trimmed and clipped budget won’t cover the actual cost of getting the video made. Everyone knows this going in, and assumes that overages will swoop in to save the financial day.

I have heard (rumor alert) of a label insisting on a certain budget number so the prod co rigged their budget for a seven hour day. All involved knew that the shoot would go more than 12 hours – but putting the ‘real’ cost in the budget would have made the number too high and the upper-level label folks would not have signed off. It seems that the ‘overage’ and ‘budget’ accounting is separate – not sure why it works this way. Doesn’t really make much sense. So a fake starting number is created, and then once the label is ‘pregnant’ with the video – they will have no choice but to sign the overage or face the prospect of a half-finished clip.

Overages are intended (in my amateur opinion) to cover events that happen on the set, so if you need an extra hour of overtime the director can get it and the fact that a couple grand is an ‘overage’ and thus gets paid slightly later is not a big issue. But as more and more of the genuine costs of the video get pushed into the overage category, carrying that debt is harder and harder for the prod cos. It has shifted from ‘putting one nice meal on my credit card’ to ‘paying my rent and utilities with my credit card.’ And this has helped kill off some production companies.

So why do production companies put up with this system? Why not insist on getting the money up front, or something, anything better than the current set-up? Because prod cos are scared and don’t want to lose even one job. Labels like the way the system is, so if one company raises a stink and wants all the cash up front, the label is more than happy to go to a different director at a more malleable prod co.

Many production companies are walking a fine line these days, and getting paid for that hamburger next Tuesday (even if we all know the payment won’t come until Saturday) seems better than selling no hamburgers at all.


Update: Over on the 'Ville, kalstark shares his own tale of woe and owe at the hands of his grateful clients. Check it out here.

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

Sorry for the lack of posts – sometimes I feel like I have run out of things to say, so I just go back to the classics.

The music video industry is in an odd place these days, where it is neither fish nor fowl. Budgets have dropped (see, I told you this was a classic) but the expectations have not changed. And I don’t mean just the expectations of what will end up on screen, I mean all the other stuff as well.

A label brief came in for a female pop/R&B artist. She is a star, but not a mega-star. The label is going to spend $140,000 on the video – and that included all of the typical budget items like insurance, travel, closed captioning for the final video and glam for the artist. The artist lives in Atlanta and the artist’s glam squad types reside in New York. None of that sounds crazy but if you look a little deeper – that 140k starts looking pretty tiny.

Someone is going to have to travel. That is money right there – and the director probably lives in LA (since most of them do). We will get into travel costs in a second, but since we have a triangle – glam in NY, artist in ATL, director in LA – there is no real way to avoid traveling somebody and putting them up in pricey hotels.

Shooting in Atlanta is okay – not great but okay. The crews are decently priced but not known for working particularly fast or efficiently. Locations in the ATL are reasonably priced, but limited in the kind of look you can get. New York has great crews and great locations – but all that stuff is really pricey. New York shoots are always hard and end up costing more than you would think because of unions, rules, restrictive permitting process and so on. LA is usually the best option for shooting – but in this case it also requires the most travel.

Where to shoot is a foundation decision, and it would be a lot simpler if the production could get glam people in LA rather than the artist’s preferred NYC crew. Trust me, there are hair, wardrobe and make-up types aplenty in Los Angeles.

Let’s dive into the hard costs that the production company has to look at when they are budgeting this job, and lets assume the shoot ends up happening in Los Angeles. And all of this number crunching goes hand-in-hand with the creative process – the idea for the video needs to be a good one AND it has to be affordable. But for now, let’s stick with the money. Budgets are not my area of expertise, but here are some educated guesstimates on “what it cost.”

Budget – 140k

Production fees – 37k
Artist travel – 4k
Glam squad fees – 15k
Glam travel – 5k
DP – 5k
Film, processing, telecine and edit – 15k
Camera and lights – 5k
Crew (including their taxes, insurance and food) – 25k
Close captioning and other fixed costs like dupes – 2k
The total so far – 113k

That leaves 27k for the creative good stuff like -

Location fees and permits
Art department
Dancers, extras, etc.




Okay, lets go through those numbers again with a bit more detail

Production fees – 37k
The typical breakdown is 10% for the director, 3-5% to the director’s rep, 5% to the line producer and 10% to the production company to pay the exec producer, head of production phone bills and so on. The 37k assumes that these costs will equal 27% of the total budget – a relatively conservative estimate.

One might think – Why do all these people have to make so much money? The director has been writing on a dozen different ideas for many artists – none of which have turned into a job, except maybe this one. The director certainly deserves to get paid – they may not work again for a while and Chris Brown is no longer talking their calls. The exec producer at the production company has been working with this director for years. He has been trying to get him/her a good job, but they haven’t worked in a couple months. These fees are covering all that work. Ditto for the rep who has been pimping the director all over town – the rep surely has earned her (and it probably is a her – sorry Tommy) money.

Artist travel – 4k

This is a conservative estimate. The artist is going to fly first class and stay in a top notch hotel in LA. If the label/manager doesn’t talk them out of bringing cousins and hangers on, it could get much, much worse. This also includes town cars and the like, but not mini-bar charges.

Glam squad fees – 15k

Not exorbitant at all for high end types – and we are assuming they are, other wise Miss Diva ain’t flying them in from NYC. Three departments – hair, make-up and wardrobe with one lead and one assistant each. Five grand per is not a wildly huge amount.

Glam travel – 5k

See artist travel above. Let’s hope we can keep the hair expert from finding out the artist is at L’Hermitage while the glam people are slumming at the Sofitel.

DP – 5k

This might be a bit high, but remember the label and manager are going to want super high-end beauty for this clip. No way the label signs off on the director’s buddy from film school as the DP so they can save some cash. The label has a list of DPs they approve of and good luck getting them to order something not on the menu.

Film, processing, telecine and edit – 15k

I am not sure of these numbers, but they are not very negotiable either. This is the kind of beauty-oriented job that the label is definitely going to want 35mm film and not digital video, no matter how much “Video Nerd Monthly” claims that film is dead. No one is going to shoot with a high end DP and then go cheap on the telecine/colorist. The big variable in here is how much of the glam/beauty “clean up” work they want done. That is on top of the expensive make-up, DP and telecine beauty work.

Camera and lights – 5k

Once again, not sure of these numbers – but I do know it would be MUCH higher if the creative calls for things like motion control, techno-cranes, steadi-cam or other technological goodies for the camera department.

Close captioning and other fixed costs like dupes – 2k

Not much to add here.

Crew (including their taxes, insurance and food) – 25k

This number could slide and move a LOT – depending on overtime and other factors. A “big” set would require more lights (see above) and tons of people to hang them. A roof-top shoot would tire out everyone by forcing the crew to lug stuff up and down the stairs. Overtime is the bogeyman here – wasted time could turn bad really quick.

The total so far – 113k

Stuff NOT included above –

• Any location at all.
• Any props, sets or decorations.
• Production / talent / wardrobe trailers.
• Glossy car for artist to emerge from in super-duper slow motion
• Dancers
• Rehearsal days or choreographer days for dancers
• Gifts or “extras” for the artist, manager, label types
• Posh video village set-up for label types to sit in and complain about where all the money is going.

I’m sure that many of you are looking at these numbers and shaking your heads at the insanity of the “old model” for music videos. The dollar amounts can get pretty crazy, sort of like what the Pentagon pays for a toilet seat and all that.

This kind of fantasy-meets-reality industry hijinks must happen all the time in videos with $8k budgets as well, I just don't know much about that world. Up-and-coming directors understandably salivate over the prospect of six-figure budgets, but probably don't realize the nonsense that comes with that high octane world. Money solves some production problems, but it seems that the expectations grow way faster (and shrink slower) than the budgets do.

Even as the market has changed, there are many, many jobs that the label wants treated in this “old way" with extras and luxuries all around. Why does the artist have to have those particular make-up people? Why not take a chance on a younger DP with an up and coming reel? Why not make the label commissioner fly coach and stay at the (perfectly reasonable) Farmer’s Daughter? Good questions, but anyone who knows the label biz – knows they are questions with no answers.

There are plenty of directors that could make a whole handful videos for this budget, but their reels don’t have enough of the high-end glamorous beauty work to earn them this particular job. Maybe there is someone who could do this job by using a different technique (smaller crew, shoot on video, etc.) but that kind of “outside the box” thinking probably won’t fly on this VERY inside the box kind of job.

Remember, this is not a video for an indie band, or someone with an edge – this is for an old school kind of artist (even if the singer involved is only 23) so the old school approach is in full effect. When the label wants beauty and more beauty for their artist (and that is probably the right choice here).

This kind of glamorous video (for someone like Mary J Blige) was made in 1998, and they probably spent $600k on it. Now that is an even crazier amount of money, but at least they could afford to hit the target they were aiming at. Back then, at least the reality matched the expectation. Now the labels hand directors a squirt gun and an Amtrak pass and expect them to come back with grizzly bear (and get upset if the director asks for water for the squirt gun).

Is the music video world a land of lean and mean production budgets with people pulling favors to get things done on a tight financial leash – or is it a world of rented Escalades, and two bedroom suites? The only wrong answer is to choose both.

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