30frames

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Watch Lady Gaga - 'Bad Romance'

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

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

Happy New Year to all!

Hey, I got some mail. Okay, not really mail, but over on the ‘Ville, a poster named budget added the following comment:

Would you please weigh in on this article: Music Industry Looks To Internet For Revival Particularly this quote: "Universal Music, the industry leader, has said that it makes “tens of millions of dollars” from YouTube." We're making 10k videos that end up making their labels millions of dollars! We're still getting screwed over!!!

Okay, here is me weighing in …

First of all, click on over to the Financial Times and read the brief article. While doing that, remember it is the FINANCIAL F^&%ING TIMES. Everything in that article is skewed towards investors and potential investors. If ‘High Times’ magazine covered the recent Presidential election (maybe they did, my subscription ran out) you can bet that HT focused on which candidate would make it easier for their readership to get high. Financial Times has just as skewed a world view. FT is all about telling investor/readers where they might (or might not) want to put their money. The info in that article is bound to be massaged, but doesn’t mean it ain’t useful.

The fact that Warner and Youtube/Google are beefing over the percentages means that there IS some money to be made from the ads that run over and alongside the videos. The “Music industry looks to internet for revival” headline at least seems reasonable. But how much money is really there?

This is where the waters will get murky. You gotta remember the recent financial collapse was preceded by lots and lots and lots of articles in FT and Wall Street Journal about how the markets and the economy and the mortgage universe was doing just peachy. The financial press is full of ridiculously upbeat projections and predictions that are not justified by real-world facts – these kind of publications are often more cheerleaders than news sources. (Note that I have taken down last year’s prediction that the shoot for the film ‘Vicky Christina Barcelona’ would turn into a Penelope Cruz – 30f – Scarlett Johansson sandwich. Sigh.)

Anyway – take any and all income predictions and earnings estimates with a Fat Joe-sized grain of salt. Here is the quote that perturbed mr. budget - “Universal Music, the industry leader, has said that it makes “tens of millions of dollars” from YouTube.” Now contrast that with “Hulu and YouTube would make about $70m and $100m respectively in US advertising revenues in 2008” from a little farther down in that same article. How do those things fit together? (Hint, they don't.)

Now, Uni is a big player, but if YouToogle as a whole is making $100million per year (and this estimate might be as cooked up as the financial health of AIG and Fannie Mae) then how could Universal possibly be getting that much? I am unsure what the sharing arrangement is, but if YouTube makes a hundred mil, the copyright owners probably don’t get an equal share – so the copyright owners of YouTube clips can’t be getting the ‘same’ $100 mil, can they?

Back to Universal. Uni’s supposed “tens of millions” means multiples of ten, right? So “tens of millions” means at least twenty in my book. That is 20% of YouTube’s (alleged) total revenue (and forgetting for now that the split is unlikely to be 50/50). I imagine Uni might earn 20% of the music video based revenue on YouToogle, but music videos are a fraction of all the content on YouTube. A popular fraction to be sure, but if YouToogle brings in $100m, much of that must come from wedding videos, skateboarding tips and dogs eating burritos, right?

This leads me to the conclusion that it is highly unlikely that Universal makes what they are saying off of YouTube videos. There are plenty of other claims in that article that can be parsed, but you get the point. Like fisherman, businessman make big, boastful claims. Especially if they are trying to convince shareholders that all is well.

Now, onto the most salient part of budget’s comment/question: “We're making 10k videos that end up making their labels millions of dollars! We're still getting screwed over!!!”

Yes, plenty of directors have budgets of $10k or less to make videos, and these do end up on the internet and they might be earning the record label some cash. But my guess would be that Britney, Jay-Z and their fellow megastars earn the majority of the online revenue for a label and plenty of the low-end jobs (let’s say the $10k range) attract way, way less viewers and thus less ad revenue. It is unlikely that Universal is earning their (fictional?) tens of millions off of the low-end jobs. Long tail and all that.

The real reason that MV budgets were big in the 90s was competition. To get played on MTV, a video had to beat out rival videos for limited air time. TRL and other prime spots on Viacom's cable-waves were prime real estate. As more and more videos got made, the labels had to spend more and more to attract the eye of MTV’s programmers and win those scarce slots. This led to the kind of budgetary arms race that brought us Puffy’s ‘Victory’ and O-Town’s ode to nocturnal emissions ‘Liquid Dreams.’

But, now, with the ‘air time’ on the ‘Net being limitless – why should a label pull out the budgetary big guns? A once scarce resource (exposure for the videos) has suddenly become free. The labels need to attract eyeballs, but the eyeballs they are after are now the end consumers and not a conference room full of people at 1515 Boadway, and winning that attention seems to be based more on having a hot song or a visual hook (i.e. synchronized treadmills) rather than massive post effects or stunts like the ‘big’ videos of old.

So, budget, does that help any? It doesn’t make that $10k budget stretch any farther, but hopefully you’ll see that the labels likely aren’t raking in the money off Youtube clicks for Shwayze. To be honest, $10k is probably an appropriate amount to spend on a music video if the label is hoping to get a few dollars back from YouTube advertising.

If we don’t like the budgets the labels offer, we can always turn the jobs down. Ha.

Anyway, I won’t turn down questions. Send me an email or drop a comment below.

Labels: label, mail, MTV, music video, philosophy, prod co, TRL, video link, viral video, 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

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

Businesses come and go. They are born and then they fold. The “Conestoga wagon construction and repair industry” fell by the way-side. At some point, a sweaty man hauled the last block of ice up a flight of stairs to chill the last real “ice box” – perhaps someone was sad about that. Certainly the “airbrushing things on the side of Dodge vans” industry has seen better days. Perhaps those jobs were replaced by “mall kiosk that sells ugly, off-brand face-plates for cell phones” – that seems a LOT like the van painting to me, just with less Pink Floyd marching hammers.

Birth and death – blah, blah. Well, the record store is certainly a lot closer to death than birth. Tower Records has closed its doors – a chain store, but one that “Championship Vinyl” types could at least acknowledge as “real.” Now that Tower is gone, the greater Los Angeles area (when not being evacuated due to brush fires) is home to a single shining beacon of music sales-dom – Amoeba Records.

Amoeba is a massive place filled with new and used CDs and records. The fact that the DVD section grows by the month shouldn’t worry you, move along, nothing to see here. Amoeba is a fun place to go and kill an hour or seven. There are seemingly endless racks of music and shopping here takes on a weird, adrenaline-fueled communal vibe. Many people comment along the lines of “Amoeba is wonderful, but it is almost a sensory overload.”

Amoeba is a great place and I am glad that it exists. But it almost isn’t a record store – it is more like an amusement park. And not a flashing lights and over-priced lattes kind of amusement park – but a hardcore amusement park for people that are really, really into music. A Civil War re-enactors amusement park, if you will.

A casual music fan going in there to find the latest Timberlake CD is probably going to end up running for the door as fast as they can find their way back out. Amoeba is NOT for the faint of heart. There are more racks of African music at the Hollywood Amoeba than there is racks of all CDs just down the street at Best Buy.

Overall, this is not a good sign. Normal record stores went under, but this mighty mutant of excess survives and even prospers because there are people who want this kind of intense experience. Just not enough people to keep this experience going in normal sized towns and cities. Not every town can support a massive amusement park like Disneyland. They tried to put a Planet Hollywood in every town – and that didn’t work out too well. The record store has become a tourist attraction, a place of worship, an oddity.

Music fans (usually the kind that read blogs like this one) go into Amoeba when they are visiting LA and say “Why isn’t there a place like this in MY town?” And the answer is – because you wouldn’t go to it, at least not enough to keep it open. The Amoeba experience doesn’t work on a smaller scale – it needs the swirling hyper-activity that comes from 800 people, all clickety clacking through the “Used Ska” section at the same time. Amoeba is a destination, not a place to complete an errand to pick up some music you like. Few cities have the population to support a store like Amoeba, and one of the reasons it works even in LA, is because it is a tourist destination – so the churning masses of visitors keep the doors open.

Amoeba is the exception that proves the rule – the rule that brick and mortar record retailing is going away. Like Madonna is the exception that proves how the new Live Nation plan won’t work for a young band.

Amoeba isn’t going anywhere. iTunes cannot kill something like this. Amoeba will still be doing brisk business when people are wandering through in the year 2028 to buy Aztec Camera and that “Good Charlotte: 20 years of Hits” compilation. Assuming there is still anything physical to sell. Maybe we can just line up in Amoeba to get the tunes injected into our brains.

Labels: death, insider, music video, philosophy, video link, YouTube

Retirement is not permanent. Not in boxing. Not in entertainment – especially not in the rap game. Anyone who was surprised that Jay-Z released his “Kingdom Come” comeback CD after “quitting” to head up Def Jam, well, Kanye and Fiddy have a bridge they wanna sell you.

However, I was surprised to hear recently that Jay-Z has another album coming out – less than a year after his last one. I first heard the news, and I kind of groaned a little bit – we all know what can happen when a comeback is hurried into the marketplace before the audience is actually hungry for it.

I had heard nothing about this until a piece came out in the NYT about Jay-Z’s new record and its ties to the upcoming American Gangster macho Oscar bait from Ridley Scott. Apparently the whole album is “inspired” by the Russell Crowe – Denzel Washington scenery chew-fest.

“It immediately clicked with me,” said Jay-Z, who has made passing references to gangster movies in previous recordings but has never delved so deeply into the genre. “Like ‘Scarface,’ or any one of those films, you take the good out of it, and you can see it as an inspiring film.” – NYT

So far, none of this sounds good to me. It’s too soon, the album seems to be shackled to a film which makes it more of a marketing piece than inspired creation. And of course, Jigga’s last music was very underwhelming.

And I was also troubled by the over the top look of the videos for Kingdom Come. Sure Jay looked amazing selling Budweiser in that Monaco Tourism Board spot – but was that what we wanted from Hova? Most people passed on Kingdom Come, which made me question even more the motives for Jay’s quick come-back. All signs pointed to a bloated, ego-fueled disaster … then I saw ...

The clip for “Blue Magic” – all stripped back menace and desolate urban drug rhymes. This is Jay out coke-ing the Clipse – as raw and real a record as Jay has made in years (ever?). My fears went out the window – at least for this first song. This is the b/w intensity of “99 Problems” with the late-night, broken-glass beats that first got Pharrell noticed. Hell, Jay's not even in the damn vid.

The video has been added and pulled all over the web. Anyone who has a stable link should send it along to me. But you should def watch the video - my rambling will make more sense. Try onsmash or YouToogle.

Read the NYT interview and you can see that Jay seems really amped up by the movie that the album is inspired by. Jay has spent a few years being professionally non-plussed so that kind of fire seems like a good thing.

The clip – directed by Rik Cordero – feels like an episode of “The Wire” come to life with a million and one things sure to make MTV/BET nervous (but watch them still play it anyway – it is JAY after all). This video (or “trailer” ?!?) is all the things that “Show Me” was not – and that is a good thing.

Jay has been a lot of things, but he must have realized that “self-satisfied mogul" is not a persona that we are too interested in. Bigger is not necessarily better. This first track off American Gangster heads in a new direction and the video (assuming this is the “real” video for the track) is spot on perfect for the music.

All in all, “Blue Magic” seems like the perfect comeback video – and Jay (label prez and artist) didn’t have to pay a million bucks for it either.


Update - over on antville, spit posted this link to photos from Pharrell's blog. These images apparently show the "real" video shoot being directed by Hype. Sigh. My enthusiasm is waning as I see the glossy cars and flashing light sets. Who knows if this glossy stuff will be intercut with the b/w drug stuff or if this trailer is really just a teaser to up the street cred.

Labels: jay-z, label, music video, philosophy, review, selling, video link, YouTube

I have posted before about Obtusity and how different the posts are from what I do here. I poke around in the whys and the hows of video making and the 'Tus captures the layered meaning and art of it all.

Another web source I turn to a lot is obviously Videostatic and I have written about that before as well. But Steve over at VS has gone and flipped the script on us.

Check out his philosophical review of the latest Fray video. He digs into the choices made by video directors and comes up with his own, well-reasoned and insightful answers.

[D]ebate whether a band is best served by an artistic, highly conceptual clip or a more basic, performance-driven. The former works very well for bands that derive a portion of their cache by being associated with the avant garde — think Radiohead, Bjork or most indie rock bands — but it also runs the risk of overwhelming an act hasn't yet developed or communicated an identity. For instance, will anyone remember Justice and the song "D.A.N.C.E." as anything more than The T-Shirt video?

Ha. That is great stuff. Read the whole thing (it's actually much shorter than my usual ramblings on such matters). Steve even casts a stone or two at the sacred cows of the MV world - and you know I love that shit.

Labels: music video, philosophy, review, Rihanna, Spike Jonze