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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

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

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

On top of all the problems experienced by working production professionals – death of music industry, typical January blahs, some kind of strike – we have also been visited by another bit of bad news. What, no rain of frogs?!?

Axiom, one of the major production pay-roll companies went under – taking many millions of dollars with it. My favorite definition for Axiom is “A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument.” Which could be read as “so true it needs no back-up” or “don’t ask for proof, just trust us.”

Payroll companies handle the taxes and payments for most productions, since there are so many details and loop-holes in tax laws and with-holdings. Axiom (and associated companies) going under does not just effect those in music videos and production but lots of other places as well. Some folks have lost their health insurance that they assumed had been paid for by the company, others are stuck with no money at all for work they did. The beleaguered prod cos are now stuck finding more money to pay the people they owe, since the first time they “paid,” Axiom swallowed up the cash and trucked it away to Enron-ville. Over on "Totally Unauthorized" there is a sharp dissection of what this will mean to production types.

The more “stable and safe” companies – from Axiom to formerly big-balling production houses - go under, the more it is clear that there are no guarantees in music video. That certainly isn’t news, but it is easy to forget that nothing is for sure, especially with the state the industry is in. It never was guaranteed, but shiny office buildings and cool, custom printed business cards can sure cover up the cracks in the foundation.

Young directors looking to get more work are now faced with the realization that “making it” and signing at a hip prod co means nothing if the company goes under in a week or two. There are fewer and fewer rules all the time, which leaves lots of room for new ideas and new people. Especially if the old people are bankrupt or indicted.


Bit of side business. On the ‘Ville there was a post about Janet’s new video and people sharing their thoughts. Then the thread goes sideways with the appearance of an incredibly obvious fake “Dale Resteghini” posting ludicrous stuff. (Hint, most people can spell their own name.) Trust me, Senor Rage is too busy making his next ten videos to post on Antville. Some easily convinced types should be careful when they reply to emails about imprisoned princes in Nigeria. The thread is a fun read, never-the-less and remember that “gullible” is not in the dictionary.

Labels: death, music video, prod co

The LA Times did another one of their “Ultimate Top Ten Lists” – cataloging the artists that have made the most money in the last year. The musician with the biggest/longest tour are always the champs and in 2007 it was The Police that earned the most. Less than 10% of their earnings were from selling music and the bulk of the cash came from concert ticket sales – it helps to have an fan base with well-paying jobs (i.e old people like The Police and the Stones).

Digital tracks grew, but still ended up being a drop in the bucket for artists. The ring-tone phenomenon also does not look quite as savior-y as it once appeared:

"Likewise, although some performers are developing comfortable incomes from ring-tone sales, the mostly young R&B, hip-hop and pop acts who placed highest on SoundScan's ring-tone/master-tone tallies aren't anywhere near the top of either concert tour or album sales rankings. So ring tone isn't included -- yet -- because it wouldn't affect any rankings in the Ultimate Top 10." - LAT

The fact that touring is such a big part of the money makes it clear why Live Nation wanted that fat chunk of the ticket and merch from Madonna (and apparently Jonas Bros as well).

CDs have become the loss leader for the artist – the thing that they do to get them back out on the road for some more of those lucrative concert dates.

The music is the loss leader for the merchants at Best Buy or Target – getting people in the door with discounted CDs where they will (hopefully) buy the more profitable Monster Cables and fabric softener.

The music video was always the loss leader for the record label – the thing that they pay for (and make zero money from) to promote the music, but the music itself seems to have become another loss leader. You can see why music video budgets are shrinking – the money the labels have is shrinking AND the music video process is now even one more step removed from the profits (touring and merch).

Music videos were never profitable for labels on their own, but at least they were tied to the core business - they helped sell records. Now that the core business is concert tickets and t-shirts?

Each step removed from the actual income, means less dollars makes it through. Like college buddies sipping your beer before they pass it on down the stadium row from the vendor – the thirsty guy at the end only ends up with backwash and sheepish looks from his friends.

Maybe Live Nation wants to hire someone to make videos to show at concerts to encourage fans to go out to the lobby and enjoy some delicious Jonas Brothers t-shirts.

Labels: Madonna, media, music video, prod co

Wednesday afternoon the kind folks at Idolator linked to a new blog (so new it really had no posts) that is all about leaking the names of people who leak tracks. I’m pretty sure that this guy posting the names of bloggers who post unauthorized tracks on another blog is not gonna “solve” the music piracy situation – but it is a funny situation.

Many commenters on Idolator and the dude’s blog (which as of today had still outed no one) are freaking out claiming that any such name-leaks are violations of this right or that amendment. Funny how people are all concerned with rights and fair-ness when theirs are at issue and far less so when the “rights” belong to a band who’s music they wanna own. I don’t want to go into all this again but it got me thinking about …

A few years back there was a huge album coming out and the label only sent out CDs with watermarks on them. That is standard now, but this techniques was a bit new then. These were NOT the CDs that were-uncopy-able that only play in old school boom-boxes but rather each disc had the name of the director and prod co that it was given to encoded into the 1s and 0s of the digital file.

I heard the song but never got a disc. The director in question did not get the job but in a few weeks word came down that “his” copy of the song had ended up on the internet. The track had been panned by amateur and pro critics all over and the label was feeling stung so they launched a full-fledged investigation.

A week or so after that I am in the office of the same prod co and there is a Pinkerton agent there. Yes, the strike breaking, Lincoln protecting Pinkertons that even scare Al Swearengen on Deadwood. Unfortunately, the music piracy Pinkerton was not wearing a six gun or swinging an ax-handle. He was just an ex-cop looking guy with a clipboard. He asked a lot of people in the office some questions and then left.

Nothing really became of it, but this has to be the ultimate “analog solution to a digital problem.” I guess the Texas Rangers or Musketeers were not available.

Labels: controversy, download, label, music video, prod co

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

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

So with that said, my duties are as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The drummer from Semisonic, Jacob Slichter, wrote a pretty cool book about his life as a “sort of” rock star. He has a self-depreciating wit and the kind of insiders perspective that I enjoy.

Slichter did a five minute piece for NPR on his band going through the process of making a video. The clip was from the 2001 movie “Summer Catch” starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and the pre-workout, pre-Jeter Jessica Biel. Check out the NPR piece, it is – like most things NPR – gently humorous.

It also made me think of a few things:


1. Remember soundtrack videos. Remember? They may never come this way again.

2. Wardrobe expenditures are crazy. The amount of money spent on clothes is nuts. On some clips (Christina Aguilera, Manson) the specific wardrobe is key but on a Semisonic clip? You know the $600 belt buckle ended up in the stylist’s private collection or she “returned” it for a bit of cash.

3. No one saw the video. When you meld properties – a movie, a soundtrack CD and a video – you magnify the potential reward AND the downside. In the glory days of soundtracks, the rising tide of synergy raised all boats. But if even one of the pieces goes wrong, it can damage all of them. Three helium balloons tied together help the whole float high, replace just one balloon with an anvil – and the two balloons are now decorations for the relentlessly earth-bound hunk of steel. Anvil, thy name is Freddie.

4. The silliness of the language in treatments and pitches is truly stunning. Slichter is right to be annoyed that he had to read the same buzz words over and over again – but he wasn’t in the meeting where the label people repeatedly jabbered those buzz words like Tourette’s ridden parrots to the directors and production cos which led to them being regurgitated right back to the label/band in the director’s concept. Aah, creativity.

5. Chris Applebaum has a funny voice.

The ‘other’ side of the process is always fascinating.

Please forward along a link to the video for Semisonics “Over My Head” if you find it. I had no luck.

Labels: insider, music video, prod co, video link

First up, this guy DID win “last year's overall CIPS Supply Management Award” which sounds so Straight-outta-Slough I can barely wrap my head around it. So he is “good” at his job, which apparently entails being a major tool.

Check out the photo accompanying the fawning article, he seems to be auditioning for the BBC version of “The Shield.” He is Bob Brimson and he is the guy that makes sure Universal UK spends as little as possible on everything. Now I certainly understand that record labels are businesses and they want to save money – just like I try to save cash by drinking Keystone beer instead of the pricey MGD.

I understand why Bob’s job exists, and there are probably people like this in the States as well. I also get that this article is from a trade paper and is written for purchasing types who must see dude’s gig as “sexy” – he does know Terrence Trent D’Arby. Reading this you might feel like a cow discovering a copy of “Slaughterhouse and Butchering Illustrated” – but it is not meant to be taken personally. All this being said –

He is not wrong. Check out this quote:

"The creative industry is shrouded in mystery because it suits them," he says. "But it's all baloney. When it comes to managing spend in creative services, it's about calling their bluff. Once you hear a creative person going on about creative integrity, that's when they are losing the argument."

I think that is completely true. No one should ever negotiate on the basis of creative integrity. If the label wants to cut out the steadi cam, three hours of shooting or the post effects – they need to understand that the video will look LESS good because of the budget cuts. It is not about the director’s feelings or integrity – it is about the video being the best it can be. If they want to spend less, it is their dollar - just convince them why it is not in their best interest to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Using "creative integrity" and other artist-speak on business types is about as effective as I was in high-school trying to impress cheerleaders by explaining how to roll-up a new Halfling Thief character with Agility +1.

The charismatic and enticing Brimson – or people or policies like him – are everywhere in today’s MV marketplace. Lots of prod cos took advantage of videos being a seller’s market for years – and soaked the labels in the process. This dude is their revenge.

Read the article and try not to think in terms of how it “should” be – but rather think of the way it IS. It makes it sound like commissioning an exciting new video is about as creative as ordering reams of paper – but the commissioning and budget negotiations aren’t supposed to be the cool, creative part – the video is. So deal with a guy like this, get the monetary ducks in a row and make a killer video. Just try not to laugh when he tells you how he partied with Mott The Hoople.

Bob Brimson profile from supplymanagement.com

Labels: label, music video, prod co

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Derelicte!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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