Unofficial music videos

Say you write a script. Somebody comes along who has never made a film before and is looking for something really great so he can 'make a name for himself' in the business. He decides he likes your script, so he makes a film from it -- without your permission and without paying you a cent for your script. And since word is out that the film is being made, you have a much harder time selling your script to anyone else -- thus taking money out of your pocket.

Are you okay with that?

In an earlier post or two somewhere up the line, somebody said they didn't think the artists cared if people copied their music or not. They talked about asking the artists if it was okay to do an 'unofficial video'. So let's put that into terms relative to what we do. You make a movie. You sell your movie to a distributor outright. Now, do you have the right to give a 3rd party permission to copy and distribute your movie? No you don't. Your movie belongs to the distributor now. It doesn't matter whether YOU think it's fine for someone to bootleg it or not -- it's not your decision.

You can do things the right way or you can do them the wrong way. It's your choice.

.
 
Last edited:
There is one film group I know who got really famous by doing unofficial music videos to famous songs. The popularity of these songs (and the videos by extension) drove traffic to their site and net them a huge fan base around the country. This gave them a considerable present in the industry and allowed them to make a tidy profit self-distributing their first feature film. In essence, they have a built in audience for whatever they make now, which is a huge advantage when approaching investors.

Their talent not withstanding (they do make good movies), there's a part of me that wondered if their success has been built on the back of the artists whose songs they used at the beginning. This more than anything else drove me away from doing covers on popular songs and it's what I've considered unethical about it. People like to do music vids of popular songs because it gets them a lot of views on Youtube and such. There's a built-in appeal to those songs that'll allow your work to immediately get noticed. If this film group has started making music videos of local bands, they'll most likely still be unknowns struggling to get noticed like the rest of us. My position is that do those music vids only as practice, but don't put them online or distribute them unless it's part of a reel; you're basically using the artist's prestige to enhance your own work and that's unethical.
 
Lynos said:
ToTheBlack. but you did put it online. That was the the whole intention behind that idea of mine. not to release it commercially anywhere. Not even submit to festivals.

In any case, it's on hold right now. I got the wind knocked out of my sails a little bit. I wasn't really able to find a local artist that a)interest me musically and b) needs someone to do videos for them, and to tell you the truth, MySpace is a really annoying, cluttered, ugly website.

Perhaps I am too picky. Do you think music video directors do videos ONLY to music they like? I think it's important if you want your piece to have some kind of heart.
Click to expand...

MySpace really does suck. It has to be the worst designed, worst run big Website in existence. Half of the time I go there some sort of server error occurs, or my favorite a profile is "under maintenance." That makes NO SENSE at all, a profile cannot be under maintenance. A whole area of the site, maybe, but not one individual profile. It's just stupid. In all of my many years using Facebook none of this crap happens because it's a REAL Website, built for expansion, programmed extremely well, that just works. MySpace doesn't work at all.

And, I agree with you, you do need to like the music to want to make a video for it in my opinion. Granted, if you were being paid enough, you'd probably be able to make an exception. But for me at least, since music videos are not a highly paid craft anymore (*sigh* it's sad, really), I have to love the music to want to do anything for it.

I can really be moved by the right song, though. This local Hollywood group, Madison Paige, is amazing in my opinion. They've had some problems lately I guess, but they were interested in me doing a music video for them about six months ago, and I've recently gotten back in touch, really hoping to make them a video for this one song they used to have up, Time and Time Again, which I honestly think is one of the best rock songs I've heard in the last ten years. No joke. I just love that song. I've probably heard it 50 times, maybe 100, at first to come up with a concept because we were in talks about the video, and then just because I loved it so much. Even though at this point I don't need to pay for music videos to put on my reel, I think my music video reel is plenty good enough to get work if I am presented with the right opportunity (so now it's more about that...), but I love the song so much that even if it was a year from now and I have an even larger reel, I still will make this music video for free, out of pocket, because I don't care. The song is that good and I feel it just deserves a great video. And more than that I feel I must be the one to make the video for that song, like somehow the song is so good it would be a privilege to do even if I pay for it. It's very weird, I've never felt that way before about a song, but there you have it.
 
Hey Jonathan

I listened to a few songs by Madison Paige (even though it meant using MySpace again...), I couldn't find the song you were talking about, but they do have a good sound. I hope you'll get to make your video.

If I find a song I really like by some local indie band or artist which doesn't have anyone already making videos for them, I wouldn't hesitate dropping them a line.
 
Lynos said:
Hey Jonathan

I listened to a few songs by Madison Paige (even though it meant using MySpace again...), I couldn't find the song you were talking about, but they do have a good sound. I hope you'll get to make your video.

If I find a song I really like by some local indie band or artist which doesn't have anyone already making videos for them, I wouldn't hesitate dropping them a line.
Click to expand...

Hey, yeah, Time and Time Again was taken off their MySpace page (?) in maybe late March or April, and I don't know why. It could be because they intend to put it on the CD release and decided against having it available for free on MySpace. I think that's actually it because they were testing songs to see what their fans thought of them, and whether they'd ultimately make the CD. Since that is the song they wanted a music video for, I doubt they just decided to take it down because they didn't like it, haha, at least I hope not. If that's the case I'm going to arrange a way to get that song! lol. I'm annoyed I can't listen to it now because it's so good, and it's weird not being able to access a song you want to hear, at all.

I'm sure we'll be able to work together in the future, but they are sorting out some issues for the time being.
 
they are good for excercise, but it's like putting the score of man on fire to your next short film, it will be cool sounding, but you can't do anything with it.
 
I think it depends on your intentions. If you do it for fun or as an exercise, I don't see what's wrong with it.

If you're trying to sell it afterwards, you might have issues getting the license for the music.
 
You also cannot put it on the web -- YouTube, etc. You can't show it publicly. You can't give away copies. If you do it basically for your own entertainment and practice, that's passable. But you can't use it for anything without violating the copyright.
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
Say you write a script. Somebody comes along who has never made a film before and is looking for something really great so he can 'make a name for himself' in the business. He decides he likes your script, so he makes a film from it -- without your permission and without paying you a cent for your script. And since word is out that the film is being made, you have a much harder time selling your script to anyone else -- thus taking money out of your pocket.

Are you okay with that?

.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty ambivalent about certain things. One of them is the Big Business called The Studios or The Music Industry.

In your example, if I had the choice between seeing my work paid for, developed into a film, and seen on the big screens, and the film so successful that the film actually made money by anyone's accounting... sure you do have a point.

However, in the case of The Industry vs. a complete unknown, as long as My Name Here was given for the screen play, I may even go along with program, given that even if a script is sold to a studio it can languish in Development until everyone who ever knew of the script is long dead.

So, if having some indie filmmaker make a film while the studios pick fur out of their butt in Development, perhaps that would lead to quicker development, rather than languish.

The second grounds for my ambivalence, is that The Industry often does not 'see' a potential until it kicks them in the ass. Some Bean Counter does an Excel spreadsheet, and it shows that for a given market there is no realistic ROI on doing project X, whether X is my script, (given that my script ever got to the top of the heap to be even bought and put into development), or X is some group's music.

The third grounds is for films already taken to some form of distributable format, but again because company X's Bean Counters don't see a market, the film is no longer available.

The fourth ground is that once a particular work is finished and in distribution, except for certain cases most of the residuals do not go to the original makers or creative people, but to Bean Counters, who in general, as the WGA strike should have no interest except when hit over the head, in 'distributing the wealth' to the original talent, and try as best they can to reduce any initial pay for work, and only grudgingly give out money when they can't seem to find any way around that obsticle.

In the case of the Music Industry the Industry has had a long history of screwing talent out of any profits their music may have, or any residuals for the long life that music may have in the market. Of course there are contracts with the artists, and for a few bucks, maybe a few years of enough bucks for a high life... many musicians are tossed as soon as possible rather than the Industry pouring more money in.

So, if someone takes some particular musicians or groups works, puts them to some video, I pretty much say more power to them, and especially if such works rise above the noise and give a wider audience than the musician or group otherwise would have had, given the lack of interest on the part of The Industry to do so.

The only way that a Studio or Music Company can really "apologize" for not doing right by the talent is to send out an army of Pennsylvania Lawyers to send out C&D letters or even initiate law suits. That seems cheaper than actually promoting the talent directly.

Of course in case that the resulting movie from the script or music is schlock... heck then send out the attorney army to detach your name from the infringement...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top