Get your music video on iTunes.....How?

Dillon Novak

Dillon Novak

Well-known member
I completed a music video for my client Brightwood about 4 months ago. I sent the video to tunecore because they are so great and recommended when it comes to bands getting their music up there. The video was released June 15th 2009 and was sent to Tunecore's facilities on the 28th on that same month. It says that it takes 4-8 weeks at the most to process the video and have it up on itunes. My video was lost in the mail and i had to resend it July 13th and they received it on the 15th. They apologized for the inconvenience and "flagged" the video for rush delivery and said they would let me know when it was up. I still have not heard any word from them, they just ignore my emails when i ask. I can't imagine what kind of wait someone has to go through with out the being "flagged" for rush delivery.


But alas this is.....okay i guess. I will wait for that video patiently.....But i have a really big client's video coming up and i NEED the video to be up on iTunes ASAP once the video is done because a lot of sales depend on it.


Who do i go through? Just as Tunecore claims we would like full royalties and rights to our video. Other than the 50 cents iTunes already takes.

For tunecore it is 85 bucks for a video under 5 min. I would not mind at all to pay more for it to get up there really fast.


Does anybody know how we can do this? Re-cooperating our financial losses really depend on revenue of this video...thank you!!
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In my experience, TuneCore is pretty much your only real option unless your artist is already signed to a major.

I hope you aren't counting on recouping your production costs this way. Music videos should be treated like commercials from a business perspective. The client is effectively buying an ad for their band. Ideally, they should have already paid for the video and they would receive any royalties from it unless you had an up-front agreement for points.
 
I paid for the first music video entirely out of my savings, worked for free, and the band and i agreed to split the income from iTunes for both of our benefits.

This upcoming video i am also paying for a large majority and working for free again.
So there was no buying on the band's part in either scenarios, i just would like to regain some money so i can continue to do this for bands.
 
Just asking, but do people really pay to download a music video? As fishops said, the video is a marketing tool for the song itself. Just curious as to who has bought videos, how much they paid for it, how many they have bought, etc. Just curious. I know I never have, but that is a data point of one.

Michael
 
Your reel is good dude, that's a lot of production value to be giving away for free. Is this a hobby kinda thing?
 
music videos are great things, before iTunes came around i seriously doubt that anyone bought music videos. But if you like a band you're very likely to buy their music videos. Especially my generation. Before i got into film i bought over 80 music videos from iTunes. It is appealing because they have the full quality music videos that you love and you can put them on your iPod and watch them wherever you go.

MichaelP said:
Just asking, but do people really pay to download a music video? As fishops said, the video is a marketing tool for the song itself. Just curious as to who has bought videos, how much they paid for it, how many they have bought, etc. Just curious. I know I never have, but that is a data point of one.

Michael
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fishops said:
Your reel is good dude, that's a lot of production value to be giving away for free. Is this a hobby kinda thing?
Click to expand...

thank you, as of right now it's still pretty much for free. I just have these big ideas that require a big budget and if the band can't afford it I just help them out of money i make from wedding videos. In exchange we both get a great video and We both get more exposure for really no money on their part. So i'm slowly getting a lot more clients, and i'm almost to the point of working with band's signed, so when that happens the label will foot the bill. :)

but till then it's just what i love to do, and i have no problem spending my money to do what i love!
 
Dillon Novak said:
thank you, as of right now it's still pretty much for free. I just have these big ideas that require a big budget and if the band can't afford it I just help them out of money i make from wedding videos. In exchange we both get a great video and We both get more exposure for really no money on their part. So i'm slowly getting a lot more clients, and i'm almost to the point of working with band's signed, so when that happens the label will foot the bill. :)

but till then it's just what i love to do, and i have no problem spending my money to do what i love!
Click to expand...

Gotta add my $.02 worth, thinking it's unlikely that one makes a lot of money off of retail sales of music videos. IMHO they're more marketing tools, getting the bands airplay on MTV etc in order to sell the music itself. OR perhaps you give away the video as a bouns track when somone purchases the entire CD or downloads it. Video iPods not withstanding, music is still an audial rather than visual medium for the most part, listened to while doing something else (like driving) with one's eyes. The customers for your work are the labels distributing the music, not the purchasers of the songs.
 
Agreed. Music videos, which I love (and love directing), are still commercials, basically, they're more artistic commercials potentially (not most of the mainstream crap...), but still commercials. They are interesting in that they are both ads for the band, and a product in and of themselves -- they contain, after all, the entire song, which is the product. So they are kind of an oddity. But not usually something that you purchase.

I have bought several music videos, here and there, because I wanted a high quality version. I'm not very satisfied with the quality you get on most of them at iTunes, however. Their version of HD is not HD, I'm sorry. It's very compressed large resolution, sure, but it's not HD. A House episode is like 1.2 gigs for 42 minutes? Makes no sense. It should be about 10 gigs at least. That's why there's not much future in the idea of movies just being downloaded and stored like songs, IMO, because a Blu-ray disc holds 50 gigs at least, and my movies actually look great, real HD, not this fake compressed garbage you see on iTunes.
 
these don't answer my question....the band NEEDS it on itunes.....i still need to know how to get it on there other than tunecore.....i understand that they are commercial and advertisement for the band...
 
Dillion Keep us posted, we would really like to know too...



Curious do they request any copies of your pre production forms ( talent release, locations release, etc.. ) ?



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I'm a little late to this convo, but I think you and the band are missing out on a decent opportunity.

Where do people discover this band? It isn't iTunes largely. You'll never get the promo push from them that you need for people to even watch a video, not to mention pay for it.

I know it cost you a bundle to produce, but I don't think you can count on a music video on iTunes even coming remotely close to paying you back. I know someone who has worked with a really well known indie band. He's paid for most of the videos he has produced for them, and on some occasions the band will kick in or have some money from the label. Point being, put into what you can afford and never expect money back directly from it. If you're trying to get work in videography it can help you get more work as a reel piece.

Using blip.tv you can create a video podcast that is submitted directly to iTunes. I would suggest creating a video 'podcast' for the band. You'd want more than just one music video, but you can easily do some short band interviews, bts of the music video shoot, etc. Throw in some live videos of the band playing, rehearsing, etc. and you can have enough content to push out over a few months.

That being said, the majority of the traffic you'll get will be from the band's site or myspace page, etc. The videos are something, I feel personally, that you use to keep your core fans engaged as they're the ones that will give you the word of mouth you need.

I haven't had a problem getting a podcast listed, it's really easy and with blip you can also post mp3's to the podcast as well.

I always take free and now over 85 bucks and waiting forever.
 
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