Music Videos?

lanz

lanz

Member
If we are able to get together, I am going to be shooting some music video's with a local rock band later in the summer. They have self-produced their own CD and are touring at select West and East coast cities on their own dime.

Can anyone give me advice of what they (or I) can do with them when completed? Is there any avenue to gain notoriety for small-band music video's? They are talking about eventually selling a DVD, but I don't know how that would realistically work.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Lanz
 
Music videos are usually done as part of the marketing of a band and paid for as such by the record label. From the production side - it is considered a work for hire where the label own all rights to the video once completed.

Of course everyone is negotiable and you could work out a deal to keep all rights to the video (not the song) and be able to negotiate with a label if picked up. Of course there is always the chance that the label just goes and makes their own video of the song.

Another deal would be to share expenses on budget and split revenues for the DVD sales down the road as long as you feel they and you can properly track the sales. In most cases, get the money up front and keep the video for your reel to get the next job.

Perhaps others here have had other experiences?

Michael
 
MichaelP said:
Music videos are usually done as part of the marketing of a band and paid for as such by the record label.
Michael
Click to expand...

Actually the band pays for the music video, the limos and everything else. The record company bills the band for everything it does including the music video. Record companies are like lawyers, nothing is free. Reminds me, I remember some years ago we were doing a music video for a guy named Duncan Sheik. He was quite the person taking four hours to do what ever it was he was doing in his trailer in between takes. I remember the director finally saying, hey it's his money, let him spend all day in there.
 
Odds are good you will work harder and get paid a lot less than you should for such a project. Going into it knowing that is key. As you can see by my posts on many topics here, I am not going to glorify relaity. If you think anything else, I'll bet you $100 bucks its incorrect. That said, I think the back-end deal is nice but I can tell you from experience you will see little to nothing. If the band gets a real record contract, even then your video will be cast aside so you will get nothing. My suggestion is to get as much as you can upfront and do the best work you can and have it for your reel. The band obviously doesn't have much but who says you need a lot. A good concept can produce wonders.

I worked for Chrysalis, Atlantic, Virgin, Sony and Arista records for many years and have seen this scenario time and again so I'd say forget promises, get whatever you can and do the best you can. I worked on music videos for years, even was responsible for quality control for four years for some of the record companies I just mentioned, and if you are old enough remember a show on NBC I made called Friday Night Videos which was the first network music video program that ran in the eighties. Music videos can be a blast and the final product very rewarding so I'd say go into this more as an artists than a businessman.
 
Make sure the band adds barcodes to the DVD so you can track sales that way. There are also a lot of small market cable outlets and perhaps some shows on various PBS stations across the country that may play your videos on their programs.
 
I've done a couple of music vid's for some local DC bands, my own included. Most local bands don't have money to pay you. The best you can hope for is that you'll get a nice finished product for your reel. Put it on your website. Chances are the band won't make it beyond where they are now anyway. Not to sound harsh but seriously, for every great band that we all know and love there are hundreds more who never really make it beyond the level your guys are on now. Of course you never know...

But I'd concentrate more on making a good video and having a good time doing it.
 
Thanks everyone, all good advice.

For this job, it's mostly experience only...but they are a good band and I am still hopeful that something will happen for them.

They gave me free rein to let me use their music for a short that I recently completed, so I kind of want to help them out. Combine that with the fact that I have never really done a video (yet), and I definately don't expect to make money at this point.
 
Qc?

Qc?

Walter_Graff said:
I worked on music videos for years, even was responsible for quality control for four years for some of the record companies I just mentioned, and if you are old enough remember a show on NBC I made called Friday Night Videos which was the first network music video program that ran in the eighties.
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Yes, unfortunately, I am old enough to remember FNV.

WALTER:
I am fascinated by this concept of Quality Control for a record company. Is this the quality of the music, videos, records and tapes that get sold, or what?

Lanz
 
QUality control meant that any video made by these companies had to be viewed by me on a waveform and vectorscope to make sure levels were between 7.5 and 100, that the vertical blanking was 21 microfarads and the horizontal blanking was between 10.6 and 11.2 microfarads. These are the only conditions that make any video you watch broadcast legal. One the series I am producing now for the Fine Living Channel, I send my masters to a QC house in Los Angeles and they send me a report of broadcast problems. Most all programs you watch on Tv are QC'ed before airing. Here is a portion of a QC report:

http://www.bluesky-web.com/qc.jpg
 
So what do you do when they tell you there is a problem? Is it fixed in your NLE or would you have to re-shoot? Can you use the Waveform and Vectorscope in your NLE to do this?
 
The purpose of QC is not to tell you about problems as much as its about telling you things you missed. In other words its not bad as it is more helping you. A 30 minute program has over 30,000 lines of an EDL so there is plenty that you might need help with. Mostly its levels above 100 or color over spec, and sometimes picture size that changes making it not broadcast legal, or hits on a tape, etc. Very simply when a report is sent back I throw up the timeline and make the appropriate adjustments.
 
Interesting. So the whole point of it is to make absolutely sure that for the most part your content will be correctly displayed to the audience that's recieving it? I could probably benefit from this alot. Any way to do it myself in my NLE without sending it to a "QC house"?
 
Thats why its called quality control. :) Sure you can do it, thats what I did for four years for the record companies. Today though they use a computer made by Tectronix to do it which kind of sucks because sometimes it finds things I don't really care about. All you have to do is learn how to use a waveform and vectorscope. Sorry to say you can't use the one that comes with FCP because that scope has nothing to do with the outside world. You need a scope outside the computer between its output and the deck you record to.
 
do you usually take an analog out from the computer to the waveform/vectorscope? I assume the Tektronix unit would handle all of that digitally, but I am sure its a little out of my reach both technologically and financially. Does anyone use an oscilliscope for anything video/audio related? Because I've got 2 of them that aren't doing anything right now...
 
Walter_Graff said:
and if you are old enough remember a show on NBC I made called Friday Night Videos which was the first network music video program that ran in the eighties.
Click to expand...

What did you do on "Friday Night Videos," Walter?
 
Lighting, camera, ran the studio, audio, worked on the edit -pretty much the entire show. It was a small production we did in a 25x25 insert stage I built. David Benjamin who was the exec producer had a great scheme, looked up what was hot on the charts and played the videos. he made a hell of a lot of money with someone named Lou DelPrete for not putting much into it.
 
Not really, those credits are both incorrect and lacking in many areas. Gary Considine might have worked for NBC but he didn't produce the program I worked on or maybe in the end when I no longer worked on it and the two guys who started it left. It was produced for NBC not by NBC until the last two years when they moved it to LA. That website you link to shows about 2 dozen programs and films I worked on but am not listed in the credits. Credits are for ego anyway, they do noting for you and mean little to me.
 
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