sureality

I have literally spent over 12 hours straight this week battling with various music labels and management companies on the phone.

The Music Business is dying.

Let me start at the beginning. Remember when MTV started doing Spring Break? The Tiki Hut, MTV sports, the Real World, Roads Rules? This is where the death of music videos begins. Like a slight tremor before the tsunami, MTV's change in format and focus on original programming cut into and eventually replaced the time slots for music videos effecting prime time advertising for artists and the companies behind them. This happened at the peak for videos, millions of dollars spent on Guns and Roses trilogy, Michael Jackson and Janet were floating in a multi-million dollar space ship, and bands like NIN and Marilyn Manson were creating classic art pieces. A time where low budgets where in the 100,000 dollar range and if you were a music video director, well you made a living. A really good living.

All this stopped around 2006.

MTV's line-up was all Bunim/Murry reality dramas, the videos became restricted to top countdown shows like TRL which never played the whole clip, and then.....MP3's.

We all have done it with Napster, Tourrent, Limewire. Why go buy a $15 album when you can just find it for free on the internet. Fuck paying for it, the business behind music is a monster anyway, bring it down right?

Well....maybe. But lets explain who that actually effects.

Is that fat slimy business man forced to sell his 5 boats and go on a diet? No. Does the gold teeth grinning ex con with death threat negotiation skills have to pawn off his bling bling? Nope. Do the bands make less cash in pocket? Not really. Let me explain.

Band's make their money on shows and merch. The lack in sales effects the business.

Certain record companies have been closing down entire floors of employees in the A&R, media and promotions departments. "So what? What do they do anyway?" Well I ask myself that often but these folks are usually responsible for things like album cover art, photo promotion, and media creation. Entire departments in charge of creating, maintaining, and stimulating the image of a band are being shut down.

Whats the big deal right? I mean its the bands that decide how they look and what the work should be sold as. Well sometimes yes, on rare occasions, but most of the time not. Most of the bands we all love, bands like the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, Ozzy, Madonna,ect ect exist in our minds because of how they were marketed to us. That comes from the business side and usually a group of creatives who work with the artist to create a package and press plan for the artist. Do you know that most of the time when you hear someone say that the guitar on the album is technically amazing, or that the band used to sleep in their van, or that the kid was a prodigy at 15. All those facts were, exploited, sometimes manufactured, written, and released to the press by the PR departments.

We love to spout what we read in magazines to others over beers, or rattle off useless facts while a song is playing, and if you are lucky enough to read it before your friends, they look at you and say whoa..."look who knows a lot about music!"

But the truth is, most of us don't.

We weren't riding on the bus in the early days with Metallica, we have no idea if Madonna really likes to fuck her dancers after a show, and what was going on in Ozzy's head when he bit that bat. We read about it and we regurgitate these story's because they are told to us in a perfectly cleaver way. This is how you take these artists and turn them into superstars.

Here is a personal example. We shot a music video for Sick of it All were the concept was centered around the band being arrested. We wanted to further fuel the tough guy image. The label then spun a story that a new york band was arrested in Boston while filming a video. We were getting calls from local news hounds asking for statements the next day. It's ridiculous, it works, and I condone it because we all love that shit.

Now sure there have been films made about the artists and if you dig deep enough you can get past the manufactured pieces to the true stories. When you do, you find that most of the time these artists are just regular folks dealing with money issues, trying to be creative and feed a machine, and dealing with how living on a tour bus is trashing their lives. Watch the Flaming Lips doc or even that Metallica film has moments.

That is fascinating and all, and sometimes works with the stigma of an artist and their music, but wouldn't you rather watch Johnny Cash play on a stage in from of prisoners? Or Slash kick open the doors of a church and solo in front of a helicopter. Michael Jackson break dancing with zombies. All these moments that took great musicians and made them more. Made them icons, gods, rock stars. That was done by the buisness.

That was created by the artist behind the artists. The management, the photographers, the graphic artists, the music video directors.

These people are now starving, scrambling, being exploited, and trying to hold onto the rails of a sinking ship.

This brings me back to my past few weeks, my past few months, really my years as a music video director and photographer. When ever a bid on a job or when I'm approached by an artist I hear this:

"We need to create something new, something fresh, something that will expand our audience. We want to seem bigger more iconic. Take the energy of our performance and just turn it up. We want to look cool."

Perfect. that's my job, and I'm good at it. I love creating an image, and flexing my muscles as an artist. I'll nail this for you.

Now comes the second part that I hear every time, verbatim, as if there is a "how to talk to music video directors" packet that is handed out to artists and labels:

- We are dealing with a budget lower than you are used to.
- Since MTV doesn't play videos we don't reach as many fans so we don't pay as much for videos.
- It's a great opportunity for you and you will get massive exposure to a huge audience (that line always comes after the one before it somehow)
- This is a change for you to try out those ideas you have always had, all those creative bits that you have always wanted to do, as long as you do what the artist wants of course.
- We are also talking to at least 10 other directors so we want the best idea and the lowest bid wins. Good luck!
- Oh no we don't pay for treatments by the way, and if you happen to see us use one in the future that looks like your but is directed by the drummers best friend, well that's not your idea..we thought of it first.

The management , labels, and even more disappointingly, the bands are taking advantage of these artists now. They know the business is in flux, and they are looking to get as much as they can with out paying for it.

Big deal right? That's American business. Go with it or be trampled right? You still make good money.

Lets talk numbers for a second.

As a music video director the rule of thumb is that you generally make 20% of the videos budget. That being said here are some numbers:

in 1993 the estimated budget for Guns and Roses Estranged video is 4 million. That's estimated and probably embellished so let's scale that back to 2 Million.

in 2006 the budget on a POD video was about $150,000.

Guess how much money we were offered this week to direct a video for a band who was on TRL.

The closest guess gets a high five.

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PS. I rant because the death is fascinating. The more I work in the business the more I understand how my hero's were created. I also help to warn those of you hoping to get into this business. If you guys won't more from this rant...let me know.