$3000. (now what is 20% of that?)
That was the number offered the other day. I don't want to pretend that this was some strange special case, or some rare circumstance. It was just the icing on the cake of a long few months of constant trouble from the business that has resulted on us either loosing or passing on over 30 music videos!
So the usual budget has been around $5000 - $10,000 dollars for most videos. If you look at our work and take that into consideration you will see why we get a lot of calls directly from artists. They still want pieces that make them seem bigger and badder than ever. Our work does that. They unfortunately haven't really looked at the reality of the situation which is that the label's don't want to spend that money on them. Why?
Well the downloading is a huge factor, but we will get back to that soon.
The biggest factor is that music videos do not sell songs. Well not directly anyway. They create an image for the artist and that actually sells concert tickets. This is the biggest reason why we are often put on a ridiculously high speed deadline to finish a project and release it before the artists tour(we were once told that we had to write, shoot, fly out to film, edit, and do special effects in 7 days!). An awesome video can be used to promote a show. People still buy tickets. The labels don't make money from the shows, maybe in some trickle down way it helps sell songs, but shows make loot for the management and artists. So why the hell would the label want to flip the full bill for music videos. Hell, I wouldn't do it.
Now the artists, being the artists, living in the dream world that is the rock and roll, feel entitled to certain things. They don't feel that promotion for them should come out of their share. They also sometimes feel that if you are "awarded" the chance to work with them it should be for free, or heavily discounted because they are "big shit" in their world. Honestly the one thing that does live up to the rumors about this business is that most artists are conceded babies lost in the bullshit that is sold to them. Granted there are amazing exceptions to this, and I love these artists, but most and mostly the young ones need to wake up.
Also take a peek at the big bad ass videos coming out these days. The money is in Pop and hip hop, and the reason is that the artists are flipping the bill. Lady Gaga, Kanye West, they pay for there image, their own music videos. Smart.
Someone also mentioned OK GO's cheap videos. These guys are fantastic, and the treadmill video is amazing. It also took hours of practicing and testing. But still cheap. They shot it themselves. Now look at their follow-ups. They cant do all treadmill videos, but they need to keep the dyi aesthetic. They also need to excite. Look at "this too shall pass" that video is stunning and cheap right? Wrong. It's cheap because they got sponsors and convinced a team of engineers to work for cheep. Guess how many times they had to do that, and how much did all the stuff cost? Again with the "I'm a rock star gimmi free stuff". If I had written that treatment for another band it would cost a fortune. Look at their video for "White Knuckles". They were cleaver teaming up with the MSPCA for that which I'm sure got them massive discounts, maybe even donated funds to do that video. Let me put the cost of trained animals in perspective for you. On our Fear Factory video the cost for the trainer and two dogs was $1600 for 8 hours. That includes travel, door to door for the dogs!
Just because something is shot to look like its cheap doesn't mean it is. Actually the detail of what camera you use, and the format, is usually the least expensive part of the production. It's funny how people argue over the cost savings of film over video, Red vs DSLR, when the expensive and most important shit is what you are filming. Here are some prices for you to think about:
- Wardrobe person costs between $300 - $400 per day. Just cause you have one day of shooting doesn't mean you will only have to spend that. You have to pay them to shop, to fit, and to return the clothes.
- A detail police man costs between $45 - $65 per hour for a shoot day. That day means 8 hours. Anything over that is overtime and triple time, and you need them to get permits for shooting in some places.
- To get a permit to shoot out in the middle of the desert costs around $1200. It also takes the office about two weeks to track down the actual owners of the land and get their permission first. I know what you are saying, just shoot it. We were shut down at 2 am in the middle of the desert with a permit! Promise your client to deliver without a permit and go to sleep that night.
- We haven't even mentioned things like insurance, workers comp, liability costs ect.
Ok you got all that stuff, sweet pull out your consumer camera and roll action!
So here we are sitting in the middle of a "who's paying for what" war on the deck of a sinking ship, and we are only humoring it because it's rent time this month. I end up hanging up a call filled with arguments, threats, and just pure ridiculousness, and asking myself isn't the world of music video directing grand? I wish it stopped there but it doesn't. We then get to deal with our outside clients and fans.
The rule of thumb in our business is that you are only as good as your last image, and if it's been too long, well you must suck at it. So we tend to be judged often by the audience who doesn't know how much the budget was, or care about the working conditions. They watch it in 3 minutes, form and opinion, and that's that. Now I'm not blaming the audience for this, it's always been that way, this is just a stress of ours whenever we take a job. Whenever some client tells me I cannot afford a lighting team, or when they say we can't afford the props, costume, or locations. Fix it in post, but there is no post budget. More often than not a video falls completely on you as a director, forcing you to learn how to edit, how to do make-up, how the hell to use after effects, for the simple fact that you can't get people to do it for free anymore.
Now sure I could sit here and wait for that perfect budget to come along, but literally years will go by before you see new work from me. So we are trying to think on our toes, come up with treatments, ideas that can be done by two or three people, effects that are done in camera, it's like finger painting a comic book in kindergarten. Now we have been able to pull it off, to trick the audience into thinking that its bigger and more expensive than it actually was. that's great right? Well no, because no matter how you try there will always be something that falls apart a bit, something that didn't work as well, or look as good, but all our work got it to 80%. The problem is that our piece has graduated to the 5th grade and is then judged again the pieces created in the 5th grade, on more money, with larger crews, and we are dogged for our short comings. These issues are then associated with the director. That's frustrating.
I'm not tying to sound like a whiner here guys, this is just one of those realities that runs through your brain when you are offered $3000 for a major act. The truth is that you will be shooting that artists cheapest video, a video that will end up on a DVD or a play list up against the other bigger and badder videos, and the fans will say who did this?!
When someone asks me "why don't you sleep?" I give them two reasons. I was in love once, and I am a director.
Ok to get back to the downloading for a second. This is a real touchy conversation for most, and one, as you can see, that comes with a lot of opinions. Everyone one has theories on why the business is failing, and how the labels should have grasped onto technology, and how over priced music is and was. That may all be true, but most of the time when I hear these reasons I feel like its a mental side road leading you and themselves from the most obvious destination.
We stole from the business. We are thieves. Plain and simple.
Just like those guys who were breaking windows and taking TV's after the hurricane.
We saw a chance and took it. Hell some continue to do so. I used to work in a music store as a kid, and we would deal with shoplifters all the time. Kids would come in and take a CD here, or a DVD there and the system was built to handle that. But when the organized guys would do it and walk out with trash bags of inventory, that would shut down stores. The asshole who created Napster loves to shout, "I changed the music industry!". Yes you did you fuck, you killed thousands of jobs, American jobs. What is our biggest export? Entertainment. His actions didn't put the CEO's of music companies out on the street, or the sleazy management guys out of a job, it puts the little businesses out of work. In my short sightedness I literally put my dream job out of business.
We never think of consequences in this country. Why should we, we aren't trained to. It's get as much as you can, and if you are full, fuck it get more, because you can. I'm gonna apply for a loan for this huge house, I know I can't afford the payments, but fuck it I just won't pay. I'm gonna make sure I blow my every last dime on a new i-phone and a laptop, I can't afford rent or food, but I do have a kid so fuck it I'll go on assisted living. I'm gonna download this music or movies because it costs too much to buy, and they make way too much money. Besides everyone is doing it so fuck it. There are consequences folks. It doesn't seem like much at first, but our actions do change things around us, and one day when you ask why do all videos suck these days, or I spend 70,000 on film school tuition and can't get a job, its because of the actions of us all.
That was the number offered the other day. I don't want to pretend that this was some strange special case, or some rare circumstance. It was just the icing on the cake of a long few months of constant trouble from the business that has resulted on us either loosing or passing on over 30 music videos!
So the usual budget has been around $5000 - $10,000 dollars for most videos. If you look at our work and take that into consideration you will see why we get a lot of calls directly from artists. They still want pieces that make them seem bigger and badder than ever. Our work does that. They unfortunately haven't really looked at the reality of the situation which is that the label's don't want to spend that money on them. Why?
Well the downloading is a huge factor, but we will get back to that soon.
The biggest factor is that music videos do not sell songs. Well not directly anyway. They create an image for the artist and that actually sells concert tickets. This is the biggest reason why we are often put on a ridiculously high speed deadline to finish a project and release it before the artists tour(we were once told that we had to write, shoot, fly out to film, edit, and do special effects in 7 days!). An awesome video can be used to promote a show. People still buy tickets. The labels don't make money from the shows, maybe in some trickle down way it helps sell songs, but shows make loot for the management and artists. So why the hell would the label want to flip the full bill for music videos. Hell, I wouldn't do it.
Now the artists, being the artists, living in the dream world that is the rock and roll, feel entitled to certain things. They don't feel that promotion for them should come out of their share. They also sometimes feel that if you are "awarded" the chance to work with them it should be for free, or heavily discounted because they are "big shit" in their world. Honestly the one thing that does live up to the rumors about this business is that most artists are conceded babies lost in the bullshit that is sold to them. Granted there are amazing exceptions to this, and I love these artists, but most and mostly the young ones need to wake up.
Also take a peek at the big bad ass videos coming out these days. The money is in Pop and hip hop, and the reason is that the artists are flipping the bill. Lady Gaga, Kanye West, they pay for there image, their own music videos. Smart.
Someone also mentioned OK GO's cheap videos. These guys are fantastic, and the treadmill video is amazing. It also took hours of practicing and testing. But still cheap. They shot it themselves. Now look at their follow-ups. They cant do all treadmill videos, but they need to keep the dyi aesthetic. They also need to excite. Look at "this too shall pass" that video is stunning and cheap right? Wrong. It's cheap because they got sponsors and convinced a team of engineers to work for cheep. Guess how many times they had to do that, and how much did all the stuff cost? Again with the "I'm a rock star gimmi free stuff". If I had written that treatment for another band it would cost a fortune. Look at their video for "White Knuckles". They were cleaver teaming up with the MSPCA for that which I'm sure got them massive discounts, maybe even donated funds to do that video. Let me put the cost of trained animals in perspective for you. On our Fear Factory video the cost for the trainer and two dogs was $1600 for 8 hours. That includes travel, door to door for the dogs!
Just because something is shot to look like its cheap doesn't mean it is. Actually the detail of what camera you use, and the format, is usually the least expensive part of the production. It's funny how people argue over the cost savings of film over video, Red vs DSLR, when the expensive and most important shit is what you are filming. Here are some prices for you to think about:
- Wardrobe person costs between $300 - $400 per day. Just cause you have one day of shooting doesn't mean you will only have to spend that. You have to pay them to shop, to fit, and to return the clothes.
- A detail police man costs between $45 - $65 per hour for a shoot day. That day means 8 hours. Anything over that is overtime and triple time, and you need them to get permits for shooting in some places.
- To get a permit to shoot out in the middle of the desert costs around $1200. It also takes the office about two weeks to track down the actual owners of the land and get their permission first. I know what you are saying, just shoot it. We were shut down at 2 am in the middle of the desert with a permit! Promise your client to deliver without a permit and go to sleep that night.
- We haven't even mentioned things like insurance, workers comp, liability costs ect.
Ok you got all that stuff, sweet pull out your consumer camera and roll action!
So here we are sitting in the middle of a "who's paying for what" war on the deck of a sinking ship, and we are only humoring it because it's rent time this month. I end up hanging up a call filled with arguments, threats, and just pure ridiculousness, and asking myself isn't the world of music video directing grand? I wish it stopped there but it doesn't. We then get to deal with our outside clients and fans.
The rule of thumb in our business is that you are only as good as your last image, and if it's been too long, well you must suck at it. So we tend to be judged often by the audience who doesn't know how much the budget was, or care about the working conditions. They watch it in 3 minutes, form and opinion, and that's that. Now I'm not blaming the audience for this, it's always been that way, this is just a stress of ours whenever we take a job. Whenever some client tells me I cannot afford a lighting team, or when they say we can't afford the props, costume, or locations. Fix it in post, but there is no post budget. More often than not a video falls completely on you as a director, forcing you to learn how to edit, how to do make-up, how the hell to use after effects, for the simple fact that you can't get people to do it for free anymore.
Now sure I could sit here and wait for that perfect budget to come along, but literally years will go by before you see new work from me. So we are trying to think on our toes, come up with treatments, ideas that can be done by two or three people, effects that are done in camera, it's like finger painting a comic book in kindergarten. Now we have been able to pull it off, to trick the audience into thinking that its bigger and more expensive than it actually was. that's great right? Well no, because no matter how you try there will always be something that falls apart a bit, something that didn't work as well, or look as good, but all our work got it to 80%. The problem is that our piece has graduated to the 5th grade and is then judged again the pieces created in the 5th grade, on more money, with larger crews, and we are dogged for our short comings. These issues are then associated with the director. That's frustrating.
I'm not tying to sound like a whiner here guys, this is just one of those realities that runs through your brain when you are offered $3000 for a major act. The truth is that you will be shooting that artists cheapest video, a video that will end up on a DVD or a play list up against the other bigger and badder videos, and the fans will say who did this?!
When someone asks me "why don't you sleep?" I give them two reasons. I was in love once, and I am a director.
Ok to get back to the downloading for a second. This is a real touchy conversation for most, and one, as you can see, that comes with a lot of opinions. Everyone one has theories on why the business is failing, and how the labels should have grasped onto technology, and how over priced music is and was. That may all be true, but most of the time when I hear these reasons I feel like its a mental side road leading you and themselves from the most obvious destination.
We stole from the business. We are thieves. Plain and simple.
Just like those guys who were breaking windows and taking TV's after the hurricane.
We saw a chance and took it. Hell some continue to do so. I used to work in a music store as a kid, and we would deal with shoplifters all the time. Kids would come in and take a CD here, or a DVD there and the system was built to handle that. But when the organized guys would do it and walk out with trash bags of inventory, that would shut down stores. The asshole who created Napster loves to shout, "I changed the music industry!". Yes you did you fuck, you killed thousands of jobs, American jobs. What is our biggest export? Entertainment. His actions didn't put the CEO's of music companies out on the street, or the sleazy management guys out of a job, it puts the little businesses out of work. In my short sightedness I literally put my dream job out of business.
We never think of consequences in this country. Why should we, we aren't trained to. It's get as much as you can, and if you are full, fuck it get more, because you can. I'm gonna apply for a loan for this huge house, I know I can't afford the payments, but fuck it I just won't pay. I'm gonna make sure I blow my every last dime on a new i-phone and a laptop, I can't afford rent or food, but I do have a kid so fuck it I'll go on assisted living. I'm gonna download this music or movies because it costs too much to buy, and they make way too much money. Besides everyone is doing it so fuck it. There are consequences folks. It doesn't seem like much at first, but our actions do change things around us, and one day when you ask why do all videos suck these days, or I spend 70,000 on film school tuition and can't get a job, its because of the actions of us all.
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
It sucks being honest, but it was how I was raised.
What really sucks is that it's only going to get worse.
Keep creating badass shit, bro, and I'll stay a fan.