The State of Music Videos

[Matt Workman]

WG: Yeah, I saw the behind the scenes video for the Seether video and I was less impressed with his "satire." I still don't think the formula is necessarily the major factor in the decline of music videos.

 

A friend of mine Erika Fazio of Sleepless City Productions summarized it very well: while commercials are selling products people actually buy, music videos are selling something people can get for free [CD's].

 

I'm still committed to working in the music video industry but I know that its changing, towards the low budget. So seeking out commercials, corporate videos, and potentially big enough features to stay alive in NYC is very important. But even commercials/etc. are being targeted towards the web, which will effect their budgets in the end I'm sure.

 

Also a sister industry to music videos is fashion/music photography which I've seen share the same sets and models for music videos. With Digital Backs for the Hasselblads and Mamiyas that is an attractive route also.

 

Matt

 

PS: The Rihanna video is pretty clever. Applebaum knows how to put a look with an artist/track to make it commercial, i.e. making him commercial. If he had done a Michel Gondry treatment most likely he would alienate Rihanna's demographic while perhaps impressing a few fans on youtube. 2 cents. :lol:

Edited November 18, 2007 by Matt Workman

[K Borowski]

Also a sister industry to music videos is fashion/music photography which I've seen share the same sets and models for music videos. With Digital Backs for the Hasselblads and Mamiyas that is an attractive route also.

 

Why do digital backs make this an attractive route? :unsure: I can understand why some people can't be bothered with film, but in the fashion industry where people have to light and test too, and coming from a FILMmaking background, I find it funny that anyone on this forum would find digital backs necessary. Compared to filmmaking, how can anyone here consider working with 2 1/2 - 5 foot lengths of roll film cumbersome?

 

As someone that works with an RB, almost daily, I'd say that working with a teather and a laptop is a lot more of a pain than slapping a new preloaded back on every 10, 20 or 60 shots. Anyway, as for you being from NYC, I'd say that medium format film is more alive and well there than just about anywhere else in the world. This city probably single-handedly keeps slide film alive.

[Matt Workman]

KB: That is rather aggressive tone for a rather benign comment. I'm not sure why you believe that everyone on this forum would prefer film or digital.

 

Photography went digital a while ago. So much that the Hasselblad H2 is known as one of the last medium format cameras to actually have an interface with a film back and not just a digital one.

 

Photojournalism is ALL digital and mostly Canon.

Fashion for print is mainly digital also. And if it was acquired on film it sure as hell was scanned and pixel pushed before going to print.

Look at most of the photography for the music industry, some form of HDR and or extensive photoshop is always present.

 

Workflow for most big budget photo shoots includes the camera tethered to a laptop with a creative director choosing what shots they want and directing. Annoying to be tethered? ... irrelevant thats how it works. Agencies.

 

I've worked on several large photo shoots in NYC that have been digital. And from the photographers I know they shoot all digital. Film is for purists/artists/students/hobbyists and yes NYC has a lot of those. I'm talking about commercial photography for Fashion/Music.

 

Some of the older guns still shoot film but the trend is clearly moving to digital on all fronts for still photography.

 

Check the want ads for RZ67's you can buy a complete package w/ film backs, poloraid backs, lenses, and meter for under $1600. People are sellling them for 5D, Mark III, D300, and D3X. If not just renting H2s or Mamiya Digitals. Talk to Calumet.

 

....

 

Anyway...music video industry... oh now I'm sad again. Though a music video I just shot is on MTV now :P

Edited November 19, 2007 by Matt Workman

[Matt Workman]

To make this an official rant:

 

The reason digital for both photography and film is appealing, necessary, and the future is because the changing of the times. The music industry is plagued with low record sales, mediocre artists, and a saturated market. Budgets for music videos as we've discussed are declining. So only the big artists have enough money to shoot a 35mm big budget music video. And the smart ones shoot a cheaper videos so they can have any hope of paying back their advance.

 

So that leaves the rest of us who aren't working with Hype Williams, etc. with $50k budgets, where you can get great to acceptable results for much less with HD.

 

The same model applies with fashion/music photography. David LaChapelle and Annie Leibovitz might be shooting film but for the rest of us on a budget shooting for artists/designers/agencies who don't have as deep pockets, or are getting smarter look to digital to achieve great to acceptable quality for much less with Digital.

 

I think that people are feeling safe that HD/Digital won't creep its way into the feature market but the movie industry is going to go through the same thing that music industry is going through right now. And when those budgets come down guess what people will be shooting with...

 

End rant. :ph34r:

 

PS: Dion Bebe just shot a Ford commercial with the RED. Speed Racer went with 6 F23's and the Phantom can shoot 1000fps to a laptop. I'm not a fanboy but things are changing. Film is just an aesthetic not an integral part of "filmmaking" like your capitalized pun would suggest.

[Wendell_Greene]

The industry is changing, budgets are low and IMO they're never going to be what they were in the golden era of music videos. That said, you simply have to adapt and improvise if you want to keep working in the arena.

 

Whether you shoot film or digital, there are so many more things you learn on each project that you can use to help make you a better filmmaker.

 

 

Congrats, Matt. Feels good to see your work being aired, doesn't it?

[K Borowski]

KB: That is rather aggressive tone for a rather benign comment. I'm not sure why you believe that everyone on this forum would prefer film or digital.

 

Photography went digital a while ago. So much that the Hasselblad H2 is known as one of the last medium format cameras to actually have an interface with a film back and not just a digital one.

 

Photojournalism is ALL digital and mostly Canon.

Fashion for print is mainly digital also. And if it was acquired on film it sure as hell was scanned and pixel pushed before going to print.

Look at most of the photography for the music industry, some form of HDR and or extensive photoshop is always present.

 

I shouldn't even respond to this rubbish, but I don't want to let this hype go unanswered.

 

This is a rather agressive tone for a response.

 

Photography went digital a while ago? Funny, I would say that the field I work in is still 50/50, if not tipped in favor of film. Well, I guess we'll all just have to stop shooting film, because you said so. I guess that survey that said 75% of professional photographers still prefer shooting film is just a bunch of Kodak hype, as well. You said it had gone digital, a while ago, so you must be right, especially with such excellent sources sited, like your own experience.

 

The Hasselblad H2 is a hunk of plastic. People pay exhorbitant amounts of money for them because they are designed for digital backs, not because they are anywhere near as good as any other Hasselblad that came before. I doubt more than 1 in 20 who use them shoot them with film. Hell, they're not even 2 1/4" square, they're 645, and I hear they are made in part in Japan. Last MF camera that takes film, you say? Name any other MF cameras still made besides the H2 and the Mamiya ZD.

 

I can't comment on photography in the music industry, but there are many young fashion photographers, not just old codgers, that are all 2 1/4" sq. shooters, all chrome film. If you were in Cleveland, where no one has any money, you could probably say that film for fashion and products is dead, if not fashion and products themselves, but again, you're coming from NYC.

 

As for all film being scanned before going to press, no surprise there, it's been done that way since the '80s. I don't know of any analog magazines left since that time.

 

Then you use a Ford commercial being shot on RED as some sort of justification for digital. I don't have a problem with digital, I have a problem with people that have chips on their shoulders that film is still made anymore. Maybe you can't get work on film shoots, but don't blame the medium, blame your competition.

[Matt Workman]

:lol: Ok lets let this side conversation go. I'll agree I don't know everything/everyone in the photography world but just the ones I've encountered have been shooting digital and I find that cool. Maybe I just don't interact with the film guys.

 

Didn't really mean to retrench the digital vs. film thing, I feel lame for doing so. I still shoot film still and motion pictures.

 

I do have a Panavision short in a week too :lol: Couldn't get a hold of a RED in time :P

 

Cheers,

 

Matt

[Matt Workman]

WG: Thanks. It was the first time I've actually seen something on TV. I don't have cable right now. <_< It's a different time for watching music videos. I remember watching the top 10 count down or Making the Video and really being excited.

 

I told the director he had to DVR it and use that version for Youtube, which he agreed. Unfortunately where most people will encounter the video..that and myspace :rolleyes:

 

MTV Version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzBfQ9hX7Nc

[K Borowski]

:lol: Ok lets let this side conversation go. I'll agree I don't know everything/everyone in the photography world but just the ones I've encountered have been shooting digital and I find that cool. Maybe I just don't interact with the film guys.

 

Didn't really mean to retrench the digital vs. film thing, I feel lame for doing so. I still shoot film still and motion pictures.

 

I do have a Panavision short in a week too :lol: Couldn't get a hold of a RED in time :P

 

Cheers,

 

Matt

 

OK, fair enough. I'm sorry Matt. I probably overreacted too. You sort of came across as though film photography isn't a viable option for still photographers anymore, which sort of says that I am not viable anymore, as I shoot exclusively film-based Mamiya RB. I'm sort of on a short leash because I have to listen to anti-film bullsh it almost every day (I'd rather people just talk about PHOTOGRAPHY, not their equipment, endlessly, wouldn't you? ;-) ), the outcome of which directly affects my sole source of income now. TANGENT OVER. . .

 

You know, it's kind of sad, but digital distribution really is to blame for the state of the industry aparantly. I honestly wouldn't even be interested in shooting a music video if it would never get any distribution other than that on YouTube. I mean, when there are tens of thousands of videos and yours is only one in the crowd, it really cheapens the genre as a whole. Maybe this is another "rub" I have against videography, that it is so cheap that people can make it without it costing them a dime, and the resulting videos (which obviously won't be good if they don't even care enough to rent lights, or a tripod or get basic equipment) just totally dilute the content so that it is hard to even find good stuff in amongst the muck. Dave Mullen once referred to the high "signal-to-noise ratio" of internet forums, borrowing from the days of analog tape recording. Maybe the "noise" in digital that we would get with grain in film or hiss with tape is, in fact, noise from the excess of images and videos that are generated by people who never would have been bothered to learn how to use film.