Polydor Records

PART FORTY EIGHT

Yesterday, we had a talk from two women that were Video commissioners at Polydor Records which is a subsidiary of Universal music group. 

The two girls work in video department of Polydor. There is also a press department and a digital department but with upcoming technology in the modern age, they cross over with each other.

The artist, the label, the director and the production company work together for putting together A BRIEF for the music video. 

ORGANISATION

They then organise the deadlines; when the artist is available to shoot and the delivery date.

They talk to the artist during pre-production to get an image of their ideas for the track.

They will ask the artist about many factors which will affect the way the music video is shot:

• If there's a specific meaning of song? 

• Is it literal? 

• Do they want to include animation? 

• Do they want to feature in the video? 

• What kind of location do they want to shoot in? 

• Will it be narrative based? (or non-linear, abstract etc).

YEARS AND YEARS

We were looking at the music video 'King':

Ollie put down his personal references and themes into the brief (The artist's decision).

The visual build matches build of the song. A common music video build is going from day to night.

20 to 40 grand was spent on 'King' by Years and Years. This is not a small budget but definitely not a large budget.

THE PROCESS
BRIEF
CONCEPT
REFERENCES
WHAT COULD HAPPEN
WHAT COULD HAPPEN CONTINUED
THE BAND
( THE DANCERS
THE TONE AND ENERGY
THE INVISIBLE FORCE )
LOCATION

CHOOSING A DIRECTOR

• When it's decided what label wants and what the artist wants, they both put a brief together for the directors to look at and suggest ideas for how they would shoot this.

• They show the artist and label the directors reels and IF they have worked with a director before or they know that his/her work is good and they trust it, they can leave the brief open for the director. 

• But if they don't trust the director's artistic flare and are specific about what they want for their video, they will give the director a more specific and detailed brief.

The two girls told us that they ask between 5 and 10 directors in order to get a wider variety of ideas for the artist to choose from.

It is better to keep brief more open because the artist's idea could develop on the day and if then have chosen a good director, he might come up with a range of interesting additional ideas which the artists might not have thought of.

BUDGET

The budget is dependent on record sales or tours.

For a typical music video, the budget ranges between a 5 grand minimum usually, but can be up to 200 grand.

THEIR JOBS

The jobs of the two women:

They need to make sure that everyone knows what kind of video it will be, whether it's ethereal, frightening or artistic:

They ensure that there will be no arguments.

They try and let the artist do their things and sort out any hiccups or drama that occurs behind the scenes. 

The shoot should be a fun environment and a fun day. 

If something goes wrong, they deal with ups and downs of that thing.

They help with the treatment, the support, they act as a bank of references for the director. Generally just to help the team out.

'Everything must be organised before the shoot date because it if not everyone, the label/the artist/the director, are not on the same page for the shoot, after the shoot date in post-production, the label or the artist may be displeased with the outcome of the video'.

From the point the music video gets confirmed, they ask for: 

• Storyboards
• Casting
• Shot list
• Locations etc.

VEVO

Vevo is important because the radio looks at the demographics on Vevo and pick which songs to play based on view count.

It's a 6 week turn around from scripting the video to delivering it to vevo. Vevo helps to push up the view count.

They give the artist and the director a week on average before shoot for video prep time.

They will deliver a first cut of the video a week after the shoot. They can then say whether they want to make changes or not.

Some upcoming artists will go for blogs or taste makers rather than a website. Whereas, commercial artists prefer a commercial website.

After new artists are signed, they will meet the A&R people, the team, then the marketing person. They will have a conversation about what they generally like, videos and etc. in order to give them a better video which is representative of them.

Most of the artist's biggest platform is online. Only very commercial artists would have two cuts; one for tv and one for youtube. Otherwise, unknown indie rock only have one cut.

OTHER INFORMATION

LA and South Africa are top places to film because they are non descript environments. If you have a bigger budget, you normally go through a production company for your music video, but for a small budget, a small hand picked crew is easier.