Hi,

I'm doing some research on the music video business. I'm trying to understand how that business model works.

• Any good resources out there on that?

Thank you.

www.mvwire.com "community" section is helpful.

a classic All you need to know about the music business Donald S. Passmore

www.amazon.de"

Thanks for the info.

This is how the business works...

A record label, in a desperate gamble in some off chance zillion to one hope they might get 10 seconds of their video played on MTV in between shows during the credits bit on the 5 times a day MTV actually shows videos, commissions a music video to be made by a director.

The director is someone who either comes from a rich family or a con artist* who has managed to convince reps that they are a combination of artistic visionary and whore.

The director then writes a treatment, which is a script written by someone either too stoned or stupid to write in screenplay format. First the director visits www.musicvideobeauties.com then they jerk off for awhile, then they try and write down something they half recall from a junior high acid trip.

The band get their hands on the treatment and ponder important questions - will the treatment make them out to be the single minded, charismatic, handsome sex gods they are? If the answer is yes, then they fight with their label over which video to do.

Once that dust is settled, the director, in a desperate bid to improve his reel so he can direct big ads and get real money and then start dating ex America's Top Model contestants, ends up putting his own or his parent's money into the video and forfeits his salary so he can afford those rad composites that show he knows how to "work with digital".

Then a whole bunch of money is spent shooting and preferably with as large and ineffective crew as possible. This is to ensure that the band feel like they are actually liked by the general public as dictated by the money blown on them; and for the producer to feel like they can handle a feature someday.

The video is finished after a number proportional to the original shooting budget is spent in post grading and adding filters to "enhance" the video.

In the end, then, the budget goes towards spending money on an elaborate production with extremely high risk, ending up with a product shot in 35mm that most people will probably see if at all on a postage stamp sized window buffering on the Internet.

This is also, of course, all a "marketing and publicity cost", which is why no one deserves anything once the label starts selling hte thing on iTunes without checking with anyone.

• (paraphrasing Chris Cunningham, interviewed somewhere I can't recall)

I love that. Thanks.

yep.

just one addendum: as of yesterday the unions will now be making the pathetically small budgets seem even smaller. way to squeeze blood from a stone, assholes.