quicktime

         

nice harmonics; dumb lyrics & a pretty random bunch of folks (the video's no help).

         

The video's nothing special, but I have a feeling the album is going to be outstanding.

         

I really like The Dears a lot, how come their videos are always so boring?

         

that was so boring.

         

fog machines, pyro and lazers could've brought this closer to something more respectable.

         

petulia,

imho, although there shouldn't necessarily be a correlation between video budgets and director creativity there often is and the dears simply don't have the video budgets...even on a heavily compressed quicktime video it looks like they shot this promo on mini-dv.

k

         

wasn't this a videofact grant budget - 20K canadian? same budget as the last BSS, arcade fire and death from above videos if I'm not mistaken.

         

it probably was a videoFACT and thus 20K CDN - which nowadays gets you little more than a 16mm camera, 3000' of film stock, a crew, one inexpensive location, and barely enough post to get your digibeta master ready for broadcast. however, there look to be builds on the set (the light background, etc) which may not have cost a lot but it might have prompted the director to opt for video as opposed to film and throw the saved money in front of the camera. oftentimes, when you see videoFACT videos with decent production value it's because the artists/labels/management did as is, in theory, required and matched the grant amount. so, 20K from videoFACT and 20K from the artist's side which isn't bad for a low-budget video shot on film. unfortunately, this almost never happens.

k

         

yeah; cause we all know that only a big budget can make a video good.

         

captainmarc,

i think few ppl. would argue that having a decent sized budget wouldn't help. also, as video budgets shrink videos become less and less a place that talented filmmakers spend their time. this site consistently lauds the work of the 80s, 90s, and deplores the current state of videos. perhaps there is a connection between the ever decreasing budgets and the ever less impressive videos one sees. of course you don't need a big budget to come up with something creative, wonderful, unique, etc...but a quick look at

         

moviemaking shows that the 21st century new wave so many expected to come (with the advent of cheaper acquisition formats and the expanding exhibition outlets [youtube anyone) never really did. how often do you, or anyone, sit down and watch feature films made by true independents on truly low budgets? although hundreds if not thousands of these are made every year i would challenge you to stand sitting through more than a few. the talent goes where the talent can grow and be supported

         

and growth and support takes place with the most facility where there is financial remuneration. that's my silly wordy way of saying the really good people will end up moving to the really good markets. music videos can barely support upcoming directors anymore (unless they fancy waitering as well) and so talented upcoming directors tend not to spend much time in the field. of course the talented and already established mv directors - muller, romanek, lawrence, gondry - make good livings

         

and can continue to learn and hone their craft in the medium.

a quick question to try and drive the point home. how many videos will it take a year to allow a mv director to survive when the avg. canadian video is roughly 20K given that a director's fee is typically 10% of budget? how many videos do you think the avg. upcoming director can get hired for a year? if a director shot 12 vids per year that's only 24K/year!

         

The small budgets will weed out all the non-hackers who are in the business for the cash. Good videos will continue to be made regardless of the finanical stress on the industry. The only forseeable difference is that the asthetics will change. Mini dv will be used almost exclusively along with a lot of bad cg and practicle effects. Rest assured though, eventually a director will pop up who'll do something amazing within these limitations. And afterwords earnest film making will become a mainstream asthetic as accepted as the "indie" sound in music. -j

         

jesse, i agree 'eventually a director will pop up who'll do something amazing' but these directors will be few and far between. far fewer than we would have seen in the 80s or 90s when mv's were a viable way for a director to express themselves and support themselves. sure the odd guy or gal will break through but they'll be the exception not the rule.

k