Meeting Emily from Polydor

Today Emily (lastname?) a commissioner for Polydor, came to speak about her job and some music videos that she has worked one in the past. Check out their twitter!

Her role in the company:
She basically overseas the whole music video process, from the initial brief to the final product at the end. She is the person that links together the artist and manager to the label. She is also there on the day of the shoot to look out for the artist and make sure they have everything they need. If an artist isn't happy they will relay this information to Emily who can take necessary action. Some directors are independent and some are signed, but it is up to Emily to research new talent for videos. The label gets bored uses the same directors over and over so she looks at show reels, online and goes to lots of MA shows.

How creating a music video works:

1. You begin by receiving the track that the video is to be made for.
2. The label then get a budget, to which they must plan the video around.
3. They then speak to the artist and come up with a brief (narrative video? performance only?)
4. She will then find a list of directors based on the budget, the bigger the budget the more she will connect with. They then  have about a week to submit a treatment to be decided upon with the artist, manager and commissioner.
5. After the treatment comes in they must check that it is within reason on the budget, if it is over cuts may have to be made.
6. Once the director and treatment have been confirmed, they shoot, edit and deliver. This process normally take about a month to be completed.

Most of the time labels are working at a loss, as very few artists recoup on a music video because music sales are just not what they used to be. If a label wants to make money they will do a 360 deal, this basically means that they can take a share from profits made at live gigs and any merchandise sold.

 She spoke about and showed us a few music videos.

Artist: Ellie Goulding
Song: Burn
Budget: £60,000
Shoot: 1 day

For this video there was a very open brief, but Ellie has to be seen heavily. When writing the treatment all sorts of things have to be mentioned such as hair, makeup, what the artist is going to wear along with references and links to other videos, pictures and inspiration.



Artist: James Blake
Song: Overgrown
Budget: £30,000
Shoot: 2 day (on set and in a studio)

The brief for this video was that James needed to be featured primarily, as in a previous music video the director didn't involve him as much as the label and artist had hoped. Lots of stuff in the video was exaggerated in post-production (the house on the hill, the reapers disappearing, the days passing by), it simply meant that the team had more control over what they could do with it. The simplicity of this video is what makes this one of Emily's favourites that she has worked on.



Artist: White Lies
Song: First Time Caller
Budget: £15,000
Shoot: 2 days (in Paris)

This is a mixture of a narrative and performance video. Having the artist there physically playing the video gives it so much more energy and allows the audience to connect with the actual artist not actors in the narrative. The director was very keen to use the group of French street body builders (including an 8 year old girl).