Today we had the opportunity to meet two members of the
Polydor Ltd. subsidiary based in London. Polydor Ltd. is a British record label
that operates as a part of the Universal Music Group. The two members of the
company offered us insight into the process of designing and producing a music
video within the industry. The company has utilized this process in the past to
create music video for artists such as Years & Years, 1975 and Jax Jones.
Furthermore the company works with VEVO to promote their artists through
television YouTube and more and other types of websites. This allows for
Polydor records to gain publicity for an artist or artists that they are
working with which in turn results in greater sales.
At first when an artist or band is signed to Polydor Records
the company directs them to their marketing team which then discuses with them
what type of image would fit him/her or them. During this time the artist or
band collaborate with the marketing team to compromise on an image that will be
achieved through the release of the music video and other types of promotional
advertising. Once the marketing team has decided on an image for the band or
artist they will work together with other departments of the subsidiary to
produce a brief for a music video. The brief will contain the name of the
artist, track, and budget and information on what kinds of elements are to be
represented within the project and in what way. The types of elements used
within music video are narrative, performance, animation and conceptual, and
are either used in combination with each other or not, depending on the
project. When the brief is complete Polydor Records supplies it to the adequate
directors and in hope of hearing back from them. At one point some of the
directors that have been supplied with the brief will send back a treatment to
the Record Label describing their ideas for the music video. The treatment will
often times involve visual images, written notes, references and videos. At
this point Polydor records will hire the director who they believe has come up
with the most suitable idea for the project or one that will direct the project
in the finest manner. Subsequently the record label will work with the director
and artist or artists to further develop the idea for the music video and
resolve any issues. Afterwards the idea is given a green light and within
usually a month a music video is created. Out of this month 1-3 days are spend
on shooting, while the rest is spent on editing and delivering the final
projects. The budgets for music videos within Polydor records range from $5,000
to $150,000 with certain exceptions. The two members of the company presented
to us some of the music videos which they have produced, as well as the
treatments and briefs for them which gave us a further understanding of the
whole process.
Within this process the two members of the subsidiary have
also talked about the difficulties that come up over time. For instance it is
difficult to create a music video for a new artist or band as this will lead to
primary impressions of who the artist or artists are. Furthermore due to the
amount of different opinions and visualizations certain situations become
emotionally heated and are at times demanding to deal with. Also, although the
studio provides new directors with opportunities to film their short videos, it
disallows them and/or challenges them to visualize how the final outcome might
possibly look like. However even though the following problems to appear at
certain times they are always dealt with in some way.
Overall by being given the opportunity to see and analyze how
a fragment of the industry that is responsible for creating music videos works was
an amazing experience. Additionally I feel that this will allow me and my music
video group to further improve upon the way in which will approach creating and
designing our music video throughout the next couple of weeks.
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