Band releasing album seeking videos

Denalihighway

Howdy

Just thought I’d throw this out there. I hope I'm posting in the right place, I've read the charter and I'm not 100% sure. It doesn't say no but it doesn't say yes!

My band finished an album and its being mastered at the moment. Release plans are uncertain for a number of reasons but it should be out in well less than 4 months.

The music could be summed up as broody, melodic, catchy indie rock. It’s good music with mainstream/commercial/viral potential. I can’t put up the links here so you’ll have to take my word for it unless you’re interested in contacting me and I can email you some tunes.

What we’d love is for some videos to be made. Its where its at again. We have no budget whatsoever for this right now. I’m wondering if anyone new to the business would be interested in putting something together in return for the exposure they may get? I guess you can speculate for yourself the potential exposure somewhat by listening to the music and then decide if its worth your effort.

What I’m interested in is quirky, touching and high concepts. It doesn’t matter if it looked cheap as long as it’s a good idea and it has viral potential.

If you liked a song in particular we could talk more, I could provide lyrics and explain the vibe of the tune and you have a think about concepts to discuss. We don’t want to appear in videos and aren’t interested in traditional video shoots. We’d prefer someone who was able to just lash into it after we were happy they were on the right track concept wise. We obviously don’t expect big budget stuff, but I think the kind of stuff we have in mind isn’t suited to big budget, traditional kinda stuff anyway.

Think Ants by Ham Sandwich, Coffee and TV by Blur, Nothing Compares to You, Sinead O’Connor, (not sure why that popped in my head), OK Go, Here It Goes Again, My Bloody Valentine, Loveless etc etc. Even if it was 3 mins of psychedelic imagery with messages and other subtle, resonant imagery etc, as long as its interesting, then great.

I might get a bit of stick for asking for stuff for free but we’ll most likely be giving away our album as a free download and we would jump at having our song used in adverts and films etc for free at this early stage…so I suppose we think its akin to that kind of approach. You help us, we hopefully help you. I say we have no budget and that’s true but if things turned out really well we would certainly look after you someway, somehow.

Sorry for long-winded post. Be interested to see what people think. You can reply or PM me if you’re interested in hearing some tunes and I’ll email you tracks.

Splinters

I assume your band paid to record the album....

Miguel_Sanchez

You should at least stump up for food/transport for the crew working on it.

Denalihighway

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

You should at least stump up for food/transport for the crew working on it.

yeah i did mention in the post that we would find a way of looking after people if things went well. that goes without saying. but we'd have to talk to someone, get their ideas and have a rough idea of what they can produce obviously.

when you mention 'crew', i suppose its not what I imagine happening. as I said, i'm really talking low-budget stuff here...more abstract, 'one-man/woman-and-his/her-Mac-on-desk-in-the-spare-room' type thing...

really it wont suit any traditional approach with extras/crew etc, so naturally i wouldnt expect anyone going for that sort of thing to get in touch given we dont really have a budget. thats why i made that clear at the start.

i dont expect the quality of the videos i mentioned, just a good viral idea i suppose.

it work both ways obviously. the music is pretty good, so it could be a decent opportunity. i spent a fortune (relatively speaking) on the album (to answer Splinters thinly veiled rhetorical question) and i'd give songs away in the morning if knew it was going to be on ad/film/soundtrack etc with decent exposure.

hope i'm not ruffling feathers here...i'm certainly not intending to

Miguel_Sanchez

Denalihighway wrote: »

yeah i did mention in the post that we would find a way of looking after people if things went well.

Most people would expect you to feed them while they worked on your video regardless of how well it performed after the fact. Retro-active lunches aren't much use really. So even if you have only one person making the video then please feed the poor bastard.

when you mention 'crew', i suppose its not what I imagine happening. as I said, i'm really talking low-budget stuff here...more abstract, 'one-man/woman-and-his/her-Mac-on-desk-in-the-spare-room' type thing...

The mac in the spare room is all well and good for editing the video, however the shoot itself will need more than one person.

For a standard performance video, unless you want the director to light the shoot, control playback, operate the camera, apply make-up, do effects and edit the whole piece themselves then you're looking at more than one person.

I've made two extremely low budget shorts. Six people worked on the first. Five on the second (link below).

Granted a video like 'Ants' was made with (I think) a crew of mainly one person. But it took him about 4 months to make.

it work both ways obviously. the music is pretty good, so it could be a decent opportunity.

It could be. Or it could be a lot of work for something that never really goes anywhere.

I'm not saying this will happen but to be honest there's a lot of 'this will be great exposure for you' or 'this will look great on your CV' type promises in this game. All I'm saying is that you should at least treat the people you have working for you with some respect and at least cover their costs so they're not actually spending money on making YOUR video.


I'm not having a go here I'm just being honest about the reality of the situation. If you want something good and you can't afford to pay anyone then you should at least make sure that they're not out of pocket at the end of the shoot.

When you recorded the album did you tell the sound engineer that you had no money and couldn't even cover his costs but that the songs were good and if the album took off he'd benefit from the exposure?

I doubt it.

Denalihighway

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

Most people would expect you to feed them while they worked on your video regardless of how well it performed after the fact. Retro-active lunches aren't much use really. So even if you have only one person making the video then please feed the poor bastard.



The mac in the spare room is all well and good for editing the video, however the shoot itself will need more than one person.

For a standard performance video, unless you want the director to light the shoot, control playback, operate the camera, apply make-up, do effects and edit the whole piece themselves then you're looking at more than one person.

I've made two extremely low budget shorts. Six people worked on the first. Five on the second (link below).

Granted a video like 'Ants' was made with (I think) a crew of mainly one person. But it took him about 4 months to make.



It could be. Or it could be a lot of work for something that never really goes anywhere.

I'm not saying this will happen but to be honest there's a lot of 'this will be great exposure for you' or 'this will look great on your CV' type promises in this game. All I'm saying is that you should at least treat the people you have working for you with some respect and at least cover their costs so they're not actually spending money on making YOUR video.


I'm not having a go here I'm just being honest about the reality of the situation. If you want something good and you can't afford to pay anyone then you should at least make sure that they're not out of pocket at the end of the shoot.

When you recorded the album did you tell the sound engineer that you had no money and couldn't even cover his costs but that the songs were good and if the album took off he'd benefit from the exposure?

I doubt it.

Jeff, in fairness, with regards the shoot (i've repeated this above). I do not want a traditional shoot, with actors, with cameras, with makeup, with whatever. What I'm after is something really low budget, not involving band/people shots etc.

For example, I knocked up a collage of travelling clips that I recorded myself while travelling, as a mockup video for a nostalgic tune we had before. It took about 5 hours on MS Moviemaker. It wasn't great but and I'm sure it would get shot to pieces on this forum, but it was almost at the stage where it would be enough just to have something decent to put on Youtube that might help exposure. Its this kind of thing I'm talking about. Not big shoots with people to act and be fed etc.

I also said we'd look after the person in question. and I said it goes without saying...I also said I wouldn't expect anyone to embark on a long/laborious project if i didn't have a proper budget! How could I? I'm fine with people telling me to p*ss off...

I'm recording a documentary soundtrack for someone at the moment. Its my first recording project that i'll be engineering as well as playing. The quality will be good. I estimate at least 300 hours work, very likely more. I'm doing it for nothing as its an area I want to get into. If the documentary explodes, its great for all of us. If it doesn't, I have a documentary soundtrack under my belt and all those hours of recording and DAW experience.

Regarding our album recording, I get the comparison man. ...but people starting out in the business, as you know, are constantly putting up ads and asking people to record for free, in the hope of getting experience and exposure. I'm hoping to connect with someone like this.

We paid for our album because it was someone reasonably established at the time. We thought it could be expedited quickly and with good quality, and we thought that was worth paying for. The reason we ended up paying so much is unfortunately it went completely pear-shaped through no fault of ours. You live and learn!

So naturally, I wouldn't come on here expecting someone who is established in the industry to jump at an offer like this. likewise I don't expect top quality from someone starting out in the game.

I was afraid the thread might turn into something like this. Its not like I'm trying to hide anything here. Perhaps things are a bit more clear now and maybe there might be someone out there who fits the bill.

EDIT: anyone who might be interested in hearing the songs please PM me for a listen. I wish I could put them up here but I can't. If you like a song and would like to work on it we can discuss the plans and how we could make it worthwhile for you.