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TORI AMOS video “contest”- A Few Thoughts
Greetings-
This past summer I entered a video for Bjork’s “Send me your own video” competition.
I’ve documented some of our production notes and the video clip here https://www.neilslade.com/Innocence.html
It can also be seen on You Tube, where it seems to be the most popular video after the “official winner”. It’s okay, you can like it or hate it— that’s not the point of my post–
Whether a film is “good” or “bad” is purely a matter of taste and/or hidden agenda that people tend to forget when getting involved in competitions. Very often, good art is neglected for a long time by contemporaries who are unable to perceive much beyond conventional tastes.
The film was made using Sony Vegas 7, and shot on a Panasonic DVX100 (original) at 24Advanced progressive.
I received a Creative Cow newsletter today in my email informing me of a new similar “Send Tori Amos Your Own Video” competition– and I thought I would mention some of my thoughts regarding my experience with the Bjork deal.
1) You will be working for the artist FOR FREE. And even if you “win”, you will get nothing. Zip.
2) Your video will be used to promote the artist’s music, from which the artist will make loads of money. You will get NOTHING except a little credit…. somewhere… that nearly no one will notice or even care about.
2B) Even if you WIN, and you are the one out of hundreds of thousands- you still will not be paid for your efforts, even if your video is show on MTV or included in a DVD compilation.
A famous old saying: “The only think exposure is good for, is catching a cold.”
3) The judging of the video entrants will not necessarily reflect on the quality of your work, but simply on how the artist ultimately feels that a video can effectively promote their image. In fact, your video may not even make it past the lowest tier of judging depending on the mood or perceptive abilities of the first level of screeners who may be totally unqualified to perceive content that is not merely status quo or MTV type of content.
4) I.e., you can create a killer video, that is an extremely qualified and imaginative interpretation of the music/song, put untold hours of work into, engage a large crew, spend all kinds of money (or not), and still not even be mentioned or make it as a “finalist”. And even if you do– you will still benefit to a very small degree if at all, and get virtually nothing for your efforts except the reward of having done a good job.
Gee thanks. 🙂
Come to think of it— video and film competitions sponsored by artists sounds a lot like film festivals all over the country– where the film festival promoters get all kinds of benefits provided by the film makers who PAY to enter, but 99.9% of the entrants get absolutely nothing out of the deal.
Sour grapes?
No.
The reality of film competitions.
Go into these things with eyes wide open.
If you make a film, a competition or festival just ain’t your best friend. It’s just a pipe dream for just about everybody.
Think “Lottery”.
🙂
The moral: You can create a demand and an audience for your film regardless of it’s content or style. Think Punk Rock. Think Reality TV. In reality, EVERYTHING is legitimate and no matter what you make, there is someone, and likely MANY SOMEONES out their who will like what you do.
You can perhaps gain a limited expanded new audience through a popular competition– but in the case of making a music video for an artist, you are surrendering content and topic to this artist, who in all likelyhood will statistically totally ignore you.
So the question is– Do you want to make your next film about something you REALLY care about, or do you want to gamble on making a music video that almost certainly will be ignored and do absolutely nothing for you?
Just a reasonable thing to think about.
As for me, we had a GREAT time making the Bjork video– and we are EXTRMELY happy about the end result. But in retrospect, I will now re-edit all the footage— of which we have about five hours, and make a completely independent short film which has absolutely nothing to do with Bjork, nor uses her music. I hope that if you (whoever you are) engage in a similar competition, you are able to also successfully make a pie out of what may end up being a promotional dead end.
Cheers!
Neil Slade
Mirror Movie https://www.MirrorMovie.com
Captain Sherlock Solves 911 https://www.CaptainSherlock.com
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