February 25, 2020 • 32 mins
This is a Music Video Podcast - or should I say a Podcast about Music Video. This is a slight detour on our trip through my past. It's called The Commissioner for a reason. The job of Music Video Commissioning is a unique, exciting and somewhat complicated job. I do my best to describe what I did, how I did it and my philosophies behind decisions. I hope you enjoy learning about the process. Next week I will be back to my regular programming with a full episode on Eminem "Lose Yourself."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the commissioner.
My name is Randy son.
This is episode six,commissioning 1 0 1.
So what is a music videocommissioner?
If I had to break it down, it'skind of a ven diagram of where a
(00:30):
creative movie producer, whowould hire the director and the
production team.
Um, a movie studio, because as acommissioner, you basically are
financing your own movie orvideo as it were, um, a brand
manager where your brand is theartist, and you need to make
(00:52):
sure you're making the rightproduct for that artist and kind
of a zeitgeist predictor, if youwill, where you're knowing what
is out there in the culture ofmusic, depending on the genre
and what other artists are doingand how you can be unique and,
um, thoughtful for the artists,but also make something that's
(01:15):
very creative that captures theattention of, of the population
to back in the day, when I wasmaking videos, it was a very
closed distribution system.
So they were pivotal to selling,selling music, which is much
different than it is today,where you can stream anything
you want and videos are, arejudged on views.
But I think most of the timepeople are just listening to
(01:37):
them.
Not that they don't watch them,you know, cuz I do think people
do watch videos.
I just don't think they watch'ema thousand times or a million
times.
I think they watch it a coupletimes and then you listen to the
video as the audio.
So that's kind of where that vendiagram kind of, that you're in
the middle of that kind of fourintersectional, really important
(01:59):
pieces.
Um, and that's, that is a musicvideo commissioner.
It's kind of a, it can besomewhat enigmatic because I
don't know that it's somethingyou can fill out on a school,
um, wishlist for, with acounselor.
I don't know that you go toschool for that, you know, kinda
like being a manager for anartist.
I don't think you go to schoolfor that either, but it's an
(02:21):
incredible job and somethingthat I loved doing for many
years.
Okay.
So that's what a music videocommissioner kind of is from
30,000 feet.
But what, what does a musicvideo commissioner do?
(02:43):
Um, you basically are in chargeof making the music video for
the artist at the label.
So where do you start?
Right.
So the um, where you start isthe, uh, marketing a and R
promotion department pick asong, right?
They've decided whatever theartist is, they've made a record
(03:05):
and they're picking a song anddepending on what it is, it's
can be the first single from anew release.
It can be the second single froma big hit record.
It can be the second single froma record, from a big artist that
had a stiff first single there'sa, there are a myriad of things
that are, you know, determinedon that, you know, uh, song that
gets picked.
But the video commissionerdoesn't pick the song you're
(03:27):
given a song.
Um, and then you listen to thatsong, right?
And you're start to think, youknow, about what the artist has
done in the past or maybe thisis their first video where they
fit into the marketplace.
Um, what, what would be good forthem?
What their visual things are,you meet with the artist and the
(03:49):
manager usually and talk to themabout what their thoughts are.
And, um, you're given a budgetwhich can range, you know, back
in the day, the lower end videoswere 75 to a hundred thousand.
And you know, at the high end itwas a million plus for, you
know, it wasn't uncommon forbigger artists to spend a
(04:11):
million dollars on a video.
I'm not sure what budgets aretoday.
Uh, but you know, I'm guessingpeople do spend a lot of money
on them.
If you wanna get good people andquality people to do really good
film work, you need to pay themas they sh they should get paid.
So, um, once you have a kind ofan idea of what the artist wants
to do and you should come tothat meeting, I usually did
(04:33):
anyways, would come to themeeting with a kind of an idea
of what you're thinking andwhere they would fit in at that
point to the, to the zeitgeist,if you will, of the music thing,
depending on the genre, be ithip hop or rock or pop, um, you
know, each artist has their ownfan base and, and you obviously
(04:55):
want to please that fan base,but you're always looking to
expand the fan base withoutbeing alienating to the fan
base.
Um, you will, you come to the,uh, you know, the meeting with
ideas and then you leave therewith a basic understanding of
kind of what it is you aresetting out to do with this
music video.
From there, you call productioncompanies who represent
(05:18):
directors and talk to the eitherexecutive producer or the, uh,
the rep for the director andkind of discuss, uh, the
directors that you're interestedin and their availability, um,
and the interest, you know,bigger artists pull in.
Obviously there's a lot of youngmusic video directors that want
to do bigger artists becauseit's a great opportunity for
(05:40):
them in their career, um, whichsometimes, you know, would
happen.
Um, there's also back in theday, there was a lot of, um, you
know, competition for the biggerdirectors and they were very
particular and, you know, wouldpass on a lot of, um, a lot of
(06:00):
the times I would call to see ifAlor SIGA, Mondi was interested
or a Sophie Mueller or DavidCher or a spike Jones.
You know, those kind of arethose kind of directors would,
would be very picky.
Um, they tend to haverelationships with artists that
they like to work with.
Um, especially as they gotbigger and started to do more
commercials and feature films,um, they, you know, pretty much
(06:24):
would turn down a lot of videowork, um, do a to availability B
to lack of interest in workingwith the artists.
And it wasn't necessarily meanspirited.
It was just, you know,creatively, they didn't think
they could bring something tothe party.
Um, and so from there, once youhave a list of directors that
(06:44):
you know, are available, um,because you're obviously looking
at scheduling this shoot, right?
And there's a, you know, theproduction, a promotion and
marketing team is like, here'syour song, here's when we're
releasing it.
Here's when you have to have thevideo done.
The whole process usually takesabout six to 10 weeks.
You know, the longer, thebetter, obviously from, from a
(07:06):
film production standpoint,because, you know, putting
everything together andbudgeting and availability,
depending on what the thoughtthe process is, or the idea is,
and locations and et cetera.
And then also based on when theartist is available, you know,
bigger artists have tours thatthey're on, especially if it's a
second single they're alreadytouring.
So sometimes you have to go tolocation, which you have to fit
(07:27):
into your budget and all these,you know, kind of variables that
exist for the pro project to goforward.
So you're, you know, you're,you, you know, talk to the
production companies, get a listof directors, um, go back to the
managers and, and let'em knowher know, let'em know that, you
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know, here's the list, here'swhat we're getting.
We're gonna get treatments ingive, and you give the
production company a date, youknow, by this date, Um, a
treatment is usually one page tothree pages.
Some people use image, you know,visuals, um, just a quick
(08:09):
breakdown synopsis summary ofwhat they wanna do.
It's, you know, pie in the sky.
Um, I would always have thisreally fun challenge of, you
know, uh, challenging directorsto, you know, give me a video
treatment in one sentence.
And, and, you know, I think thespike Jones had those.
I don't know that he did them inone sentence, but if you've ever
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seen the dinosaur junior videothat he did, you know, it's like
Manhattan is a par five or, uh,that wax video that he did with,
you know, man on fire running tocatch a bus, you know, like it
was those kind of things arejust, you know, or the BC boy
sabotage video, you know, aQuinton Martin cop show from the
seventies intro, you know, sothose were always like, oh, I
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get it.
I totally know what that couldbe.
And then obviously thebrilliance of the director would
come through, hopefully in, inthat thing.
But most directors can't dothat.
And, and I get it.
It's not easy.
That is not an easy challenge.
And a lot of times, as adirector, you wanna explain
yourself, so they writesummaries.
It's, you know, 1, 2, 3paragraphs five paragraphs, the
(09:14):
longer it is the, the harder itis to digest.
So most production companies gothrough that process and, you
know, will, will edit it to thepoint where it's, it's they know
they're sending you somethingthat's they feel good about that
they can do for the budget andyou know, that they can, you
know, that that's readable.
(09:35):
So that me as the commissionerand the artist and the manager
look at it and it hopefullyjumps off the page and they're
excited about it, um, thatbecomes, you know, so eventually
you get down to that, oh, thisis a great idea.
Um, you know, you can do aconference.
Sometimes artists want to talkto the directors.
(09:55):
They sometimes they know thedirector and that becomes an
easier thing.
Sometimes most of the time theydon't.
So they would wanna do a quickcall just to kind of have them
explain it.
They have some questions, youknow, um, artists are very
particular about their brand andwhat they wanna do, directors
are very particular about theiridea and what they wanna do.
(10:15):
So the commissioner's job is todelicately, make sure that both
are served properly so that youcan have the artists with their
integrity of their brand intactand the director to give you the
best possible video.
Um, and that is, that is alittle delicate thing that you
learn as you do the job.
Um, I came from before I was acommissioner, I was actually at
(10:36):
a production companyrepresenting director.
So I, you know, obviously hadthat side of me, but would work
with a lot of artists and wasable to, um, you know,
understand and get my directorsto, to, I wouldn't say Ben, but,
you know, appreciate theartist's point of view because
it's very important.
And ultimately it's theirvision.
(10:57):
It's the director who brings itto life and puts that.
But the artist has to be infront of the camera, so becomes
quote unquote, their video.
Um, so from once you have a, atreatment and then they give you
a budget, as far as budgets go,I was always very open about my
budgets.
I know a lot of people don't dothat and I there's, I wouldn't
(11:20):
say there's a right or wrong wayto do it.
It becomes you as a person.
If I was given$150,000 to make avideo, I would usually go to the
production company with probably125 or 130, depending on the
artist.
Um, knowing that I had costbuilt in some artists have their
own stylist.
When you deal with a lot of hiphop artists, there's a lot of
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entourage that has to be coveredin the cost of the budget.
And so if you're flying in anumber of people, you know, um,
a solo artist or a band you'retalking about, you know, four to
six people, maybe with themanager seven or eight with a
tour manager, you know, hip hopartists can be 10, 12, 15
people.
(12:04):
Um, and, and those people haveto be flown in and put up at a
hotel and there has to be groundtransportation.
There's usually meals that haveto be accounted for.
Um, so, you know, you wanna makesure that you're giving yourself
enough money in your budget,that you handle that as a
commissioner, because it is yourresponsibility to make sure you
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bring the video in on budget.
And so, um, you, you know, Iwould, but I'd like to give the
production company as much ofthe budget as possible, because
I always felt that a music videopeople work their asses often
need to get paid and B the moremoney you spend, if you spend it
properly and really put it onthe camera, you, you know, get
(12:48):
you get what you pay for.
You really do.
You can really push things inand you know, it is your job as
a commissioner to know whatthings cost.
So when you look at a budget,when they finally do turn in a
budget, you can go, it's usuallya line item budget.
That's done very close to an a IC P, which is the commercial
production budget.
So it's, you know, broken downby lines and broken down by
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departments and broken down bycost of day rates and days and
equipment.
And, you know, PO in video, youhave to, you know, do posts.
When I first started doingvideo, most of it was shot on
film.
Um, so part of the budget was,you know, after the, you know,
you shot everything on film, youhad to transfer it, or do what's
(13:30):
known as a Teleny to get it to adigital realm, to be able to
edit on, you know, Avids or, youknow, at one point final cut was
there.
It's just kind of when I wasdoing it was before Adobe, but
either way, it's, it's a, it's anon-linear digital, um, realm
that all the film had to betransferred.
And in, and in that transfer,you could give it a look because
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you had colorists that wouldtake the film and process, you
know, give it a real interestinglook.
Um, uh, used there, you know, inthe beginning, beginning when
they did that, it wasn't that weused to edit on, you know, Sony
and three quarter inch tapes,and you would have to visual,
you know, physically put in thetapes and it would have to read
the code.
(14:12):
And so, but once avid came in,it became a much more, um, fluid
process, but either way, youstill had to do it on film and
then transfer it to digital.
Now, pretty much everyone shootson digital and you can even set
cameras looks in cameras,although I'm not sure why you
would do that, but you could,you can do that if you wanted
to.
(14:32):
Um, so it's a little bit easierprocess, but there's still a
Teleny, I'm sure you still wannaset your look and still get
that, you know, colorize the,the, the raw footage to make it
look like your vision, whateverthat director and the DP are.
(14:54):
All right.
So now you've got the treatment,you got the budget, it works,
the artist and management issigned off.
You have your shoot day.
Um, you start to work with theproduction company on who
they're hiring, who the directorwants to hire for the director
of photography and for theproduction designer, and you
know, where the location is tomake sure that it's doable and,
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and, and any sort of specialrequest that you might have for
the artists where they need tohave, you know, if you're gonna
be on a, a, a remote location orsomething, making sure that
there's a star wagon so thatthey can get ready and that
there's air conditioning,because if it's hot out there,
they're gonna need to not looksweaty and disgusting in front
of the camera.
So, um, so you get all thatsorted.
(15:41):
You, you know, I, I was always acommissioner who, I don't know.
I, I, I knew people that I likedand that would work, and I
wanted to at least sign off onthe director of photography and
production designer.
Um, but I would never stopsomebody.
I never had a list of people Ididn't work with.
Um, I was never spiteful likethat.
(16:02):
I just sometimes know thatpeople take longer.
And sometimes that didn't workfor some artists there.
I've had a couple of jobs, whichwhen I'll get into in specific
videos where we did have to, youknow, get rid of certain people
on the crew for personalityreasons and whatnot.
So, you know, that becomes anissue.
But for the most part, I prettymuch let directors hire who they
(16:26):
wanted to hire.
Um, or at least I think I did.
I'm guessing once these comeout, they'll let me know that I
was the ogre, but I don't feellike I was.
So that's at least my experienceof it.
Um, there's not a massivepre-pro in music video because
of time and money.
(16:46):
Um, usually usually I'll just gothrough with the executive
producer and the director on aquick call, kind of talking
about the day, um, you know, andthen get to the shoot.
And when I would get to theshoot, I would, you know,
immediately go into theproduction office, talk to the
line producer who is responsiblefor the whole shoot, as far as
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production goes.
And then, you know, get a callsheet at a shooting schedule and
try and sit with the first ad tofigure out the day and see how
realistic it is and see what theplans are like any, like
anything else.
Everyone has their style.
My style for music video hasalways been, you know, while
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you're setting up to dosomething great, try and shoot a
performance of the artist,because at the end of the day,
that pretty much can always justbe the it's like fail safe.
Right?
You get, um, you get a goodperformance in with the artist
performing the song to thecamera, and you pretty much have
the basis of a music video.
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Not every music video is likethat.
And you can't do that for everymusic video and some guys, and
some girls don't wanna do that.
And I respect that, um, some persome videos have no performance
at all.
So, you know, there's, you,that's not something you can do
for that particular video, butfor the bulk of the videos, it's
usually a good way to getstarted.
And it gets the artist feelingbetter about themselves when
(18:26):
they're performing the song.
So, um, that's, you know, that'sthe bulk of what you're doing on
the shoot.
And then, you know, you haveyour, excuse me, um, your, you
know, your, your shoot whenyou're doing most of the time,
it was a two day shoot.
Um, sometimes, you know, like Isaid, the lower budgets when
you're at 75, I know it soundslike ridiculous, but when you
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really have a good crew with ahigh end DP, who's got a real
grip and a gaff, a wholeelectric team that has, you
know, theirs and utilities andthen a production designer and a
costume designer.
And you have catering and youhave location fees and you have
production.
You know, people get paid ratesas they should.
I was always a firm believerthat you work a day, you get
paid.
(19:09):
So, you know, believe it or not,filmmaking is expensive.
Um, and rightly so, becauseyou're paying for someone's
services and they're not,there's no per, uh, like ongoing
, uh, residual for a musicvideo.
The only people that get paid ona residual are the artist and
the label.
So when you're a director andyou put together a crew and
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everyone shows up for that dayof work or days of work, they
get paid their day rate, andthen they're done, and then
that's it, they don't, and itcould, you know, it could in
today's world, they could have abillion views on YouTube.
I don't know of any organizationthat's collecting fees for the
crew.
So, um, I always, you know, I, Iwould always have the discussion
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with people it's so expensiveit's and I'm like, man, it's not
really, you're actually gettinga really great deal for your,
for your dollar, because youhave these high end, amazingly
talented crew people who aredoing really, really great work,
um, putting together this, youknow, magic, you know, and, and
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unlike feature films, most ofthe time, there's no dialogue,
you know, you're this, theplayback is what's known as MOS,
which is without sound.
So you're not recording sound,you're doing it to a track.
So there's been an audio packagemade.
And if it's a rock band orsomething, you know, they're,
they're playing back to the songthat's played there's time code.
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And so, you know, that's, youknow, having produced a couple
movies myself, like once the,once you roll sound, there has
to be, you know, complete quietand blah, blah, blah.
So a lot of times you're notexperiencing that on a music
video set, which make, does makeit for an easier, um,
environment.
And you can shoot in placeswhere you probably couldn't
shoot a movie because there'snoise, but you don't have to
(20:58):
really record it.
Now, I'm not saying that youdon't have audio, cuz there are
times when you do have audio andthere is dialogue and you do
shoot a scene with, you know,the artist talking or there's an
acting scene with somebody.
And so you know that in thosesituations you do need to record
sound, but for the bulk of them,there's not a lot of audio
recorded.
Um, so you get your shoot in.
(21:19):
Usually I try, you know, I don'thave a lot of money that I've
left over.
So you try not to go intoovertime.
Videos, tend to have overtime.
That's just the way it is.
Um, I think productioncompanies, you know, a lot of
them may be outta businessbecause of that.
They do invest in the art, thedirector.
Sometimes they wanna do thingsthat make it go over.
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If it was the art, if it was myartist's fault for going
overtime, I would pay for theovertime.
If it was just bad production, Ididn't pay for the overtime.
Um, it's just not something thatI felt was my responsibility.
Um, as bad as I felt, I justfelt like it was, you know, to
be honest, not my, not my faultand I didn't have the money to
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do it.
Um, I would always, if, if itwas the artist's fault or there
were some issues and I I'll gointo it on specific videos, we
had some colossal things we got,I got on a D 12 video, we got
shut down by the New York policedepartment.
So we literally had a full daythat we had to make up, which
was, you know, upwards of$250,000, um, in New York.
(22:24):
But we'll get into that.
That was the D 12 fight musicvideo.
Um, but we got it done andultimately, you know, it got, it
got sorted.
Um, so you do your shoot, youknow, you rap, everyone's
excited.
And then you go into, um, theedit Where, you know, the first
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thing you do, like I said, backin the day was a Tai I'm
guessing today.
They still have Tallis where yousit with a colorist on a very
incredible board and you can,you know, really manipulate the
colors and, you know, what's iscrushing the blacks and bring
things out to make sure that the, uh, picture is as, uh,
(23:13):
spectacular as possible.
Um, you know, most of the timeon video shoots, you're you?
Well, certainly back when wewere doing, it was 35 millimeter
with, you know, you know, cinemalenses.
And so you had this really crisppicture.
Um, you know, there, there was amovement of 16 millimeter back
in the late eighties, earlynineties that gave it that gave
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it its own look, its own likekind of dirty Sandy, you know,
over modulated kind of thingwhere, you know, like that, but
that became a thing.
And that was cool.
But most of the time when I wasdoing videos, we were shooting
pretty clean 35 millimetersetting the look.
And then once you get all thatfootage onto digital, it would
(23:55):
go to the editor, they wouldedit the video.
The director sits, you know,would, you know, sit with the
editor, whatever and get you,get you a, what's known as a
rough cut.
Um, I would always look at therough cut and I obviously had my
notes and things that I likedthings that I didn't like,
things that I wanted to change,um, stuff that I didn't want in
(24:16):
the video, but I would alwayssend that first rough cut for me
to the artist because I wantedto get back to the director and
the production company with fullnotes.
I know a lot of people don't dothat.
I know a lot of people maketheir edits and then send it to
the artist unless of the videois in such bad shape that I
couldn't even send it to theartist which can happen at times
(24:38):
.
Sometimes there are directorswho have really good instincts
on making a thing, but they'renot necessarily great editors
and they didn't have a goodeditor or whatever it was.
Um, sometimes I would've to gosit in there for a night and
just get it to a point where I'mlike, okay, now I can at least
send it.
Cuz if you send something that'sso bad to the artist they'll um,
rightfully so panic and thinkthat their video's unwatchable.
(25:01):
So I never wanted to send themsomething like that.
But most of the time I would geta pretty good cut, pretty good.
I first rough cut something thatI would, you know, have changes
that I wanted to make on it.
But I would send that along tothe artist and the manager and
talk to them about it.
Um, they would ask me mythoughts.
I would usually give them mythoughts.
They had their thoughts.
I would, you know, some things,I like some things sometimes I
(25:22):
had to talk artists out ofthings or say, no, no, no, you
look great there you're wrong.
And you know, but you know,ultimately it's their video.
So I would do my best to fightfor what I believed in.
But you know, in the end you dogive into the artists wishes as
long as it doesn't, you know, inyour mind hurt the artist.
You're never, in my opinion,giving'em enough rope to hang
themselves.
That's not something you wannado.
(25:43):
And most artists don't wanna dothat.
I'm, I've found that the artistsI work with tend to trust your
sensibilities and, and they wantto know what you think.
And a lot of times they don'thave a lot of people around them
that will give them straighthonesty.
So as a video commissioner, Ialways felt like I wanted to
give them the true, um, my truethoughts.
(26:07):
Um, so then you get it to apoint where it's ready to go.
Um, there is a, a, a masteringprocess or a final process
where, you know, you go in andfinish it.
You can do some final tweaks.
There's some use some, you know,beauty work that can be done in
the, in the final edit.
And then, um, for me that, youknow, we used to deliver God, we
(26:28):
used to deliver on like, youknow, one inch or D two digital
things.
And, uh, like the, it was a, adigital master is what we had.
And so, um, from there a and atthe same time, once I had a
rough cut that the artist wasokay with and the, I was okay
with, uh, we would send it offto the promotion, the video
(26:50):
promotion department, who,depending on the artist would
send that to MTV, cuz that wasthe holy grail of music video
was getting onto MTV.
Um, nowadays you make a videoand you put it on YouTube and
(27:12):
anyone can see it whenever theywant back in the day when I used
to work, do videos, I know thatsounds so grandpa like, but, and
I don't mean it in that way, butit really was a different kind
of ecosystem where you, youknow, the bigger artists would
make a video and of course itwould go onto MTV because that
helped the, the channel getviewers.
(27:34):
But there was a lot of youngartists and, and up and coming
people that didn't get onto MTV,but you would try, you know,
you'd make the best video andhope that they would put it.
If they didn't put it into bigrotation, they would at least
put it into some sort ofspecialized programming or
something.
But either way, MTV had a wholeprocess where you couldn't have
any label.
So there was always a blurringprocess cuz it was advertising.
(27:55):
They didn't want people to getfree advertising in the videos.
So a lot of times, certainly inhip hop videos, you would have
Nike logos or Puma logos or any,you know, cargo, kale or
whatever, any sort of, you know,any logo of any brand had to be
blurred out.
So sometimes we blur them.
Sometimes we would just paint itO with the same color, whatever
(28:17):
it was, that was a wholeprocess.
And then there was also, um, astandards, uh, you know, kind of
pass that MTV would do wherethey would go through and tell
you what, what was okay and whatwas not okay.
Um, there was, you know,obviously there were various
like no smoking, no, um, um, uh,you know, no drug use, no sex,
(28:41):
no nudity.
Um, but sometimes they wouldjust have things where like, you
know, when we did the M and Mstand video, um, they did not
want Dito in the back of the,you can't have people held
against their will.
So even though in the originalversion of the video, DDO was in
the trunk at the end, when he'sdriving in, we had to cut that
(29:02):
all out for standards for MTV.
Um, and I'll get into a lot ofthose specifically when I talk
about the specific videos, but,but I would always, I would
always try to send the video inits purest form, knowing that I
would have, if there, you know,if there were a hundred things
wrong, I was hoping they didn'tsee all of them and that I would
(29:23):
make my 40 or 50 changes and tryand get it as pure as possible.
Cuz while I understood some ofthem like the logos and others,
sometimes they just got, youknow, picky nitpicky and it
became a way for them not toprogram videos.
And there was always a push andpull between the label and the
channel.
But ultimately you deliver yourfinal video and you know,
(29:45):
hopefully it goes on MTV.
And um, I remember, you know,there were some people who used
to say that what's a good video,a good video is a video that
gets played on MTV.
I didn't always have that thing.
I always thought video was anart form and really liked it.
But I loved when my video gotplayed on MTV because it was a
way for your work to be seen bymillions of people all at the
(30:05):
same time.
Um, you kind of put yourselfinto the, the discussion of pop
culture or, you know, musicculture, and you hopefully are
pushing the envelope to makepeople make better videos.
So I always, you know, strivefor that as a commissioner was
always, um, really proud of thevideos most of the time that I
(30:27):
did and that that got on MTV andwhen they didn't, I would try
and, you know, send them aroundthere.
Weren't a lot of outlets.
You know, YouTube became a muchdiff I was pretty much out of
the music video around whenYouTube came because the
business changed dramaticallyand there was a period, excuse
me, a period where, um, budgetswere way, way down, labels are
(30:48):
doing much better.
Now, I don't know that they'respending the salaries that, you
know, some, a video commissionerwould make a good, a good living
and was a high paid executive inthe realm of the music video.
I think they're making a lotmore money now.
Labels are, but I don't knowthat they're paying video
commissioners, what they used topay.
So, um, anyways, we woulddeliver the video.
(31:11):
It would get on MTV and as theysaid, the rest was history.
Uh, there you go.
That's episode six,commissioning 1 0 1.
Hope you enjoyed it.
(31:32):
I know I did.
Um, we're gonna get into M and Mlose yourself.
I just saw the Oscars for a fewweeks ago and realized I have
really good stories about thatvideo, even though it's a little
bit of a repeat artist.
I figured I'm just gonna tellthe best stories I can on this
podcast.
So lose yourself is a reallygood story.
Lots of, uh, interesting thingshappened, um, from the, just
(31:54):
making the, getting the song,making the song eight mile, the
whole thing.
So, um, that's it.
Let's, uh, let's wrap it up.
Um, my name is Randy Sasson.
This is the commissioner.
And as always, I'll leave youwith one last thought sheet.
Music is basically just thesound recipe.
Hello and welcome to the commissioner.
My name is Randy son.
This is episode six,commissioning 1 0 1.
So what is a music videocommissioner?
If I had to break it down, it'skind of a ven diagram of where a
(00:30):
creative movie producer, whowould hire the director and the
production team.
Um, a movie studio, because as acommissioner, you basically are
financing your own movie orvideo as it were, um, a brand
manager where your brand is theartist, and you need to make
(00:52):
sure you're making the rightproduct for that artist and kind
of a zeitgeist predictor, if youwill, where you're knowing what
is out there in the culture ofmusic, depending on the genre
and what other artists are doingand how you can be unique and,
um, thoughtful for the artists,but also make something that's
(01:15):
very creative that captures theattention of, of the population
to back in the day, when I wasmaking videos, it was a very
closed distribution system.
So they were pivotal to selling,selling music, which is much
different than it is today,where you can stream anything
you want and videos are, arejudged on views.
But I think most of the timepeople are just listening to
(01:37):
them.
Not that they don't watch them,you know, cuz I do think people
do watch videos.
I just don't think they watch'ema thousand times or a million
times.
I think they watch it a coupletimes and then you listen to the
video as the audio.
So that's kind of where that vendiagram kind of, that you're in
the middle of that kind of fourintersectional, really important
(01:59):
pieces.
Um, and that's, that is a musicvideo commissioner.
It's kind of a, it can besomewhat enigmatic because I
don't know that it's somethingyou can fill out on a school,
um, wishlist for, with acounselor.
I don't know that you go toschool for that, you know, kinda
like being a manager for anartist.
I don't think you go to schoolfor that either, but it's an
(02:21):
incredible job and somethingthat I loved doing for many
years.
Okay.
So that's what a music videocommissioner kind of is from
30,000 feet.
But what, what does a musicvideo commissioner do?
(02:43):
Um, you basically are in chargeof making the music video for
the artist at the label.
So where do you start?
Right.
So the um, where you start isthe, uh, marketing a and R
promotion department pick asong, right?
They've decided whatever theartist is, they've made a record
(03:05):
and they're picking a song anddepending on what it is, it's
can be the first single from anew release.
It can be the second single froma big hit record.
It can be the second single froma record, from a big artist that
had a stiff first single there'sa, there are a myriad of things
that are, you know, determinedon that, you know, uh, song that
gets picked.
But the video commissionerdoesn't pick the song you're
(03:27):
given a song.
Um, and then you listen to thatsong, right?
And you're start to think, youknow, about what the artist has
done in the past or maybe thisis their first video where they
fit into the marketplace.
Um, what, what would be good forthem?
What their visual things are,you meet with the artist and the
(03:49):
manager usually and talk to themabout what their thoughts are.
And, um, you're given a budgetwhich can range, you know, back
in the day, the lower end videoswere 75 to a hundred thousand.
And you know, at the high end itwas a million plus for, you
know, it wasn't uncommon forbigger artists to spend a
(04:11):
million dollars on a video.
I'm not sure what budgets aretoday.
Uh, but you know, I'm guessingpeople do spend a lot of money
on them.
If you wanna get good people andquality people to do really good
film work, you need to pay themas they sh they should get paid.
So, um, once you have a kind ofan idea of what the artist wants
to do and you should come tothat meeting, I usually did
(04:33):
anyways, would come to themeeting with a kind of an idea
of what you're thinking andwhere they would fit in at that
point to the, to the zeitgeist,if you will, of the music thing,
depending on the genre, be ithip hop or rock or pop, um, you
know, each artist has their ownfan base and, and you obviously
(04:55):
want to please that fan base,but you're always looking to
expand the fan base withoutbeing alienating to the fan
base.
Um, you will, you come to the,uh, you know, the meeting with
ideas and then you leave therewith a basic understanding of
kind of what it is you aresetting out to do with this
music video.
From there, you call productioncompanies who represent
(05:18):
directors and talk to the eitherexecutive producer or the, uh,
the rep for the director andkind of discuss, uh, the
directors that you're interestedin and their availability, um,
and the interest, you know,bigger artists pull in.
Obviously there's a lot of youngmusic video directors that want
to do bigger artists becauseit's a great opportunity for
(05:40):
them in their career, um, whichsometimes, you know, would
happen.
Um, there's also back in theday, there was a lot of, um, you
know, competition for the biggerdirectors and they were very
particular and, you know, wouldpass on a lot of, um, a lot of
(06:00):
the times I would call to see ifAlor SIGA, Mondi was interested
or a Sophie Mueller or DavidCher or a spike Jones.
You know, those kind of arethose kind of directors would,
would be very picky.
Um, they tend to haverelationships with artists that
they like to work with.
Um, especially as they gotbigger and started to do more
commercials and feature films,um, they, you know, pretty much
(06:24):
would turn down a lot of videowork, um, do a to availability B
to lack of interest in workingwith the artists.
And it wasn't necessarily meanspirited.
It was just, you know,creatively, they didn't think
they could bring something tothe party.
Um, and so from there, once youhave a list of directors that
(06:44):
you know, are available, um,because you're obviously looking
at scheduling this shoot, right?
And there's a, you know, theproduction, a promotion and
marketing team is like, here'syour song, here's when we're
releasing it.
Here's when you have to have thevideo done.
The whole process usually takesabout six to 10 weeks.
You know, the longer, thebetter, obviously from, from a
(07:06):
film production standpoint,because, you know, putting
everything together andbudgeting and availability,
depending on what the thoughtthe process is, or the idea is,
and locations and et cetera.
And then also based on when theartist is available, you know,
bigger artists have tours thatthey're on, especially if it's a
second single they're alreadytouring.
So sometimes you have to go tolocation, which you have to fit
(07:27):
into your budget and all these,you know, kind of variables that
exist for the pro project to goforward.
So you're, you know, you're,you, you know, talk to the
production companies, get a listof directors, um, go back to the
managers and, and let'em knowher know, let'em know that, you
(07:48):
know, here's the list, here'swhat we're getting.
We're gonna get treatments ingive, and you give the
production company a date, youknow, by this date, Um, a
treatment is usually one page tothree pages.
Some people use image, you know,visuals, um, just a quick
(08:09):
breakdown synopsis summary ofwhat they wanna do.
It's, you know, pie in the sky.
Um, I would always have thisreally fun challenge of, you
know, uh, challenging directorsto, you know, give me a video
treatment in one sentence.
And, and, you know, I think thespike Jones had those.
I don't know that he did them inone sentence, but if you've ever
(08:30):
seen the dinosaur junior videothat he did, you know, it's like
Manhattan is a par five or, uh,that wax video that he did with,
you know, man on fire running tocatch a bus, you know, like it
was those kind of things arejust, you know, or the BC boy
sabotage video, you know, aQuinton Martin cop show from the
seventies intro, you know, sothose were always like, oh, I
(08:53):
get it.
I totally know what that couldbe.
And then obviously thebrilliance of the director would
come through, hopefully in, inthat thing.
But most directors can't dothat.
And, and I get it.
It's not easy.
That is not an easy challenge.
And a lot of times, as adirector, you wanna explain
yourself, so they writesummaries.
It's, you know, 1, 2, 3paragraphs five paragraphs, the
(09:14):
longer it is the, the harder itis to digest.
So most production companies gothrough that process and, you
know, will, will edit it to thepoint where it's, it's they know
they're sending you somethingthat's they feel good about that
they can do for the budget andyou know, that they can, you
know, that that's readable.
(09:35):
So that me as the commissionerand the artist and the manager
look at it and it hopefullyjumps off the page and they're
excited about it, um, thatbecomes, you know, so eventually
you get down to that, oh, thisis a great idea.
Um, you know, you can do aconference.
Sometimes artists want to talkto the directors.
(09:55):
They sometimes they know thedirector and that becomes an
easier thing.
Sometimes most of the time theydon't.
So they would wanna do a quickcall just to kind of have them
explain it.
They have some questions, youknow, um, artists are very
particular about their brand andwhat they wanna do, directors
are very particular about theiridea and what they wanna do.
(10:15):
So the commissioner's job is todelicately, make sure that both
are served properly so that youcan have the artists with their
integrity of their brand intactand the director to give you the
best possible video.
Um, and that is, that is alittle delicate thing that you
learn as you do the job.
Um, I came from before I was acommissioner, I was actually at
(10:36):
a production companyrepresenting director.
So I, you know, obviously hadthat side of me, but would work
with a lot of artists and wasable to, um, you know,
understand and get my directorsto, to, I wouldn't say Ben, but,
you know, appreciate theartist's point of view because
it's very important.
And ultimately it's theirvision.
(10:57):
It's the director who brings itto life and puts that.
But the artist has to be infront of the camera, so becomes
quote unquote, their video.
Um, so from once you have a, atreatment and then they give you
a budget, as far as budgets go,I was always very open about my
budgets.
I know a lot of people don't dothat and I there's, I wouldn't
(11:20):
say there's a right or wrong wayto do it.
It becomes you as a person.
If I was given$150,000 to make avideo, I would usually go to the
production company with probably125 or 130, depending on the
artist.
Um, knowing that I had costbuilt in some artists have their
own stylist.
When you deal with a lot of hiphop artists, there's a lot of
(11:42):
entourage that has to be coveredin the cost of the budget.
And so if you're flying in anumber of people, you know, um,
a solo artist or a band you'retalking about, you know, four to
six people, maybe with themanager seven or eight with a
tour manager, you know, hip hopartists can be 10, 12, 15
people.
(12:04):
Um, and, and those people haveto be flown in and put up at a
hotel and there has to be groundtransportation.
There's usually meals that haveto be accounted for.
Um, so, you know, you wanna makesure that you're giving yourself
enough money in your budget,that you handle that as a
commissioner, because it is yourresponsibility to make sure you
(12:25):
bring the video in on budget.
And so, um, you, you know, Iwould, but I'd like to give the
production company as much ofthe budget as possible, because
I always felt that a music videopeople work their asses often
need to get paid and B the moremoney you spend, if you spend it
properly and really put it onthe camera, you, you know, get
(12:48):
you get what you pay for.
You really do.
You can really push things inand you know, it is your job as
a commissioner to know whatthings cost.
So when you look at a budget,when they finally do turn in a
budget, you can go, it's usuallya line item budget.
That's done very close to an a IC P, which is the commercial
production budget.
So it's, you know, broken downby lines and broken down by
(13:09):
departments and broken down bycost of day rates and days and
equipment.
And, you know, PO in video, youhave to, you know, do posts.
When I first started doingvideo, most of it was shot on
film.
Um, so part of the budget was,you know, after the, you know,
you shot everything on film, youhad to transfer it, or do what's
(13:30):
known as a Teleny to get it to adigital realm, to be able to
edit on, you know, Avids or, youknow, at one point final cut was
there.
It's just kind of when I wasdoing it was before Adobe, but
either way, it's, it's a, it's anon-linear digital, um, realm
that all the film had to betransferred.
And in, and in that transfer,you could give it a look because
(13:51):
you had colorists that wouldtake the film and process, you
know, give it a real interestinglook.
Um, uh, used there, you know, inthe beginning, beginning when
they did that, it wasn't that weused to edit on, you know, Sony
and three quarter inch tapes,and you would have to visual,
you know, physically put in thetapes and it would have to read
the code.
(14:12):
And so, but once avid came in,it became a much more, um, fluid
process, but either way, youstill had to do it on film and
then transfer it to digital.
Now, pretty much everyone shootson digital and you can even set
cameras looks in cameras,although I'm not sure why you
would do that, but you could,you can do that if you wanted
to.
(14:32):
Um, so it's a little bit easierprocess, but there's still a
Teleny, I'm sure you still wannaset your look and still get
that, you know, colorize the,the, the raw footage to make it
look like your vision, whateverthat director and the DP are.
(14:54):
All right.
So now you've got the treatment,you got the budget, it works,
the artist and management issigned off.
You have your shoot day.
Um, you start to work with theproduction company on who
they're hiring, who the directorwants to hire for the director
of photography and for theproduction designer, and you
know, where the location is tomake sure that it's doable and,
(15:17):
and, and any sort of specialrequest that you might have for
the artists where they need tohave, you know, if you're gonna
be on a, a, a remote location orsomething, making sure that
there's a star wagon so thatthey can get ready and that
there's air conditioning,because if it's hot out there,
they're gonna need to not looksweaty and disgusting in front
of the camera.
So, um, so you get all thatsorted.
(15:41):
You, you know, I, I was always acommissioner who, I don't know.
I, I, I knew people that I likedand that would work, and I
wanted to at least sign off onthe director of photography and
production designer.
Um, but I would never stopsomebody.
I never had a list of people Ididn't work with.
Um, I was never spiteful likethat.
(16:02):
I just sometimes know thatpeople take longer.
And sometimes that didn't workfor some artists there.
I've had a couple of jobs, whichwhen I'll get into in specific
videos where we did have to, youknow, get rid of certain people
on the crew for personalityreasons and whatnot.
So, you know, that becomes anissue.
But for the most part, I prettymuch let directors hire who they
(16:26):
wanted to hire.
Um, or at least I think I did.
I'm guessing once these comeout, they'll let me know that I
was the ogre, but I don't feellike I was.
So that's at least my experienceof it.
Um, there's not a massivepre-pro in music video because
of time and money.
(16:46):
Um, usually usually I'll just gothrough with the executive
producer and the director on aquick call, kind of talking
about the day, um, you know, andthen get to the shoot.
And when I would get to theshoot, I would, you know,
immediately go into theproduction office, talk to the
line producer who is responsiblefor the whole shoot, as far as
(17:11):
production goes.
And then, you know, get a callsheet at a shooting schedule and
try and sit with the first ad tofigure out the day and see how
realistic it is and see what theplans are like any, like
anything else.
Everyone has their style.
My style for music video hasalways been, you know, while
(17:34):
you're setting up to dosomething great, try and shoot a
performance of the artist,because at the end of the day,
that pretty much can always justbe the it's like fail safe.
Right?
You get, um, you get a goodperformance in with the artist
performing the song to thecamera, and you pretty much have
the basis of a music video.
(18:03):
Not every music video is likethat.
And you can't do that for everymusic video and some guys, and
some girls don't wanna do that.
And I respect that, um, some persome videos have no performance
at all.
So, you know, there's, you,that's not something you can do
for that particular video, butfor the bulk of the videos, it's
usually a good way to getstarted.
And it gets the artist feelingbetter about themselves when
(18:26):
they're performing the song.
So, um, that's, you know, that'sthe bulk of what you're doing on
the shoot.
And then, you know, you haveyour, excuse me, um, your, you
know, your, your shoot whenyou're doing most of the time,
it was a two day shoot.
Um, sometimes, you know, like Isaid, the lower budgets when
you're at 75, I know it soundslike ridiculous, but when you
(18:49):
really have a good crew with ahigh end DP, who's got a real
grip and a gaff, a wholeelectric team that has, you
know, theirs and utilities andthen a production designer and a
costume designer.
And you have catering and youhave location fees and you have
production.
You know, people get paid ratesas they should.
I was always a firm believerthat you work a day, you get
paid.
(19:09):
So, you know, believe it or not,filmmaking is expensive.
Um, and rightly so, becauseyou're paying for someone's
services and they're not,there's no per, uh, like ongoing
, uh, residual for a musicvideo.
The only people that get paid ona residual are the artist and
the label.
So when you're a director andyou put together a crew and
(19:32):
everyone shows up for that dayof work or days of work, they
get paid their day rate, andthen they're done, and then
that's it, they don't, and itcould, you know, it could in
today's world, they could have abillion views on YouTube.
I don't know of any organizationthat's collecting fees for the
crew.
So, um, I always, you know, I, Iwould always have the discussion
(19:54):
with people it's so expensiveit's and I'm like, man, it's not
really, you're actually gettinga really great deal for your,
for your dollar, because youhave these high end, amazingly
talented crew people who aredoing really, really great work,
um, putting together this, youknow, magic, you know, and, and
(20:16):
unlike feature films, most ofthe time, there's no dialogue,
you know, you're this, theplayback is what's known as MOS,
which is without sound.
So you're not recording sound,you're doing it to a track.
So there's been an audio packagemade.
And if it's a rock band orsomething, you know, they're,
they're playing back to the songthat's played there's time code.
(20:37):
And so, you know, that's, youknow, having produced a couple
movies myself, like once the,once you roll sound, there has
to be, you know, complete quietand blah, blah, blah.
So a lot of times you're notexperiencing that on a music
video set, which make, does makeit for an easier, um,
environment.
And you can shoot in placeswhere you probably couldn't
shoot a movie because there'snoise, but you don't have to
(20:58):
really record it.
Now, I'm not saying that youdon't have audio, cuz there are
times when you do have audio andthere is dialogue and you do
shoot a scene with, you know,the artist talking or there's an
acting scene with somebody.
And so you know that in thosesituations you do need to record
sound, but for the bulk of them,there's not a lot of audio
recorded.
Um, so you get your shoot in.
(21:19):
Usually I try, you know, I don'thave a lot of money that I've
left over.
So you try not to go intoovertime.
Videos, tend to have overtime.
That's just the way it is.
Um, I think productioncompanies, you know, a lot of
them may be outta businessbecause of that.
They do invest in the art, thedirector.
Sometimes they wanna do thingsthat make it go over.
(21:40):
If it was the art, if it was myartist's fault for going
overtime, I would pay for theovertime.
If it was just bad production, Ididn't pay for the overtime.
Um, it's just not something thatI felt was my responsibility.
Um, as bad as I felt, I justfelt like it was, you know, to
be honest, not my, not my faultand I didn't have the money to
(22:02):
do it.
Um, I would always, if, if itwas the artist's fault or there
were some issues and I I'll gointo it on specific videos, we
had some colossal things we got,I got on a D 12 video, we got
shut down by the New York policedepartment.
So we literally had a full daythat we had to make up, which
was, you know, upwards of$250,000, um, in New York.
(22:24):
But we'll get into that.
That was the D 12 fight musicvideo.
Um, but we got it done andultimately, you know, it got, it
got sorted.
Um, so you do your shoot, youknow, you rap, everyone's
excited.
And then you go into, um, theedit Where, you know, the first
(22:51):
thing you do, like I said, backin the day was a Tai I'm
guessing today.
They still have Tallis where yousit with a colorist on a very
incredible board and you can,you know, really manipulate the
colors and, you know, what's iscrushing the blacks and bring
things out to make sure that the, uh, picture is as, uh,
(23:13):
spectacular as possible.
Um, you know, most of the timeon video shoots, you're you?
Well, certainly back when wewere doing, it was 35 millimeter
with, you know, you know, cinemalenses.
And so you had this really crisppicture.
Um, you know, there, there was amovement of 16 millimeter back
in the late eighties, earlynineties that gave it that gave
(23:34):
it its own look, its own likekind of dirty Sandy, you know,
over modulated kind of thingwhere, you know, like that, but
that became a thing.
And that was cool.
But most of the time when I wasdoing videos, we were shooting
pretty clean 35 millimetersetting the look.
And then once you get all thatfootage onto digital, it would
(23:55):
go to the editor, they wouldedit the video.
The director sits, you know,would, you know, sit with the
editor, whatever and get you,get you a, what's known as a
rough cut.
Um, I would always look at therough cut and I obviously had my
notes and things that I likedthings that I didn't like,
things that I wanted to change,um, stuff that I didn't want in
(24:16):
the video, but I would alwayssend that first rough cut for me
to the artist because I wantedto get back to the director and
the production company with fullnotes.
I know a lot of people don't dothat.
I know a lot of people maketheir edits and then send it to
the artist unless of the videois in such bad shape that I
couldn't even send it to theartist which can happen at times
(24:38):
.
Sometimes there are directorswho have really good instincts
on making a thing, but they'renot necessarily great editors
and they didn't have a goodeditor or whatever it was.
Um, sometimes I would've to gosit in there for a night and
just get it to a point where I'mlike, okay, now I can at least
send it.
Cuz if you send something that'sso bad to the artist they'll um,
rightfully so panic and thinkthat their video's unwatchable.
(25:01):
So I never wanted to send themsomething like that.
But most of the time I would geta pretty good cut, pretty good.
I first rough cut something thatI would, you know, have changes
that I wanted to make on it.
But I would send that along tothe artist and the manager and
talk to them about it.
Um, they would ask me mythoughts.
I would usually give them mythoughts.
They had their thoughts.
I would, you know, some things,I like some things sometimes I
(25:22):
had to talk artists out ofthings or say, no, no, no, you
look great there you're wrong.
And you know, but you know,ultimately it's their video.
So I would do my best to fightfor what I believed in.
But you know, in the end you dogive into the artists wishes as
long as it doesn't, you know, inyour mind hurt the artist.
You're never, in my opinion,giving'em enough rope to hang
themselves.
That's not something you wannado.
(25:43):
And most artists don't wanna dothat.
I'm, I've found that the artistsI work with tend to trust your
sensibilities and, and they wantto know what you think.
And a lot of times they don'thave a lot of people around them
that will give them straighthonesty.
So as a video commissioner, Ialways felt like I wanted to
give them the true, um, my truethoughts.
(26:07):
Um, so then you get it to apoint where it's ready to go.
Um, there is a, a, a masteringprocess or a final process
where, you know, you go in andfinish it.
You can do some final tweaks.
There's some use some, you know,beauty work that can be done in
the, in the final edit.
And then, um, for me that, youknow, we used to deliver God, we
(26:28):
used to deliver on like, youknow, one inch or D two digital
things.
And, uh, like the, it was a, adigital master is what we had.
And so, um, from there a and atthe same time, once I had a
rough cut that the artist wasokay with and the, I was okay
with, uh, we would send it offto the promotion, the video
(26:50):
promotion department, who,depending on the artist would
send that to MTV, cuz that wasthe holy grail of music video
was getting onto MTV.
Um, nowadays you make a videoand you put it on YouTube and
(27:12):
anyone can see it whenever theywant back in the day when I used
to work, do videos, I know thatsounds so grandpa like, but, and
I don't mean it in that way, butit really was a different kind
of ecosystem where you, youknow, the bigger artists would
make a video and of course itwould go onto MTV because that
helped the, the channel getviewers.
(27:34):
But there was a lot of youngartists and, and up and coming
people that didn't get onto MTV,but you would try, you know,
you'd make the best video andhope that they would put it.
If they didn't put it into bigrotation, they would at least
put it into some sort ofspecialized programming or
something.
But either way, MTV had a wholeprocess where you couldn't have
any label.
So there was always a blurringprocess cuz it was advertising.
(27:55):
They didn't want people to getfree advertising in the videos.
So a lot of times, certainly inhip hop videos, you would have
Nike logos or Puma logos or any,you know, cargo, kale or
whatever, any sort of, you know,any logo of any brand had to be
blurred out.
So sometimes we blur them.
Sometimes we would just paint itO with the same color, whatever
(28:17):
it was, that was a wholeprocess.
And then there was also, um, astandards, uh, you know, kind of
pass that MTV would do wherethey would go through and tell
you what, what was okay and whatwas not okay.
Um, there was, you know,obviously there were various
like no smoking, no, um, um, uh,you know, no drug use, no sex,
(28:41):
no nudity.
Um, but sometimes they wouldjust have things where like, you
know, when we did the M and Mstand video, um, they did not
want Dito in the back of the,you can't have people held
against their will.
So even though in the originalversion of the video, DDO was in
the trunk at the end, when he'sdriving in, we had to cut that
(29:02):
all out for standards for MTV.
Um, and I'll get into a lot ofthose specifically when I talk
about the specific videos, but,but I would always, I would
always try to send the video inits purest form, knowing that I
would have, if there, you know,if there were a hundred things
wrong, I was hoping they didn'tsee all of them and that I would
(29:23):
make my 40 or 50 changes and tryand get it as pure as possible.
Cuz while I understood some ofthem like the logos and others,
sometimes they just got, youknow, picky nitpicky and it
became a way for them not toprogram videos.
And there was always a push andpull between the label and the
channel.
But ultimately you deliver yourfinal video and you know,
(29:45):
hopefully it goes on MTV.
And um, I remember, you know,there were some people who used
to say that what's a good video,a good video is a video that
gets played on MTV.
I didn't always have that thing.
I always thought video was anart form and really liked it.
But I loved when my video gotplayed on MTV because it was a
way for your work to be seen bymillions of people all at the
(30:05):
same time.
Um, you kind of put yourselfinto the, the discussion of pop
culture or, you know, musicculture, and you hopefully are
pushing the envelope to makepeople make better videos.
So I always, you know, strivefor that as a commissioner was
always, um, really proud of thevideos most of the time that I
(30:27):
did and that that got on MTV andwhen they didn't, I would try
and, you know, send them aroundthere.
Weren't a lot of outlets.
You know, YouTube became a muchdiff I was pretty much out of
the music video around whenYouTube came because the
business changed dramaticallyand there was a period, excuse
me, a period where, um, budgetswere way, way down, labels are
(30:48):
doing much better.
Now, I don't know that they'respending the salaries that, you
know, some, a video commissionerwould make a good, a good living
and was a high paid executive inthe realm of the music video.
I think they're making a lotmore money now.
Labels are, but I don't knowthat they're paying video
commissioners, what they used topay.
So, um, anyways, we woulddeliver the video.
(31:11):
It would get on MTV and as theysaid, the rest was history.
Uh, there you go.
That's episode six,commissioning 1 0 1.
Hope you enjoyed it.
(31:32):
I know I did.
Um, we're gonna get into M and Mlose yourself.
I just saw the Oscars for a fewweeks ago and realized I have
really good stories about thatvideo, even though it's a little
bit of a repeat artist.
I figured I'm just gonna tellthe best stories I can on this
podcast.
So lose yourself is a reallygood story.
Lots of, uh, interesting thingshappened, um, from the, just
(31:54):
making the, getting the song,making the song eight mile, the
whole thing.
So, um, that's it.
Let's, uh, let's wrap it up.
Um, my name is Randy Sasson.
This is the commissioner.
And as always, I'll leave youwith one last thought sheet.
Music is basically just thesound recipe.
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