Polydor Records Talk

Here are some notes I took from the talk with Emily Teadrake who is now making music videos.

• Worked with Lana del Rey, the 1975
• Speak to the artist first- may have a really clear idea, the 1975 and lana del rey always know what they want
• Put director with the artist, write up the treatment and then shoot it
• Some artists just leave it to directors because don’t know what they want to do
• Give directors full artistic control
• Mix mechanical and ice for Wiley's music video
• They write a brief and send it to 5 or 10 directors who they think are suitable in terms of their other work
• In the brief: budget/timescale, imagery of the artist, not too specific because could end up getting the same ideas back, leave it open for them to interpret
• Movies, old music videos, photography is used for inspiration of the brief
• One to two months in terms of writing a brief, getting a treatment and then editing
• Can not combine an element of another director’s idea into a different director’s concept
• People are always overseeing everything, making the artist look good, making sure the director doesn’t get lost in the concept and forget about the artist’s image
• Concise summary of an idea, and then go into more detail like lighting, location, visual references that are achievable and realistic for the budget
• Video has to be to treatment to avoid argument
• If the artist doesn’t like the video they try to push the idea to avoid arguments
• Important to have the video changing as it goes on in terms of the visual aspects
• Always consider how the music will fit with the video
• Off Bloom video- like to make videos that don’t look like they’re signed to a major label
• People want authenticity for a new band, keeps audience feeling connected
• Jax Jones edited in 7 days, a lot of money spent on making the editor work 24 hours
• The 1975 was all Matty’s idea
• Director will have a colour palette in mind which is then played around with to enhance some and dim others