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12/14/2011

FACT: The cost of a music video should always be treated the same as the cost of a car(JA$)

I'm about to clear something up that someone should have done long ago. This is particularly aimed at the cheap sons of bitches with the unrealistic expectations and the viewer who wishes to criticize productions in an ignorant and unreasonable way. Note this first though, this blog does not apply to the "Diwrecktors" out there, the hustlers who're just in it for the hype or the money, the ones who no matter how much money they're paid couldn't direct their hands to their asses much less a video. Now that I've cleared that up, on to the matter at hand. And all figures mentioned are Jamaican dollars unless stated otherwise and if you're not Jamaican or familiar with the Jamaican music/motion picture scene then I doubt you'll be able to relate.

When deciding how much money you should spend on your next music video take this into consideration, "if I were to spend this money on a car, what kind of car would I get for it?". If you spent $150,000 on a car, then you've just bought a lemon! If you spent $250,000 - $800,000 on a car, my friend, you just bought a lemon, maybe a shiny, pretty one, but still a lemon! If you spent more than that but still under a million then you might have a semi decent car, but still someone else's old crap, so it will still be a far cry from perfect. Now the exact principle applies to paying for a music video, if a producer does a video for you for $200,000, take my word for it, no matter how great the director is, no matter how hard he or she tries, that will NOT look like Rihanna's umbrella video or any other hit video you saw on MTV, do not fool yourself! Same thing applies to the artist/producer who spent $500,000 on his video and the artist who boasts that they paid 800k for their video, unfortunately that hardly happens. Note, one million Jamaican CANNOT make a Beyonce video. Do not misconstrue this blog though, I understand that Jamaican music does not generate the figures international music does. I'm not bashing people for spending a little, just the dumb people who expect the world for that little, that's all. And as many experienced persons would already know, you can have a nice video for a little money or even free, but it will never stack up to the heavy hitters internationally(no matter what camera you used), even if you see a Jamaican video on an international TV station, it's still the least of the apostles.

What's my point you might be wondering, well anyone in my field who has to work in this country will understand, again, the hustlers and wanna bees do not count, because no matter how much you pay an orderly, that person will never be a surgeon! Go to med school and return a surgeon yes, but until then, sit your orderly ass down! So yes, these diwrecktors do not count. And so my points are these, one, when we hear that a particular director will take no less than $20g(US) for a video, stop hating, it's for a logical reason(no, it's not me), blood can't be made from stones and after a while, especially when you don't have to, working for a little for a client who's expecting a lot gets real old! So when a director has made his mark or fortune and decides to tell the cheapskates and broke asses to go to hell, I have no problem with that :) Secondly when you pay a producer a "pittance" stop expecting the world! Again, no blood from stones! Stop trying to make these R. Kelly videos, "up in the club" joints, it's whack! And if I did any "up in the clubs" videos, then i'm sure they were whack too! Clients need to stop requesting these "bling" videos with their pathetic budgets!!! But I blame the diwrecktors for allowing the client to believe they could pull it off! Although from personal experiences some persons are totally unreasonable so it boils down to a "take the money or leave it" kind of thing.It takes more than a make up artist, an HD cam and a few friends in a club to make your videos look like a Jay Z joint. And I don't care if you did pay a real director or who your DP is, nobody(in Jamaica) has done it right to this day! I do believe though, they're a select few on this rock that could do an excellent video to compete with the greats with a real budget! Thirdly, before you criticize another well put together Jamaican video by a real director who tried his or her best and start comparing it to international videos, think! How much did artist X pay the local director and how much did the multi million dollar international artist pay?! That's right, money isn't everything, but it's a whole lot and unfortunately in every field you have to sometimes take the smaller jobs first in order to build, congrats to all who didn't have to, if you figured out a way to run before you creep, please share.
So my respects to all who are doing their best, all the veterans who are teaching the young ones while still improving their own game and all the young talented directors who respect the game as an art, not a hustle.The word hustler in Jamaica and black America(probably a few more places) is used with respect and I understand why, it symbolizes to many, overcoming odds and making it by any means necessary, but to me, from what I've seen, a hustler is like a parasite! A termite! Anything hustlers get involved in gets watered down severely! Anything hustlers flock to gets ultimately ruined, like the music, that's why auto tune is so damn popular and that's why most singers today can't really sing! God help us the day that hustlers over take the medical industry(or maybe they already have), but that's content for another blog.If interested, look out for my next blog entitled "A camera is not a magic wand!".

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12/14/2011

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A Camera isn't a magic wand

Today fortunately and unforntunately technology has made it easy for just about anyone to buy a DSLR (5D, 7D, etc) and get great low light shots and a "filmic" looking shallow depth of feild. So now everybody is a film maker and now more than ever, everyone is a "music video director". Most of these delusional prima donnas tend to venture into music videos because it is easier to do a four minute long music video than any length movie. And if you do a poor job at producing this video you can just throw some graphics and split screens in there, attempt to cover up the mediocrity and just label it as "style". This is unfortunately acceptable in Jamaica, our standards are much lower than other developed countries. I shudder and cringe when I use the word "our", as I do not stoop to these mediocre standards, but the fact is I am Jamaican. Anyway, these new "reasonably" priced cameras are both good and bad, because even though the talentless hustlers will grab them up and try to make the camera make the production, they're still truly talented motion picture producers out there who are now able to let their lights shine without breaking the bank. The thing people need to take into consideration when treating a camera like a magic wand is this, true producers, cinematographers and directors were making great motion pictures long before the advent of these "HD" cameras, long before. And it is very easy, effortless even, for a true pro to use the oldest, weakest camera and produce a better picture than a novice with the latest Red or DSLR, or whatever the current craze is. Again, It's not the camera, it's the skilled person behind it. Also, and these are just my observations over the years regarding Jamaican productions, especially music videos, a Jib or Dolly (while being the amazing tools they are) do not equal a great production. You could have all the equipment in the land, if you have no true talent, experience and professionalism, all that equipment equals nothing. I've seen displays of this fact time and time again, every week in this country it seems new videos are released and very few of them are of any decent quality, mostly just hustlers trying to make a buck, using equipment and popular musicians as their selling point and very little in the way of true talent. It would be very easy for a trained military person to use a snub nosed revolver to take out a novice with an M-16 assault rifle. It would also be easy for a trained race car driver in an old 1973 volkswagon to outrun a novice in the latest sports car once placed on a track that requires skill to navigate. This is an indisputable fact! You see, if you were to give a pro an old beat up PD 150 camera on a properly lit set and do the same for a novice with a 5D Mark III and just tell them to press the record button, as every other setting was already done, then the novice would win because that's all left to the camera's abilities, but just like on a track that requires skill to maneuver through, the same principle would apply to a shot that had to be skillfully composed from scratch, a novice could not deliver in such a situation and technology has not yet reached that point where the camera will wipe your ass for you, so there's my point, skilled hands. This isn't Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, no magic wands here. Look out for my next blog - The world belongs to the "Doers", not the "Talkers"

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12/14/2011

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This world belongs to the "doers", not the "thinkers", and definitely not the "talkers"!

Here it is, blog number three. Now we all have to think before we act, even if these thoughts come from our subconscious, even if these actions were instinctive, even if they were reflex actions. So if you're brain dead I doubt there will be much action on your part, so yeah, I believe there must be some thought involved in what we do. And of course (unfortunately in many instances) we have to do some talking. So I'm not saying thoughts and words aren't important, but most important(at least to me) we must act!Throughout history there have been a lot of "thinkers", great minds, some went ahead and used their great minds and invented stuff like the light bulb and what not, this is good, they thought for many years and they acted and got things done, great.

But then we have the people who spent a huge chunk of their lives thinking about things, sometimes even obsessing over things, but never acted on it and died a miserable failure because they watched life pass them by only thinking about what could be done. So yes, I believe throughout history there have been many broke philosophers! Forget that, that just means you're smart for nothing. I believe we all know at least one person like that in each of our lives, the person who if you ever approach them with an issue or a problem and say "what's your take on this?" they will give you one hundred takes, but if you ask them "what have you done with your life?" this dumb ass is probably still living in his/her mother's basement, no kids, not rent/mortgage, no real responsibilities or problems but has a dozen solutions for your problems. Well you know what they say, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one...

Now the talkers, very similar to the thinkers, only the thinkers are usually more useful, as they have put a lot of thought into their theories, just not much practice. The talkers... damn these idiots. They always have something to say, most times negative, but still, always saying. A lot of times when you hear these talkers saying seemingly positive things they still aren't really positive. For example, a bunch of bums sit on a corner discussing the various successful entertainers, praising them, talking things about their successful idols that they could not possibly know for a fact, but talking anyway. The way I look at that scenario is like this, remember that old saying "small minds discuss people"? Yeah, if you find yourself for more than 5 minutes discussing people or a person, your mind is small! Even if you're one of those who sits with your "successful" friends with legs crossed on a Sunday evening with a cup of tea in hand discussing the US president,you're still a small minded person, trust me, Barack isn't somewhere discussing you. Discuss ideas then manifest these brilliant concepts, anything other than that, you're wasting time. I'm not saying you can't have a light, casual discussion,but most people take it too far, you'd think they were getting paid to talk. Like the idiots who call talk shows and talk useless crap (usually complaining) for hours, when only the host is getting paid and 90% of the time this host did not solve your problems, if ever! You whined and bitched, the guy hosting the radio show got paid, c'mon! Grow a brain!!!

Now how does this relate to me? Well for as long as I can remember I have been a really harsh critic, really harsh, no holds barred kind of person. I would see videos, movies, plays, etc and I would always come down really hard on them, brutally! Now a lot of people do this,but very few do something about it. Now even though I have made it clear many times that I believe most Jamaican productions are mediocre, I still have a level of respect for everyone, including the wretched hustlers who actually make a video, good or bad. Because even though one might make a crap video, at least they got past the talking and thinking stage, lots of people don't.An ass will just sit back with TV remote in hand, watch movie after movie, video after video, and rip them to shreds, if you say "why don't you try making a movie instead of saying Harry Potter movies suck?" they will give you a dozen reasons why they wont. So basically people are willing to criticize but do nothing about the problem. This goes right across the board, not just in motion picture production. Myself on the other hand, I have bashed many movies, many music videos, many productions,I had a job with a cable company once, I believe my fellow employees hated me because of my harsh and arrogant attitude, but instead of just talking out my ass, I made movies and videos of my own! That's my way of correcting a problem, because most problems are relative, and subject to an individual's bias. So it's not about if I hated the Matrix part 2 and 3 then made a better movie, It's about hating the Matrix part 2 and 3 and attempting to make something I'd prefer to see instead of just hating. Also, when you try and do it yourself you tend to have a bit more appreciation and respect for what the film makers had to go through, you realize it wasn't that easy to begin with. It's like being in the stands shouting at the athlete on the field, 9 out of 10 times you can't do any better, only a lot worse, so shut up if you don't even have the balls to try!

Go pay a visit to a popular video on youtube and check out the "bitching", the "youtube gangsters", the "youtube badman", you know what I'm talking about, the people who have the most disrespectful things to say but only on youtube. Yeah, youtube is a place a lot of sad people go to make up for their pathetic lives, they can vent all they want and play tough without the fear of receiving an ass kicking, You know those people who shout things out the window of a moving car, but if the car stops for some reason they soil themselves? yeah, those people...Anyway, the moral of this lecture, create, act, do. Don't just criticize, you'll spend the rest of your life as a talker or thinker without ever achieving jack! And don't worry about the quality of your attempts just yet, perfectionism is a disease and the mother of many failures, just focus on creating for now, once you're true to the art the quality will come. I know I'm no Jerry Bruckheimer or Spielberg, but I'm working on it ;)Look out for my next blog: "It's not possible to sell your body or soul for success!"

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