The shoot for Amanda Palmer's "Leeds United" went better than I could have dreamed yesterday, considering that I had such nerves the night before that I wanted to kill myself. I don't know why I was getting myself in such a state, it was only a mixed narrative and performance video with 120+ extras, 8 dancers, choreo, 6 backing musicians, a giant sign made of lights and a very independent-minded (but gracious and intelligent) singer. And 16 hours to shoot it in. What could possibly go wrong?

First off, this is probably the most important piece on the music industry you'll read this year. It's scary, in that it suggests that the only way I may ever get to spend $100,000 on a pop video is if I put a mobile phone in it.

posted on behalf of Alex de Campi

Well, it's been an exciting 10 days. Exciting in the secondary meaning of "Lord, less of that, please?". It started off with a catastrophic flight to London that involved staying for 10 hours longer than intended in Newark Airport: thank you, Continental Airlines, I shall not be flying with you again. I touch down and immerse myself into the dual chaos of putting together the big live action music video shoot and dealing with Charlie and my upcoming homelessness. Then to find out we were being given less money than we thought for said shoot.

High heels can be dangerous under the wrong hands. Last week I saw a transvestite throw one of her heels at her boyfriend and hit him in the face. He started to cry and that's when I decided to leave.

This is the end of a long story. I was casting for The Wave Pictures Video and wanted to feature a group of local transvestites to lip-synch part of the song. The entire vid was shot in Downtown Guatemala City. This is a strange and beautiful part of the world where economic and cultural phenomenons give life to the bizarre. Like a Jodorowsky film.

Ok. To start I am not a rep, nor a video commissioner, but it is what I aspire to be (2 years of experience so far). I work for a well known rep here in LA over a year now and have seen many main assistants come and go. They usually only last a few months. Months ago, the main assistant quit. He was a MV director and was only doing the job to find out how to get work. I was surprised he was not signed for his reel had star power from a hit song that got radio play, and I saw his video on MTV a few years back.

I absolutely loathe them low budget Pootube music videos. Their only quality - as far as I can tell - is that they're quirky and they go viral. So fucking what? So are STD's.

...even if it's still Sunday in most parts of the world. Just, I'm on a plane all day tomorrow. It's been a general traum-o-rama here preparing to go to the UK for production on the big indie shoot. Not because of the big indie shoot, mind you; that's going worryingly smoothly. Because of "Mess It Up". First there was a moment where it looked like the video might be shelved entirely, as the band wasn't sure about some aspects of the live action footage I based it on. Then, luckily, they watched it a few more times and decided they were OK with it.

erfre

I've been trying to write a new post but couldn't quite find the time to do so.