Hi, my name's Alex. I've been a music video director for about two years, ever since Ryan Parker and I created a spec video for the band Flipron. "Raindrops Keep Falling on the Dead" proceeded to get screened at SXSW and a dozen other festivals, and get the band their first airplay on MTV and every other UK music channel. 12 or more videos (and the purchase of a Super16 camera) later, I'm still working mainly for a small group of very cool British bands and solo artists, all of whom I know personally. I'm told there are these things called reps and production companies and they're interested in up and coming directors, but between you and me I don't actually believe they exist. Every video I've ever made came from the artist contacting me directly, or me contacting the artist. Every budget I've ever had is string, pennies and pocket lint. My directing career has been funded entirely by Mastercard (I support myself in the real world by eBaying my late father's collection of vintage car books). My crew? They're paid in gin and burgers. I am tired and I am inches from filmmaking-induced bankruptcy and that, Virginia, is why I don't want to make a crappy £500 video for your generic indie band to fling up on MySpace.
After 10 years in the UK I now split my time between living with my boyfriend in a council flat in London and staying with my recently widowed mother in a rather OCD-tidy version of Grey Gardens in the rural splendour of northern New England. I was terrified this would cause my so-called career to dry up but in spite of the usual terrified-freelancer-flailing gissa-job-pleeze, I've been offered a fair amount of good work. Including my biggest budget video yet.
Right now, I've got three projects on the go. In postproduction is "I Loved London", my second video for The Real Tuesday Weld (after the singing maggot spectacular that was "Apart of Me" - see it at Soho Shorts this year). Stephen (the lead force of Tuesday Weld) and I have a rather unusual working relationship. He gives me money and a track. I make a video - sometimes, like with "I Loved London", without telling him the least thing about what the video will be. I give the video to him. He then decides he wants to remix the track, as the video inspires him. That's where we are right now. He's tinkering with the mix (and touring); in a few weeks I'll get a new mix which threatens to be about 30 seconds longer, and I tinker with the edit for that. Eventually we do get the video out.
Speaking of "eventually", two other videos of mine are finished & delivered and waiting in postproduction limbo for various bands' releases to be scheduled. This is a bad thing, as I am an artist, and crave attention and validation. I was even fired last September from a secretarial job for checking my Youtube stats too often. To be fair, I did have the most-watched music video in the world on Youtube that week - a crappy £500 video for my mate's unsigned indie band.
I'm also working on my third and fourth videos for Flipron. Number 3 is being animated by friends in Indonesia to truly Sunny D levels of colour intensity and number 4, in the tradition of Cory McAbee's "Billy Nayer" short, will be primitively rotoscoped by me, with housepaint. I'm actually very much looking forward to painting all 1,000+ sheets as the last couple live action videos I've done have nearly killed me. It's cool to go back to something where it's just me, sitting in the summer sunshine, swearing and getting covered in paint.
Lastly, there's my first video for a US musician - a well known female indie star. It's live action. The budget is in the mid teens, which is the most money I've ever had. Add to that a good producer, the fact that for the first time I won't be editing and grading the video myself on FCP, and a truly legendary DP, this video should be a huge step forward in sleekness from my existing live action work. I'm waiting for the label to confirm the single release date (they're thinking of making "my" song the second release rather than the first as currently planned, which would utterly spanner my shooting schedule). So these are a few of the current adventures in the Life of Alex. You'll be riding along with me on them in coming weeks - plus a bit more backstory such as The Strange Tale Of How I Landed This Big US Video. Stay tuned, and if you have any questions about making music videos, I'll try to answer them.
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http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi
http://www.alexdecampi.com
If no production companies are paying attention then absolutely you have to just get on with it yourself. Not sure if Alex would personally benefit from a production company - perhaps - but she seems to be doing well for herself at the moment.
Starting out as a Runner I kinda saw that the whole working your way up the ranks in a company was pointless in a creative industry and the more i have done off my own back the greater the benefit and reward.
No doubt it makes your life easier to be signed and no doubt you get support, but it shouldn't be the ultimate goal. Making stuff your proud of and that entertains should be.
And paying the rent. Gotta eat as well.
"Without a production company you'll become bogged down and expend all of your energy in production managing/producing, your creativity will suffer and you risk looking/feeling stressed, eg. by the sounds of what Alex de Campi as written she could do with the help of a full-time producer or a production company to rep/produce her!"
Yeah, but where new talent is concerned, production companies are like snails. They have no eyes and no balls, and move rrrreal slow.
I've sent my reel out to all of 'em, and emailed to chase but they ain't emailed back. So fuck 'em.
Besides, I have a producer (who joined Camp Alex for the "I Loved London" shoot) - one of the best in the business, who's produced everything from Number 1-charting Kylie videos to the last Guillemots video with Ian McKellen in it.
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http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi
http://www.alexdecampi.com
And that's exactly where my focus is (creative side) to my folly. I'm not as good at the business side of things. I totally agree. gotta find rep! Probably the hardest part of working independent for me is having to stop myself from thinking too much about the higher budget treatments I have brewing in my mind and making that dollar stretch to the fullest.
I suppose it is a bit fun too though, to see exactly how far you can push a small budget.
Eric Power
www.clearproductions.net
If you want to get on[in live-action directing], your learn the importance of having a decent production copmany behind you! They will open doors for you and allow you to focus on the directing/creative side of the industry. When you start doing bigger shoots there are so many more people involved. Without a production company you'll become bogged down and expend all of your energy in production managing/producing, your creativity will suffer and you risk looking/feeling stressed, eg. by the sounds of what Alex de Campi as written she could do with the help of a full-time producer or a production company to rep/produce her!
I don't know if I believe in production companies and reps either. All the bands I've done videos for have either found me or me them as well.
Looks like some good stuff will be coming from you soon. I'm currently wrapping production on another one of my animated music videos for a really great band called The Lovely Sparrows. After that I jump right into my first live action video!!! YIKES! It'll be a new thing for me and I'm halfway terrified, especially when it comes to proper lighting on such a shoestring budget I'm currently wearing sandals.
cheers!
Eric Power
www.clearproductions.net