"FREE" Music-Video shoot

[Miguel]

Based on a tweet from an actress last night, Haley is shooting a music video today. The actress was to play the part of a waitress.

This guy is directing the video shoot:

http://www.simsdirector.com/music_videos

[Miguel]

---

[buzzenator]

---

Now that's a hair picture...come on creative Haliens let's see some tag lines for this

[John Brown]

Can't wait to see the video. Haley looking hot in that picture. Hopefully she will release a full instrumentation teaser of "Free" and a video teaser to help build up the anticipation.

[Miguel]

I can't imagine what the video will look like. The Director shoots with real film and nearly all of his videos feature scenes intercut with footage of the band/artist performing with instruments. The one exception I found is the recent video for Cassie (an Interscope artist).



He didn't post the "treatment" (proposal for the shoot) for that. But here is a video he did for another female Interscope artist and its treatment:

[video=youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=PusyhO-xANg[/video]

Tamar Kaprelian
"New Day"

Music Video Treatment| Christopher Sims
© DNA - 03.03.10

A revelation. A walk from darkness into light. A dream that stimulates a new beginning. Tamara Kaprelian finds herself within a dream and wakes up in a new state of mind because of it. Tamara finds the person she wants to be within a dream.

The video I intend to create is highly stylized and otherworldly in its color renditions and metaphorical play on light and darkness. It is a daring and edgy performance video that extends its visuals to aid the energy of the song, "New Day".

The video opens as we find Tamara fast asleep in an untidy studio apartment space. She is clothed but passed out completely. It's as if she just dropped unconscious there in her bed without prepping for proper sleep. Here eyes are closed. She is in R.E.M. sleep - we see her eyes moving underneath her eyelids as if her mind is conjuring up fantastic moments.

Just before the second portion of verse one begins we find a transparent incarnation figure of Tamara sit up from Tamara's real sleeping body. This fantastical interpretation of Tamara is wearing a light colored flowing dress that fits her style. She rises up out of the bed and we cleverly cut to our ethereal location - this is a place within Tamara's subconscious. It is part of her sleeping minds world - a place that allows us to create a highly stylized world with our camera and our location.

Tamara's ether version - her dreaming embodiment of herself enters this new world through her piano. It looks as if Tamara walks out the back of her tall dark brown piano. Moving from the end of verse one into chorus one Tamara enters this new world. It is a vast field or meadow of uncut grass that buts right up next to tall forest trees. There is a clear spot to where the meadow ends and the forest begins. The meadow is the light and the forest is the dark.

I would like to really push the boundaries of where we can manipulate the color of the landscape. For instance, where the grass would be green or brown, in post production we would isolate the color green and/or brown and make it an unearthly color like pure white or even a light desaturated pink or baby blue. When we move into the forest we would isolate the green colors in that location to juxtapose the colors we pick for this meadow location.

Chorus one explodes as we show a number of set-ups of Tamara performing on and off of the piano in this open meadow. She wears a darker colored flowing dress of sorts here. She stares off into the dark forest as she stands in the open bright lit meadow. It's like a looming entity moving into verse two.

At times we find Tamara grab the earth with her hands and run the soil through her fingers - we cleverly cut to Tamara's real sleeping body that sits in her studio apartment asleep and we cut to a close-up of soil running off of her hand onto her bed sheets. Throughout the video we introduce odd little vignettes like this that marry the dream world to the real world. We continually cut to Tamara sleeping looking very aggravated as if she is in this intense dream - watching two identities of herself fight it out in this location within her mind.

Verse two begins and we introduce a second Tamara identity within her dream world. This Tamara wears a white or light colored dress and she performs in the dark forest just near the meadow. She performs on a white or light colored piano.

Chorus two moves into action and we intercut heavily between our meadow and forest locations - our dark and our light incarnations of Tamara. We build the edit up to a visual crescendo leading up to the bridge of the track.

Continually we intercut back to our sleeping real world Tamara. We continue seeing odd little elements seeping into her real world from her dream state; such as pine needles falling, soil coming out of her pockets, leaves floating down onto her body, etcÉ These elements are very subtle and not over the top.

The bridge of the track now nearing the end of the video - we find our forest Tamara walking near the end of the forest line where it connects to the open vast landscape of the meadow. We also see our meadow Tamara walking toward the dark beginnings of the forest. The two Tamara's meet on the cusp of the forest and the meadow - they do not touch, as they are afraid to enter each other's landscapes. They reach out for one another. We see this beautiful epic shot at a side profile. The forest with Tamara in a white dress on the right of the frame and the left of the frame in the open meadow stands Tamara in a darker colored dress.

The outro begins and we find Tamara in the meadow walk off and turn back to the Tamara in the forest and in the darkness, as if saying "come with me into the light, come with me for a chance at new beginnings". Tamara in the forest seems reticent to follow but eventually steps out into the meadow. The sun beams onto her face as she steps and walks with the other Tamara off into the meadow. Now both versions of Tamara walk off and they enter the same way Tamara entered this world - through the back of her piano. They both duck and literally walk through the back of the piano back into the real world.

We cut to Tamara still sleeping in her real world environment within her studio apartment. Two thin transparent figures of Tamara, both meadow and forest versions of her dream self, walk toward her and lie down and into her physical body which is asleep. We cut to a close-up of her eyes slowly open. She slowly wakes and looks down at what she is wearing. We cut to a wide shot and we show that she is wearing the same dark colored dress that she was wearing in the meadow. Video closes.

I plan to shoot our dream locations on anamorphic 35mm film through a skinny shutter allowing the imagery to feel hyper real. I'll shoot all of our real world, studio apartment vignette pieces on 35mm film through a standard cinematic shutter degree. The colors within our dream worlds are beautifully bizarre while our real world color palette is flat and true to real life renditions of color.

This video creates Tamara Kaprelian as both, a real world singer songwriter AND a stylized performance artist. She is empowered in this video.

---

A bit about Tamara:

"Singer/songwriter Tamar Kaprelian got her big break after winning OneRepublic's 'Apologize' Cover Contest on YouTube in 2008. The cover tune was released as a single and OneRepublic lead Ryan Tedder introduced Kaprelian to Interscope, who eventually signed her to a recording contract."

[midnightblues]

I'm really hoping her new video will be the governing factor that launches Haley's new single to the top 40 in two weeks time or better.

[cherelann]

[quote='Miguel' pid='3764' dateline='1330737845']

---

"I'm sexy & I know it!"

[john]

Ally Zonsius - Theatrical Reel

[Miguel]

She dabbles in directing too:



http://vimeo.com/user2842838/videos

http://blacksheeppictures.net/Meet_Ally_S7S9.html
(you can pause the annoying background sound in the upper right corner)

[john]

From EW:

Pia Toscano's new 'This Time' video: Sexy or robotic? Watch it here and decide
by Grady Smith

The video—like most Idol videos that are shot while the kids are on tour—is pretty straightforward. (I could swear I used that exact line earlier today…) Pia sings her song in a series of unrelated locations—a meadow, a beach, a convertible, a city street—and that’s pretty much it. Basically, it’s a three-minute clip of her looking stunning (not that I’m complaining).

But there’s definitely something missing from the clip—namely, personality. Pia looks positively gorgeous when she delivers her sultry stare into the camera, but every time she opens her mouth to perform the song, that connection disappears—and that’s a major problem for an amateur pop star.
http://music-mix.ew.com/2011/08/09/pia-t...ime-video/

Not sure who directed her video, but the comments from this article sum up my thoughts about it to a large extent. Putting aside the robotic issue, it is pretty but very basic; no actors or fancy sets.

Looking at many of Sims videos, most are pretty basic, although he does a nice job with obvious budget constraints. The Uncle Kracker video includes Kid Rock (a bud from Detroit who sings a little on the song) and a few characters walking by. But still very simple - in the car, in front of the restaurant, junk yard shots, etc. -- hanging out at locations in the community.

Haley has at least one actress in her video. Probably a set. Good signs. I don't think they would put an extra penny into it if they didn't see her single has having strong potential.

---

Expenses are always a concern.

Interesting video about the business (costs, contracts, etc.) by an entertainment attorney. Of course, the message in the end is that you better have a good attorney and manager to represent your interests.

RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales
from the going-behind-the-veil dept
We recently had a fun post about Hollywood accounting, about how the movie industry makes sure even big hit movies "lose money" on paper. So how about the recording industry? Well, they're pretty famous for doing something quite similar. Reader Jay pointed out in the comments an article from The Root that goes through who gets paid what for music sales, and the basic answer is not the musician. That report suggests that for every $1,000 sold, the average musician gets $23.40. Here's the chart that the article shows, though you should read the whole article for all of the details:

The article goes on to break down the scenario in the graphic: Here