Polydor Records

Today in class we had the opportunity to speak to two video commissioners for Polydor records which is a subsidiary of Universal Music. Polydor records was founded in Germany in 1946 and currently has people signed to it such as Ellie Goulding, 50 Cent, Eminem and many more A list starts. The two speakers where really helpful in describing how a music video is created from start to finish.

We learnt that the video commissioners job is to link between the director and the artist to make sure everyone has the same idea as to whats is going on as well as make sure everything is one schedule and working well on the shoot day. We also learnt that the budget given is based on how big the artist is as well as the averages which was roughly £10,000 for a small artist and can range up to over £100,000 for large artists. Seeing as they are currently working in the industry they also told us about general trends in the music video industry such as in present day most music videos are heavily narrative and rarely set in a studio. As well as a lot of directors inspiration these days are to do with online documentaries from companies such as Vice as well as photo galleries. The timeline for a music video goes as this the Video Commissioner sends the brief for the music video to around 5-10 directors depending on if they feel if they need to send it to a large number. The directors then respond with a treatment idea and send it back and the Video Commissioner who chooses which director would be able to represent the artist in the best possible way. We also got to see some of the music videos they worked on one being the one below by Wiley.