ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

11 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

MTV shows wall to wall reality TV rubbish and is ashamed of its roots.

Pop promos once had budgets like adverts, now it's hard to make one on the rates offered without subsidising it. And I'm not being greedy - the 'average' promo was in the region of £50k, now it's closer to £8k. £8k all-in, including the creative time, production, transport, accommodation, choreography, studio, lights, power, kit and crew, specialised edit, grade, compliance, etc. There's no space in there for any creativity or profit.

Nobody shows them any more, so why spend more?

11 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Really asking? Because you charge a fee to be able to apply for access to a lot of low-price jobs. Or that was the case when I looked into it a couple of years back - has it changed?

11 years, 8 months ago - Radar Music Videos

Hi All,
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply. Here's some response:

Budgets
There's dissatisfaction that music video budgets are low and a perception that because of that, Radar is not worth the money.
I think this depends on what you want from making music videos.
- Directors hoping to building a career in commercial work see music video as the single best way to build their reel and catch the lofty attention of APA production companies. Once signed, and if good enough, a financially well-rewarded career as a director ensues.
- I think there are growing opportunities for directors who want to part-fund their short film ideas via music video commissions.
- Directors hoping to supplement income from music videos will be sorely disappointed.

Pricing
Radar is hardly expensive. It costs between £12.99 and £6.99 a month to get access to 35-50 paid briefs a month. Pitch pools are generally 5-15.
Depending on your personal objectives, you'll see that as incredibly good value for money or of no value at all.

Alternatives
They are many and various. Make videos on-spec and compete in pitch pools of 70+. Make videos for friends. Make your own relationships with labels and artists.
Radar is unique, we aim to serve talented directors worldwide and help them progress their careers.

Customer Service
We strongly encourage labels and artists to feedback to directors who pitch. Despite our efforts, this doesn't always happen. We know this is important and continue to work on improving this.
The inevitable and occasional bug that turns up on a busy network like Radar is generally squashed within a day, usually a matter of hours.
We have a dedicated and pretty much 24/7 customer service person. She gets a lot of lovely feedback from users.

Insults/Injury vs Opportunity/Reward.
It's about what you want from music video.
Nearly 100 music videos have been commissioned through Radar this year, all with budgets. Nearly all have been commissioned to new and up and coming directors.
We have directly placed many directors' videos in influential industry press such as PromoNews, VideoStatic, Stash, 1point4, Little Black Book, The Source and many others.
Many directors have videos on their reel with hundreds and thousands, if not millions of YouTube views because of Radar.
Directors this year have had chance to be commissioned for Jessie J, Tiesto and very many cutting edge artists and labels.
We get unsolicited, glowing feedback from directors (and record labels, and independent artists) all the time.

Whilst the feedback here is negative, I'm really thankful you've given it.
I realise there's a lot of directors who see music video direction as a poor career choice rather than a perfect career tool.
It's also made me think about how to better publicly present the masses of genuine praise we get.

Very best wishes, please do say more if you're so moved

Caroline
Managing Director, Radar

11 years, 8 months ago - Dan Selakovich

I think the key words in there are "subscription basis." Paddy, I agree with you. At least here in the U.S., Music Videos are the no pay shit can of the industry. Asking people to pay for the "opportunity" is adding insult to injury.

11 years, 8 months ago - Ned Hussain

Looks like I'm not the only one. I subscribed once to give it a chance and it wasn't worth it but the price wasn't too bad...then you guys went and increased the price.

Also the site isn't run very well. Communication between directors and labels is confusing/delayed.

Links don't work, "radar music has disabled this brief" even when the brief is open and live.

etc etc.

Radar could learn a thing or two from Genero.tv