Music director Jamie Thraves; Case study 1

Music videos don't just occur via a camera a few actors. Music has its own industry full of professions which specialise in different areas in order to bring about the final product of a music video. The budgeting for these music video's can be seen to be highly costly to us but to a producer it is a small amount. In order to gain a position in the professional music industry such as a Director can be very hard to achieve as it can take years of studying and hard work.

Director Jamie Thraves was part of a ini producing company ran by himself, he started making videos in University with a small budget of £5,000, this is how much h used to make his first three unprofessional music video. This is how the director position process works:

• The commissioner from a record label sends a track to 5-10 directors 
• The directors then each submitted a treatment
• This stage is unpaid 
• The director who has submitted the best treatment is then commissioned to make the video 
• Only then is the directors paid 

Many of these directors liviehood is depend on these commission. Jamie Thraves in this case study submitted treatments for his two best known videos and each was accepted. These were Radiohead's single called 'Just', the budget for this video was £100,000 which was shot in just three days. The music consisted of subtitles which told an interesting little story as the music processes, the video ends with a cliffhanger as we never find the main question throughout the video which is was to find out why the man was laying on the floor. The audience not knowing this makes the video even more engaging as it leaves it up to the audience to conclude on what they think was the reason.

The second was 'The Sciencetist' by Coldplay, this music video took double the amount of his first as the total budget was £200,000, it was also filmed in three days. The music video was very orginal and also consisted of a nail biting storyline. The storyine was played backwards increasing the egerness to find out what happens at the begining of the video which turns out to be a terrifble car crash.

After the successioon if both these videos Jamie Thraves still contined, his most recent up to date video called 'Song ofr Lisa' sung by a Japanese popstar. Currently videos cost an estimated of £20,000 with a shooting period of just 2days. Jamie has used the music videos to get into the film business and has so far shot three feature:
- The Low Down
- The Cry of the Owl
-Treacle Jr

From Jamie himself to other directors wanting to make it professional it gave two most imporant tips.
- Use the lyrics but try not to be too literal
- Most importantly - go with the emotion of the lyrics.