We had two video commissioners from Polydor
records come in to give us an insight into the real music industry and what
their roles are within it. Polydor is a conglomerate of Universal.
Their roles - Emily and Helen are video commissioners and
they are the main person between artist label directors. They are given a brief
about what the artist wants and then oversee the whole process of what happens
after that point. They are then given a rough date for the release or when they
would like to aim to get the video out by and when the artist will be available
to shoot so the can prepare a schedule for shooting. They need to initially
make sure that everyone who is involved is on the exact same page so everything
can run smoothly over the process. They need to ensure that the artist is able
to input their creative ideas as well as combining those ideas with the crew.
They need to organise cast lists and storyboards etc.
Content - The content of the videos ideas initially
come from the artist as they are the creators of the track and need to run
ideas past them about specific meanings of the song and what they don’t want in
their videos. The artist tells them the kind of message they want to put across
to their audience. The creative process after this is largely collaborative
between the creative crew and the artist but the artist usually has the final
say.
Directors - The video commissioners then write a brief
and send it to range of different directors. The artist usually knows exactly
what look they are looking for, but sometimes they show them al the directors
ideas and then decide between them which director they want. The more open the
brief, the better. If the brief is too specific, then the directors may not be
seeing exactly what they are in their minds. When it comes to choosing the director,
most of them are signed to production companies but sometimes they have no
representation. The production company will support the director and help with
treatments and references. More than an expected, they use less experienced
directors, as they tend to be less rigid.
Budgets - The budget of the music video is given to
them depending on record sales and popularity, for example on social media.
Most music video budgets range from 5k – 100k. The music video they talked
about with us was a recent one they had made which was from a “Years and Years”
song 'King'. They said that the budget for that was around 20k – 40k. 
They mentioned that about a week before
they shoot they are given storyboards. It’s usually a 2-3 day shoots. A week to
edit, then the first cut is delivered and then they can discuss any changes
that need to be made. It is usually a 6 week process to the final product.
Marketing - Most of the videos at Polydor go through
Vevo to push up the view count and raise the awareness of the product. Most of
the commercial artists go through Vevo because that’s where most of the money
is made. The press departments at Polydor are the ones who decide where it is
best suitable to market their product to make sure it is reaching the targeted
audience.
Censorship - They need to sometimes make two final cuts
of the video due to censorship issues, because they may not be able to show
certain things on TV for example. They mentioned that if the video were to
contain censored information then the target audience probably wouldn’t watch
it on TV so this isn’t a massive issue. They also said that they usually try
and push the boundaries with these kind of things to see what they can get away
with. 
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