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Radar Music Videos
Written by Andy Patterson
So, we’re in the planning stages for a new single release from Tati Kalveks. It will be a track from the album Graceless, albeit a remix. We are looking for a quirky animation to accompany the single – a video release for YouTube and our site.
So, we turned to Radar Music Videos and registered a brief with them.
Who Are Radar?
Radar bills itself as ’21st Century Music video Commissioning’. The premiss is this: there are lots of musicians out there who want to have videos to accompany their recordings. There are also lots of video graphers and film makers out there who want to make videos for musicians.Where a lot of musicians spend their time either in dark gig environments, windowless recording studios and traveling between the two – film makers have the same problem with edit room and shoots.
Radar gives the two the chance to meet, but how does it work?
Well, as a label, or artist, you can sign up with Radar for free (basic membership). You then post a brief to the site, and invite ‘treatments’ from the community of film makers on the site. Part of this brief includes information on the song, the budget (more about this below) and the deadlines for both treatments and the finished video. You also upload an mp3 of the song to give the potential collaborators the chance to listen to the song as they prepare their treatments.
Budget
So, Radar value the cost of making a music video and therefore there is a minimum budget for the briefs you can post on the site. This is £500. I emailed Radar to ask if there would be any reduction in the minimum brief budget in the future, and they are looking into this, for maybe lyric based videos or basic visual packages in the future. They are proud of the fact that they are a professional service and as such, won’t post briefs without a budget of £500 or more. Any briefs with budgets of £2000 or more are regarded as ‘Premium budgets’ and are featured on the site and promoted by Radar.
Who is using it?
The Holloways and Alt-J are just two of the bands who have used Radar Music Videos so far for their videos.
What does it cost for the service?
To post a brief as a band or label, is free. So where do they make their money – surely it must cost somewhere along the line? Well, there is a subscription fee for Music Directors to sign up to the site to enable them to send their treatments and to receive briefs. There are further details of this on their site.
So, what are you waiting for?
There is no obligation to actually use any of the directors who sent treatments for your projects, so if you have a budget of £500, Radar is the perfect place to pitch your briefs!
How are we getting on?
Well, we have had 2 treatments through so far.. We’ll let you know if we chose one of them and which one we go for!