Sales, Drugs and Rock & Roll

by Sean Chercover

Five years before Video Killed The Radio Star, Barry Stevens edited The Video That Changed Everything. The year was 1975, the band was Queen and the video was for the song Bohemian Rhapsody. While certainly not the first music video, Bohemian Rhapsody was the first music video to drive record sales through the roof, giving birth to the music video industry.

Baby Steps

"With so many over-dubs, the song was far too complex for Queen to perform live, and the BBC wouldn't allow lip-syncing," says Stevens, "so they hired Bruce Gowers to direct a promotional video." Stevens had recently finished cutting Frank Zappa's feature, 200 Motels, a cult classic in both music and film-school circles, and was a natural choice as editor. The video was cut on 2-inch tape and made for less than $4,000. "In the 2-inch days, there was no offline...we put it together in a few hours."

Queen — Bohemian Rhapsody © 1976 Hollywood Records

From its debut on the BBC's Top Of The Pops, (Britain's answer to American Bandstand) Queen's soon-to-be signature anthem was a mega-hit. Viewers called to demand repeat airings and the network complied.

"The album just shot up the charts," says Stevens. "Nobody expected that a promotional video would have that kind of effect...both Bruce and I were very busy after that."

Before the decade was over, Stevens would cut videos for Uriah Heap, Leo Sayer, The Clash, Genesis, ELO and 10cc. "Every time out, we were trying new styles. When we did the Clash's first video, the director wanted to do a 'Punk Edit', cutting off the beat. I did it because that was my job, but I didn't like it. I still don't like cutting off the beat."

The veteran editor believes that there are better ways of editing to convey the same feeling of cutting off the beat. He prefers to use motivated action, mid-phrase — a head-turn, a hand-gesture — to wake up the viewer. "You can't beat Rock & Roll cutting," he says. "Of course, it helps to have great crews...I was lucky enough to work with a cameraman who could time a zoom to within a couple of frames."

The Clash — White Riot © 1976 CBS Records

In addition to new styles of editing, there was new technology...and new effects. "In 1978, for 10cc's Good Morning, Judge the two guys [Godley and Creme] played the whole jury. We used 2-inch ChromaKey. Of course, we had talented engineers to set up the shots in-studio."

Coming Of Age

And then video killed the radio star. The British had learned the lesson first; music videos can drive record sales. But on August 1, 1981, MTV went on the air with the unlikely Buggles' hit, and the music video industry had found a permanent home, a Mothership in America. And the pace of change increased dramatically.

The same year that MTV was born — or perhaps prematurely hatched — Stevens cut Stand and Deliver for Adam Ant and Banana Republic for The Boomtown Rats. "Since music videos had become, basically, commercials for the album, big stars got higher budgets for their videos," he says. "In 1981, the range was from about $10,000 to $50,000, for a really hot band. They try to see how much they can get the record company to spend — it's still that way."

Music video had very different roots in North America, explains Emmy-winning Toronto editor Rik Morden. "Here, videos were not so quickly embraced by the record labels. They might throw a few bucks at it, but they weren't expecting a lot of return."

With no television outlet in North America as prominent as Top Of The Pops, film students and experimental filmmakers made the majority of music videos. Says Morden, "I cut my first videos in the late seventies, for a band called Triumph, and they were just played on video monitors inside record stores...that was it for exposure. Experimental film festivals were the only other outlet before television came onboard."

By the time Morden had cut Subdivisions (1982) and Countdown (1983) for Rush, the MTV generation had been heard by Corporate America. Both the budgets and the record label's expectations had increased. So had competition. "You had to get into heavy rotation, and you had to give the viewer something new to look at," Morden says.

By becoming like commercials, music videos assumed the same primary burden as commercials. Stevens puts it this way: "The onus is on the producer to keep the viewer's eyes on the screen for the duration, just like a commercial spot."

Of course, a commercial has to achieve this for between 10 and 60 seconds. A music video has to hold an audience for three minutes or more. "The advent of the remote control has compounded this problem immeasurably," Stevens adds, with a grim laugh.

While technology exacerbated the difficulty, it also provided a solution: nonlinear editing. Stevens cut the Eric Clapton/Elton John duet, Runaway Train (the song was not a runaway hit) in 1992. "Nonlinear changed the aesthetics of music video...sped up the pace of editing...it also made our jobs a lot easier. With the Avid, we could take 16 takes of the song, put them in group-mode...it was like having a live switcher. And the ability to mark-on-the-fly is incredible — I wouldn't want to go back."

A New Generation

Nonlinear editing came along just in time. By the late 1980s, the MTV generation had not only been heard, they were making music videos of their own and taking the industry by storm. Michelle Czukar started as an assistant editor, working in 1989 on music videos for bands you probably never heard of. Within two years, she was cutting for The Tragically Hip, I Mother Earth and Our Lady Peace. In recent years, she cut The Beautiful People and Tourniquet for Marilyn Manson, as well as Dead Man Walking and Little Wonder for David Bowie.

Marilyn Manson — Tourniquet © 1996 nothing/Interscope

"God, it changed so fast," exclaims Czukar. "In '89, it was all straight-cut. We would show the cut to the client and say, 'Now, imagine a dissolve here.' Then we would go into the online suite and we had no idea what we were doing...we just pushed all the buttons until we figured out which one did what we wanted."

These days Czukar cuts both music videos and commercial spots on an Avid® Media Composer® 4000, and the online is usually handled by a Discreet inferno* artist. As she sees it, there's a price to be paid for the speed and ease of better technology. "You used to have two weeks to prepare a first cut...now you are lucky to get four or five days. You just don't have time to step back and look...and think. This is the downside of the new technology...and it's the same for commercials."

On the positive side, the recording artist has more control than ever before. Says Czukar, "When you're working with an artist as powerful as Marilyn Manson or David Bowie, you're lucky because they have more say than the record company...the label still sees it before it goes to air, but the artist sees it first, and if they like it and the director likes it, then you're done."

While music videos have become more like commercials, Czukar points out that commercials have adopted the style, pace and effects that were originated in music videos. "Commercial agencies and feature films are always incorporating music video effects...the nice thing is, you get a lot more freedom when working on a video than in the convoluted process of approvals for commercials...so you're always trying new effects and techniques to incorporate as much eye-candy as possible."

"Whenever a new effect becomes available, it gets over-used...it's always been that way," adds Rik Morden. "But the effects today are so sexy, they don't look 'dated' as quickly, as long as your technique is solid." Good, motivated cutting never goes out of style, and Morden suggests that young filmmakers watch everything they can, especially movies that incorporate music. "Start with All That Jazz," he offers.

Barry Stevens warns that new effects should be employed with restraint. "The great thing is, as an editor working in music video, you do stuff that can go right on your reel. But you have to remember that an effect is diminished with over-use." Stevens suggests that, to hook the viewer, the first six shots are the most important. "You use the tricks that are available, but in a clever way...set a pattern early, then turn it around and use it in an unexpected way...you can't do that if you're repeating the effect constantly throughout."

Stevens still consults on music videos when called upon, but spends most of his time teaching the Avid Symphony™, "spreading the gospel," as he puts it. "Now you've got real-time multi-matte, secondary color correction, chroma key. It will open up a whole new level of freedom...quicker, neater, with a very friendly interface. There will always be new toys to play with, and they just keep getting more impressive."

Czukar agrees. "The effects are driven by what the technology can do, and that's always changing...so for a while the 'Matrix look' was in, the 360-degree camera...then the 'Hype Williams look,' with fish-eye lenses...next it may be a 'retro look.' Things come and go, and you never know what's around the corner."

So What's Next?

Predicting the future is a fool's game, but the buzz among the under-25 crowd in the lobby of The Post Group points to the Internet. The video that is on everyone's lips is Internet Killed The Video Star, an animated video from Shockwave.com. Rudimentary as it is funny, the parody of MTV's inaugural video points to the coming dominance of the Internet as the preferred medium for music video, and the changes that it will bring.

"We're now seeing the beginning of convergence, and music video is one of the most transportable elements of television content," says Jay Golden, a producer with the Shockwave Music Group. "Being short, they're easy to download, and with [Macromedia's] Flash animation, a high-end music video budget is about $10,000, compared with over half a million for conventional video, so it doesn't matter if you're an independent band...if you've got something good, it can be seen by millions. The quality of your creation has a much bigger impact than the fact that you're signed with a big label." With over 100 million page-views per month, Shockwave is providing that access.

But Flash videos, which now also incorporate digital video, are not just for garage bands and indie labels. The Cure's Out Of This World, (Elektra Records) and Beck's Nicotine And Gravy (Geffen) are both Shockwave exclusives. "And we've got many more major-label artists in the pipeline," adds Golden. By embracing the new technology, established groups and their record labels are changing the power dynamics within the industry, he maintains.

Shockwave's latest release is Someone Else Not Me, from Duran Duran's new album Pop Trash. Duran Duran's first video hit was 1981's Girls On Film, directed by Godley and Creme. Other mega-his followed, including Save A Prayer, Rio and Hungry Like The Wolf, the 15th most played video in MTV history. Interestingly, with this new release, Shockwave has a window of exclusivity, during which Someone Else Not Me is an Internet-Only music video. This could be a telling development, coming from a band that made its career on television. Says Golden, "The Duran Duran video will eventually migrate to MTV and VH-1, as will others. But people who want to see it first will see it on the Internet."

Golden is especially enthusiastic about Todd Rundgren joining the Flash revolution. Rundgren's history as a pioneer goes back to the early 1970s; he's been involved with innovations in music videos, CD-ROMs, interactive live shows and MP3 technology. "The more talented people that come to this medium and the expanded capabilities with each version of the software are combining to make this a burgeoning industry," declares Golden. "Every week we get new stuff that pushes the boundaries...I've seen ten distinct new styles already developed in the last few months, it's moving that quick."

Like the music video pioneers of the 1970s, Flash artists face a blank aesthetic slate and relatively low production costs. As a result, they are writing the rules as they go along, says Golden. "I think we're talking about a whole new ball-game within a year."

Sean Chercover, sean@chercover.com, is a freelance writer and non-linear editor. He has cut a couple of music videos for bands you never heard of.

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