Emily Wyatt summary

When Emily Wyatt came to visit the school she taught us about the importance of a treatment and brief when producing a music video. She went on to talk about the budget and how this can dictate the style and the possibilities of the video. Emily spoke about how she produced and more importantly distributed videos onto sights such as Vevo and YouTube and how these sights have helped boost the videos that she produces. She went on to talk specifically about a video that she made with Ellie Goulding for her hit single burn. She started telling us about how the treatment and budget shaped the video.

Emily told us about the budget of music videos and how they determine what the video is going to look like and the possibilities available for a video.  For example if you have a high budget you can travel and employ well known directors, your film sets can be bigger and more varied. You can also have more props and shoot in places that suit your video more. If you are an unknown or a small artist you are going to looking at a budget of around 6000 pounds. This includes camera time and studio time. This can also include lighting and the hiring of actors. For well-known acts the company who is making the video will often look for external funding to make the video. Well known acts are normally given a budget of around 25,000 pounds or more however some videos such as the ones made by lady gaga can go up to 100,000 pounds due to the amount of props and shots that are required for her videos.

The treatment is the piece of texts that is given to music video producers to actually make the video. The treatment must have a link to the artist and the genre of the music so that the video will attract the same target audience as the musician. In the treatment you also have to decide whether you are going to do a full performance video or a full narrative video. In Birdy’s videos she tends to always have a full performance video due to her natural performance talent whereas the Maccabees normally have full narrative videos due to their songs containing a lot of meaning and adventure. Emily said that the treatment should outline what is going to happen in two hundred words and also show you visually what is going to happen in the video.

The most important area that Emily discussed was the distribution of music videos. Due to current technologies, she said that the videos she made had to fit a certain specification so that it had the possibility of being put on television and can also be promoted via the radio. However the best form of promotion and distribution is via the internet. Sites such as Vevo help promote the video and spread the video to wider audiences.

Emily was recently on set for a music video for Ellie Goulding, an extremely well known artist. For her knew single ‘Burn’ she wanted there to be lots of lights and for there to be a sunset. The video is set on an airfield and depicts people coming to see her and being attracted to her music. Polydor records, the company which Emily works distributes and produces some of the most iconic music videos from some of the most iconic and famous artists. The Ellie Goulding video was made with a large budget mainly because of the after effects and all the lighting that went into post production. The editing of the video took nearly 3 weeks.