Bl@@dy musicians - just venting...

G

gorillaonabike

Shooting short films is the easiest thing in the world. Get a story, people, funding, locations, all turn up, shoot it all, get it done, edit and admire (hopefully) the final result followed by sending out to the fests to get rejected / shown. Easy as pie...

...when compared to shooting a music vid with an idiot musician.

Agreed everything in advance, put it down in writing, sing into the lens, edit it all together and sorted... except I have a musician from h@ll. She has body image issues which means every shot of her sends her into paroxyms of anxiety. "Oh my god, I look so fat, oh my god we can't use that shot because I look too fat, oh my god, I don't like my face..."

She told me she looks too fat in the vids. I tried the old 'don't worry, you look lovely etc...' line then the 'go on a diet etc...' followed by 'for God's sake just face the camera and sing' but she makes decisions on footage entirely on what she thinks she looks like. Which is fine except she hates everything about herself. She is an idiot and takes up a massive amount of time.

I tried a greenscreen shoot and she told me she knew all about green screening because she had television experience. Wrong! She knew nothing and in addition, does not want to use a single second of the footage because she doesn't like the way she looks in the first 1 second of footage, refuses to look at the rest and instead wants to sing in a pub.

Everything we agree on, even in writing, she changes when she sees her 'size' in the footage. And she repeats this a thousand times and doesn't shut up. The only way I could get her to sing was to play the music - it stopped her talking but she talks more than a politician in front of a camera.

And what's worse is she thinks she is completely reasonable!

"Sit with me for six hours and I will oversee every single editing choice you make" was her last comment to me. Noooo!!!!!!!!!!!! Partly, because she hates all moving pictures of her which show anything from the neck down. And most of them from the neck up are pretty bad for her as well...

I'm a f@cking videographer, not a godd@m plastic surgeon.

Even short films with unusable footage which go horribly wrong are much better than dealing with this cr@p. She is from h@ll.

Amazingly, she was signed to a label, had a tour all ready to go then blew it. I couldn't understand how she blew it... before I started to shoot her. And now I'm off to deal with this idiot who will send me a load of incomprehensible emails, tell me to call her and winge about everything.

Thank you for listening. And most importantly, have you had any experiences from h@ll?
 
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mussonman said:
Was that sarcasm? Seems clear to me how she blew it.

In the contract, does she have final say?
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I didn't understand how she blew it... until I started shooting. Prior to that she seemed reasonable. However, during the shoot she went insane.

If she 'disagrees' with anything, she just talks non-stop and when I say 'non-stop,' I really mean waterfall-style. I have never met anyone able to do this! At first I was attempting to be polite, then I was mildly fascinated and now I am just annoyed.

'Reason' is something that happens to other people.
 
Are you getting paid by the hour or contract deal?

If it's by the hour take her money.
If it's a contract deal I hope you had sense to include a time limit to conclude by.
If it's a flat fee you're getting paid shoot whatever the h3ll the client from h3ll wants and turn it over.

"B!tch, you're fat. Everyone's fookin' fat. Fat's the new norm. No one cares. Deal."
 
rayw said:
Are you getting paid by the hour or contract deal?

If it's by the hour take her money.
If it's a contract deal I hope you had sense to include a time limit to conclude by.
If it's a flat fee you're getting paid shoot whatever the h3ll the client from h3ll wants and turn it over.

"B!tch, you're fat. Everyone's fookin' fat. Fat's the new norm. No one cares. Deal."
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I'm going to use this next time I see her...

Incidentally, didn't realise you were English.
 
Ha. Cut in random stock footage to cover time.

Pitch her the idea of paying for a reshoot with close ups of her face and wide silhouette shots with a model in her clothes. Can't see her face then!

Or 10,000 cutaways to closeups of hands on the guitar...

Good luck man. Wrapping up my own project like yours. I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel!
 
I managed to finally break free from the devil herself yesterday, secured payment and a contract to say she was happy and that I will only provide copies of the final product no amendments to footage as she has now signed it.

The woman your dealing with isn't who I'm thinking of is it ? :s lol
 
I think it depends on if she really does look bad in the shots or is she just being a complainer for no reason. If she is looking bad than another treatment might be needed.


Maybe the label said she doesn't have the look so now she's overly worried about her image.
 
We're all insane....sorry about that! Most of us are aware. I've never worked with anyone worth their salt who wasn't crazy in one way or another. We try to work with people with compatible neuroses, but sometimes it doesn't work out. Hope you finish things quickly and as painlessly as possible (and add her to the list of people you won't work with unless they cough up a LOT more money!)
 
8salacious9 said:
I managed to finally break free from the devil herself yesterday, secured payment and a contract to say she was happy and that I will only provide copies of the final product no amendments to footage as she has now signed it.

The woman your dealing with isn't who I'm thinking of is it ? :s lol
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:)

No, fortunately she's not yours!!!!! I've seen what yours looks like so will stay away if I ever come across her!
 
JoshL said:
We're all insane....sorry about that! Most of us are aware. I've never worked with anyone worth their salt who wasn't crazy in one way or another. We try to work with people with compatible neuroses, but sometimes it doesn't work out. Hope you finish things quickly and as painlessly as possible (and add her to the list of people you won't work with unless they cough up a LOT more money!)
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Damn right! Have to be as crazy as batsh!t to want to get involved in any of this. However, there is the 'nature' of the craziness.

Some people are crazy in a nice way, others are... erm, less nice.

Point is to spend time with the nice ones! Hopefully I'm a nice one. I think...? Maybe? :no:
 
I'm curious if it's her first music video. Why would you want a music video if you can't stand seeing yourself on a screen ?

Good luck dude. But nobody said she needs to be on the video. Shoot other stuff.

And here I was thinking of inviting a client in to the edit room. Now I know better than to take that risk.
 
mussonman said:
As a joke, try squishing the aspect ratio and saying "There, do ya like this look now?"
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Use a fish-eye effect and turn her into a blimp.


I've had similar problems from the audio side. Here's one for laughs.

An up-and-coming singer with a pending deal comes into the studio I'm working at. She has bracelets on both arms from wrist to elbow. She goes into the vocal booth, I play the track and ask her to sing a bit so I can get levels. Her bracelets are jangling so loudly that I can barely hear her vocals. I ask her to remove them. She refuses. I ask why. She explains that they're a intrinsic to her image. I calmly explained that no one can see her when all we are doing is recording her voice. She says that "they will know." I asked who will know. She says her fans will know if she is not wearing her bracelets. I said, well, that's for sure; but they won't be able to hear your voice over the noise from your bracelets. It went round and round like that for ten minutes or so. I finally said "fine, it's your dime."

We recorded lead vocals, doubles of the lead vocals and several layers of background vocals. JANGLE, JANGLE, JANGLE!!!!! Every single take just adds layers of jangling, to the point there was jangling and music, with just a hint of vocals. Her manager comes in after about fiour hours and asks to hear the track. I played it for him. Hey literally screams at me "what's with all the effing noise?" I said those are her bracelets; she refused to take them off. Her response? "He never told me to take them off." So I just smiled and played back the recording of our entire conversation at the beginning of the session where she adamantly refuses to take off her bracelets. Game. Set. Match.

Her manager tucked an extra $100 in my pocket before they left. They did return to do about six songs, which she recorded sans bracelets.
 
Alcove Audio said:
Use a fish-eye effect and turn her into a blimp.


I've had similar problems from the audio side. Here's one for laughs.

An up-and-coming singer with a pending deal comes into the studio I'm working at. She has bracelets on both arms from wrist to elbow. She goes into the vocal booth, I play the track and ask her to sing a bit so I can get levels. Her bracelets are jangling so loudly that I can barely hear her vocals. I ask her to remove them. She refuses. I ask why. She explains that they're a intrinsic to her image. I calmly explained that no one can see her when all we are doing is recording her voice. She says that "they will know." I asked who will know. She says her fans will know if she is not wearing her bracelets. I said, well, that's for sure; but they won't be able to hear your voice over the noise from your bracelets. It went round and round like that for ten minutes or so. I finally said "fine, it's your dime."

We recorded lead vocals, doubles of the lead vocals and several layers of background vocals. JANGLE, JANGLE, JANGLE!!!!! Every single take just adds layers of jangling, to the point there was jangling and music, with just a hint of vocals. Her manager comes in after about fiour hours and asks to hear the track. I played it for him. Hey literally screams at me "what's with all the effing noise?" I said those are her bracelets; she refused to take them off. Her response? "He never told me to take them off." So I just smiled and played back the recording of our entire conversation at the beginning of the session where she adamantly refuses to take off her bracelets. Game. Set. Match.

Her manager tucked an extra $100 in my pocket before they left. They did return to do about six songs, which she recorded sans bracelets.
Click to expand...

Wow!!!!! Just gotta love musicians!
 
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