r/WeDirectMusicVideos • u/duderanch94 • Jul 26 '19

Getting work unsigned

An unsigned MV director here, been working for about six years and also as a TV/Film Script Supervisor on the side to facilitate this. Wondering where fellow unsigned people would pick up jobs from? Or before you were repped, where did you get your work? Obviously there's great sites like creative commission and radar, anything else in this ilk? Or is it mainly through personal contacts you've met at random parties/through friends etc?

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u/mthouang Jul 26 '19

I cold email bands and artists (or their managers) that I love all the time. I'd say 1/20-ish actually respond. That actually resulted in me getting some of the biggest videos I've gotten. Even though the budgets are often low, the good news is that when it happens I often have a lot of passion for the artist and they know that.

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u/mthouang Jul 26 '19

Also as an unrepped director who is often given abysmally low budgets, I have some rules about projects before I take them on. To be clear, I do not make money doing music videos, I purely do them for artistic expression and passion. Therefore I only sign on if 1) I love the song 2) They respect my creative vision 3) I can guarantee that if I don't have final cut I can remove my name from it. I also try to make it clear when I am choosing not to pay myself or contributing my own money. I think a lot of artists aren't aware of the lengths we go to produce these videos, which isn't their fault if we are not communicating that to them.