//if nz on air was to hand out 10-15k and slash the number of recipients then all we would get would be a handful of glossey but crap videos for carly binding and rubicon...

True, I guess NZ On Air would need to have an even more narrow definition of which applications would recieve the funding.

//in my opinion the best music videos have the most love in them, not the most money (my favs anyways) .. the 50hz vid is a perfect example...

Yeah, but you've got to agree that love doesn't buy video tape, or time in post-prod suites, blah blah blah... does a music video with a larger budget have less love, or is that just what we percieve of it?

//be more hard on the bands that squander there grants...

How are we defining 'squander?'

//not big crane moves and explosions ...

Agreed too, but I don't think we're talking about spending millions here- the most expensive thing isn't necessarily the equipment or effects but the time that's spent on it. Can NZ On Air afford to let our world-beating music do 'rush-job' videos? Should we have to rely on 'love' or pulling in favours to make great music videos?

//talking to 50hz and he said all in all his video would have cost around $60k.

yeah i've heard a lot of this 'would' have cost stuff before... what that means is, "if we'd had to pay for the 80 extra hours in post, the crew and the gear it would have cost 60k... but luckily we paid 2k for post, 1k for some gear we couldnt borrow, 1k for art dept and 1k for food and consumables...

somehow i can't see loop forking out huge wads of cash for a music vid..

//i haven't seen it, it's good???

ive only seen little bits of it on the news, looked wicked

//samflux, you make music vids???

yeah man, made a couple, couple more in the pipeline... never had an nzonair grant tho, doesnt stop me going hard

//How are we defining 'squander?'

having no ideas, so turning up with a couple of dvcams shooting the song live half a dozen times and then giving it the blender in post (friends premiere) .. and pocketing the remaining $4912

// having no ideas, so turning up with a couple of dvcams shooting the song
// live half a dozen times and then giving it the blender in post
// (friends premiere) .. and pocketing the remaining $4912

ahahaaha! never a truer word spoken.

//I dare ya. and I've got the perfect dodgy noizyboy electronica track for you to use. ;)

wanna win handle the jandel?

im up for the challenge bro,.. send em thru, i will email you my work addy, as me hotmail has this funny ol mailbox limit type thing. .. ..

//... with enough love you could do a vid for free... do ya dare me?

Yep. I got plenty of love, dude! You'd probably want a listen first... sheesh, just when I thought I had it all figured out, someone comes along and wrecks it for me... :)

[ http://www.po-ha.com/download.htm ]

dammit... sorry dude, it was too late by the time I checked back here and saw your post. Let's hook up for a coffee this week- whatcha up to tomorrow afternoon?

all sarcasm aside, can u explain this system of debt for me?

//all sarcasm aside, can u explain this system of debt for me?

Sure. From what I understand, and I got this from reading an article about a Total Magenta vid shoot, the $5k "grant" from NZOnAir is more-or-less a loan that gets paid back to NZOnAir through broadcast royalties. That is, when your vid gets screened, 50% of the profit from it goes straight back to NZOnAir until it's paid back.
Not only that, but it costs money to include the little NZOnAir logo in the corner of the vid - about $150, I think - and guess who pays for that? Not NZOnAir.
Which goes some way to explaining why some bands get chosen for vid "grants" and not others. NZOnAir is only going to fund bands that it thinks are going to be screened lots on TV - thereby, making them more money, and giving themselves more free advertising while simultaneously brainwashing the public into thinking "this is what I must listen to because this is all there appears to be" and consequently creating more bands in the same carefully marketed image. Rather than the Creative NZ way of fostering actual talent and, dare I say it, creativity - ah, the mysteries of life. I'm going to give myself a nasty stomach ulcer before too long.

The only way you're likely to see our vid now is if you buy it from us somehow, or request it on Most Wanted - and you'll have to send in more votes than those wee Russian bi chicks get.

[ http://www.cripple.co.nz ]

//Thus I think you're wrong to say that they only fund vids that will get lots of airplay because they will get their money back. They fund vids that will get played lots because they are interested in getting a decent "broadcast result".

Explain to me how a decent broadcast result isn't lucrative for NZOnAir.
A grant is defined as a gift or allowance of money. Not a loan. If what you say about any repayment scheme being a clause to prevent anyone from making money at the expense of NZOnAir is true, then:
A. It shouldn't be called a grant, rather a loan, and
B. It should be available to anyone, regardless of commercial viability. If NZOnAir aren't neccessarily going to make any money from it, why dictate what we listen daily? Is it right that a teenager singing someone's arrangement of an 80s song should be given priority treatment and so-called "grants" to record and produce similar material when genuine musicians who are trying to come up with something new, original and a little left-field (how else is music supposed to evolve?) get left out in the cold?

Whew, I feel like my head's been stepped on. You sure seem to know the ins and outs of the whole NZOnAir clique - out of interest, which bands of yours have actually made it onto the TV with NZOnAir's help? As for us, now that M2 is gone we'd be hard pressed to get any airtime anyway, grant or no grant. Programmers are like that. Bring back RWP I say.
Cheers for the extensive blurb about us on your site, by the way.

// out of interest, which bands of yours have actually made it onto the
// TV with NZOnAir's help?

The more commercial of my two bands has applied for about a dozen video grants over the last 10 years or so, and managed to get two (my 'non-commercial' band have never applied -- we figured we'd be better off buying lotto tickets).

They were made back in the mid-90s, when nationwide airplay possibilities were even more limited than they are now (no Juice, no Space, no TV4), so I think they got the cursory showing on one of the sat/sun morning video shows ('new release' or 'up'n'coming' or whatever else they used to label tracks that had no show of actually denting the top 20), and that was it. Having said that, there was Christchurch's Cry TV music channel kicking around back then, and we got plenty of airtime on that, which made it more than worthwhile.

And between them my two bands have also self-funded another five music videos, only one of which made it to network TV. But again, all the others got good airtime on Cry, so we felt it was worth our while at the time. Obviously, that outlet doesn't exist for you now, but there's always the chance (quite high, I'd say) that an abbreviated replacement for M2 is going to come along at some point, at which point you'll have some product ready to throw at them.

And, of course, with the web getting bigger and faster and the technology making file-sizes smaller and more portable, the opportunities for online marketing are greatly increased. Steriogram, for example, got their foot in the door with their LA label because of a video streamed of a certain nz music website (or so they say). Have you sent these guys (nzmusic.com, that is) a copy of your video yet?

// Bring back RWP I say.

Yes!

// Cheers for the extensive blurb about us on your site, by the way.

Ahaha! Ripped straight from your site. Cheers.

i agree with you about the goodshirt videos, robyn. i really liked the original of "Green", it was quirky.

*....who are you....

not a huge music video fan, but in todays music world its almost like a must to get a band into the mainstream.

There needs to be one of these shows like that tv4 one that moved to tv3, but run by people that want to play more 'alternative' stuff, okay kind of like m2 i guess (i didn't watch it very often at all, mainly becasue i like sleep). But it needs to be at a more prime time hour, no later than 8:30... 9:00, 9:30 if you really push it.

//buy a 5 hour advermercial slot per week on TV 1, to play all the videos

Wish it was that easy trillion... if they'd ever thought of that, wouldnt it have seemed more viable to just persist with our beloved m2? I'm not clear on the costs, but I'm sure it would cost just as much (possibly even more) to screen videos on tv1.

Also, c'mon it's tv1! Not like they'd play anything like that at a decent hour would they?!! I know my grandma would be muchly unimpressed if her coro was replaced with the latest from SOAD or QOTSA.

That's all-mulch or die!!! ;]

i talk to lots of people aye, heh im not goin to describe myself on NZM ;)
but i live in wgtn, devoted to music
go to gigs once every week or two... eh
is ur email invisibl@hotmail.com???

cheers