D.I.Y.

Indie Artist Outsources Music Video To Bangalore, India With Surprising Results

Drew_smithGuest post by Brian Thompson of Thorny Bleeder.

I was browsing the music thread on Reddit and stumbled upon Drew Smith, an independent artist from Hamilton, Ontario. What caught my eye was the following headline, which had me incredibly intrigued:

"So my brother outsourced his new music video to Bangalore, India. This is what he got back."

Was I intrigued? Big time.

Was the video going to be a lesson in what not to do? Was it going to become a viral sensation because it was so awful?

OR…was the end product something he could become incredibly proud of?

See for yourself:

DIY Resourcefulness and Ingenuity

I've been a part of a number of professionally shot music videos, and they're not cheap. Yes, you can round up some college kids with a good eye and the latest Canon DSLR, and you might be able to get something decent done on the cheap.

But if you want to hire an experienced producer, a talented director of photography, extras, makeup, proper lighting, locations properly secured and quality post production… you're going to have fork over a substantial piece of cash. We're talking $15,000-$20,000…minimum.

But…what about outsourcing your video overseas?

To be honest, the thought has never occurred to me. Sure, I've dealt with outsourcing other types of projects to India and the Philippines before, such as graphic design, web work or even accounting…but video production? Never.

Music videos are such a personal part of an artist's branding and promotion that it's something that's heavily guarded and protected. It's something an artist typically holds close to their chest and which they demand to be deeply involved in…unless they're working with a renowned director who they intimately trust.

Smith outsourced his video to Bangalore, India. Why? Well, he figured the last thing the world needed was another low-budget singer songwriter video. Fortunately for Drew, the first Virtual Assistant he found on Google also happened to be a dance choreographer. After a couple of emails and phone calls, Smitth received the beautiful video above in his inbox.

Score one for Team DIY.

Have you had a success story with outsourcing? If so, share your story in the comments below.

Visit Drew Smith online and visit his website for a free download: Website | Facebook | Twitter.  View the discussion thread on this video on Reddit here.

Share on:

14 Comments

  1. As a DIY’er who focuses on music, it is hard to take the time to learn enough about video to get a great end product. Out sourcing seems like a great way to get someone with a passion for video to do the job. I have spent time looking at Radar Music Videos which is similar.

  2. If you’re looking for random video that has nothing to do with your music, then this guy succeeded. If the video actually had any contextual matching to the music, I certainly didn’t pick up on it. What I saw was a bunch of video which could have been stock footage for all I knew, with music overlaid on top.
    This isn’t to say that music video “outsourcing” is a bad idea, as that is usually what is done, unless it is done by the musician him/herself. Offshoring, on the other hand, is limited by what I’ve experienced first hand with IT projects that have been sent overseas. A breakdown in communication. It is very difficult to get across the ideas that you want with someone who is not face to face with you, and an even more difficult endeavor if the person does not understand common idioms, and similar language barrier issues.
    But, if you want your video to be a montage of random video images, you could just buy a stock footage DVD and use that instead… I’d much rather have video that has meaning but is of low quality, or no video at all, than to have video that doesn’t convey the meaning of the music.

  3. Horrible video. Music and visual must be in unison. This is stupid and tasteless. Great thinking. Sure.

  4. I didn’t look at the video, but I did read the comments on Reddit and they weren’t very helpful. People kept asking how much it costs to do this, but unless I missed it, an answer was never given.

  5. remember that India has the largest movie industry in the world, so i guess it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that they could also make music videos.

  6. While the music is sort of, meh, the video is a fascinating bollywood miniature. An interesting approach to getting a video.

  7. Cross pollination of art styles plays a key role in advancement of music and culture.
    While I agree with the comments that the video and lyrics weren’t gelling, I think there are some really good takeaways from the fact that this video used techniques that are rarely used here in the states. One interesting thing is the use of some of the low-tech special effects that are common in Indian films but rarely used in American or Western videos. One good example is the use of powder(?) of various colors to create a fog effect; usually in Western videos this is done using fog machines or dry ice. This video had several scenes in which the characters directly interacted with the powder – for example where the dancers kicked up the powder with their feet, or poured colored sand from their hands.
    I am interested to see what other techniques that people find from this outsourcing that are not typical to Western film-making.

  8. Oo, joining the party a bit late here, but just to let you know it doesn’t need to cost anything like $15,000- $20,000 minimum to make a decent music video.
    I run RadarMusicVideos (as mentioned by the first person on this comment thread, thanks :). We’re a network where labels and artists advertise briefs and professional music video directors submit treatments to make them. Budgets are typically between $750 and $7500.
    Over 180 music videos have made worldwide through Radar, well over a quarter of them have over 50,000 youtube views, a handful have millions of YouTube views. We’ve got tons of happy customers, from majors to indies to DIY artists.
    check us out http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/
    and here’s our YouTube playlist of commissioned videos
    http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL93F649E03918D2FF&feature=mh_lolz
    It’s a nice idea to outsource to Bangalore. Great story.
    Using Radar is possibly a lot easier/reliable though 🙂

Comments are closed.