Alex de Campi: We'll have a poodle, a Baby Grand, and roses every day

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20.9.07 One From The Vaults / In Trouble Again

Stephen and I are still in postproduction on the Real Tuesday Weld / Puppini Sisters music video we shot the other day, so in the meantime, here is one from the vaults: Maxfield (her from Groove Armada) and what was to be her initial self-promoted single, "Stucklike". This was the second or third music video I made, shot almost exactly a year ago.

Paid for out of my own pocket, shot on the Panasonic HVX (one of the first videos in the UK to be shot on it) by Guy Routledge, and with animation by Duncan Brown/Thorn Industries.

No, it never really made it anywhere. Not through any fault of the video - although it's hardly perfect - but because soon after we finished it, Maxfield entered into negotiations with a record label. The label, as a condition of the negotiations, made her take down all music and videos everywhere except her MySpace site. Although I retained all rights to the video, I took it down too as a favour to Maxfield, as I didn't want to mess up her potential deal. (Note that this is very unusual; I have plenty of friends who are signed to labels big and small, and I've never heard of this "take everything down" approach before).

Well, after six months of what sounded like frankly very unhappy sturm und drang and general messing about, Maxfield finally signed with the label in March or April this year. After emailing Maxfield asking if I could put the video up and hearing nothing back, a couple months later I stuck it back up on my showreel on Youtube, expecting that eventually the label would get in touch with me about it if they wanted to negotiate or acquire the rights.

Fast forward to last night, when I get a note from Maxfield saying the label is very, very irate (but not very on the ball, as the video's been up for three months now) and if I don't take the video off Youtube they will go to Youtube themselves and have it taken down. Bad Alex! Which, as I note, is an amusing approach, as the video was completed before they entered into negotiations with Maxfield and I retain the rights to it. Perhaps this is why they haven't approached me directly?

Anyway. Enjoy the Maxfield video while you can.

( 9:28 AM )

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