Fabian Ledgister, Staff Reporter
THOUGH AN artiste was able to attract some recognition from a song being played by selectors at events, there was a time when access to a mass audience was available only through radio airplay. Since the mid 90s, however, a fairly young industry, helped along by the more recent inception of Jamaican cable stations, has taken the music scene by storm. And with the increase in global popularity of dancehall music, the local music video industry is officially booming.
In the late 70s the value of television as a music promotion tool was being heightened in the United States and by 1981 a company called Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Television started the first music video channel, MTV. The channel's success proved the value of music videos to an artiste's record sales. However, it was not until the inception of cable television in the late 80s that Jamaica's music industry truly caught on to the trend.
IMPORTANCE OF VIDEOS
"Foreign artistes realise the importance of videos long time, but is when cable come to Jamaica di local artiste start fi realise how much impact a video wi have on di people," stated premiere local director Ras Kassa.
Recognising the popularity of music videos, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (now TVJ) began a Saturday entertainment programme called 'Where It's At', which mainly showed music videos. Though this provided an avenue for local artistes to get their music aired it was only one programme; radio still dominated as the mass media outlet for the music industry.
Although CVM TV was launched in 1993, it was the rise of multiple cable stations in the late 90s that began a trend which has now catalysed into an entirely new avenue for an artiste to approach the music industry. By 2005, it had become not just a complementary, but a totally alternate route to popularity for one artiste in particular.
"We knew we had a good song (Serious Times by Gyptian), but for whatever reason the disc jockeys weren't playing it so we decide to shoot a video for it because there was nuff cable stations that wanted videos," stated Robin Wong, Gyptian's manager.
The radio disc jockey was no longer the sole gatekeeper for the mass airing of music, as local cable stations' schedule consisted mostly of music videos. These stations included Reggae Entertainment Television, CETV, Music + and Hype TV. That initial music video heavy programming did not last for all of them.
"With our programming now being diversified with programmes like home improvement and talk shows, our music video segments are now only 15-20 per cent of our schedule, but our first 90 minutes of airplay were all music videos, so admittedly we began with 100 per cent music videos," said CEO of CETV and director of the Association of Independent Programme Providers, Leighton Thomas.
CABLE STATIONS
Thomas agrees that cable stations have played a major
role in the rise of the local music video industry and states that
the video is used mostly for marketing, usually for the promotion of a past or up-
coming CD.
With the rise of the local music video industry has also emerged some notable figures. These are Trevor Baille. Big Daddy, Ray Smith and, more recently, Ras Kassa, Asha Mchail, Nordia Rose, Jay Will and Kevin Lee. These directors and video professionals say that artistes have began to see the worth of the music video as a tool to get their images across international boundaries.
"If you have a pending contract overseas the best way to secure the deal is to send a DVD with a video so that they can get an understanding of your image as well as your music," explained video professional, Asha Mchail. Asha has worked on videos for numerous artistes, including Lutan Fyah, Lady Saw and TOK member Alex, and states that like most of his industry counterparts he has no formal training.
"Most of us just work offa creativity and raw talent and nuff of us, like Nordia and Kassa, learned what we know from being around man like Trevor Baille," stated Asha, who now jointly runs Slingshot Video & Film Productions with Peter Lloyd.
Now the C.E.O. of Music +, Baille admits that the station's was born out of the late 90s local music video boom. "Jamaicans are storytellers by nature, so naturally videos that tell a story will be something that many will view and remember... We have a company strictly for video productions called Advidco Productions," stated Baille.
According to Billy Yapp of Snap One Productions, another major factor in the rise of the music video industry is the improvement in the availability and lowered cost of the necessary equipment to make the video. Despite this factor, the reality is that equipment are still quite expensive, with a single production light costing up to US$10,000. And if an artiste wants a good video, he or she should try to invest as much as possible to get the best quality.
Despite all these improvements, major players in the industry say that now is the time to invest in the field to bring it up to international standards. Internationally acclaimed producer Marie McMoris-Bruce has recently returned to Jamaica for that purpose, saying that the local industry is badly in need of organisation. "For one, there needs to be some standard rates applied to the industry, so that the many professionals are not exploited... Jamaica has many talented people, but no structure," states McMoris-Bruce.
The acclaimed producer also says that there should be a learning institution solely for the purposes of film production. This sentiment is echoed by McHail, who says that though the international standard for music videos is now film, local directors are still relying on video, as film production is not cost-effective.
"There is no film lab in Jamaica to develop work done on film, so we are forced to fly abroad and contract overseas labs to do film works... This is not cost-effective," informed McHail.
Regardless, the music video industry has now given the unknown artiste the opportunity to get some notoriety, without going through the radio disc jockeys. "Nuff a dem disc jockey a producer now, an dem a play music fi di wrong reasons... When di garrison youths dem see see is a yout like dem a mek video an a gi dem di opportunity fi do dem ting, is a great ting to dem," states Ras Kassa
Kassa, who directed the video for Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley's Welcome To Jamrock, is currently shooting a second video for the German born Gentleman, entitled Say a Prayer, featuring Barrington Levy.
