Isaac Ravishankara and I go way back to “film school,”* so it’s been exciting to watch his visually dynamic, often hilarious music videos popping up all over—most recently at the MTV VMAs. I caught up with him to chat about indie vs. big budget production, the DSLR “revolution,” and music video distribution models. You know, nerd stuff. Not including the hot videos…

UC: How did you get into directing music videos?

IR: One summer, I was home from college, and my friend Sean asked me to do a video for his new band, 3oh!3, and their song “Holler Til You Pass Out.” When the band got signed, we did another video, and then I started doing some other work for their label.

Holler Til You Pass Out – 3oh!3

UC: How has producing videos for music labels, as opposed to unsigned bands, changed the process for you?

IR: In general, its just more people, more opinions – which I actually really like. The best part of the process is the collaboration. So I enjoy working with everyone’s opinions, and/or trying to convince people of mine.

I think I’ve been pretty lucky, as a new director, in that my first major label video (again for 3oh!3) did well and was nominated for an MTV VMA. So even though I’m just getting going, everyone has been really supportive and trusting.

Sometimes, despite creativity and lower production costs allowed by new technology, many visual ideas still require a certain amount of financing. In this way, I think labels still allow for certain projects to be realized that wouldn’t be otherwise.

Don’t Trust Me – 3oh!3 – nominee for Best New Artist at the MTV VMAs

UC: What are your thoughts on the recent discussion of distribution of music videos online? (see Damian Kulash of Ok Go’s NY Times op-ed “WhoseTube?”)

IR: I think Damian Kulash is pretty spot-on. The tricky thing with music videos, these days, is that they are very amorphous as far as their purpose is concerned. On one hand, music videos are still, largely, commercials for the band and song. This was the model that launched videos in the first place.

However, I think there are two other important things to consider. One is that YouTube has emerged as one of the most prevalent ways that people listen to music. If you want your friend to listen to “Here It Goes Again”, and you don’t have it on iTunes, you just Google the track and it pops up on Youtube. That video, of course, has the song playing under it. And so whether or not you watch Damian and OK Go dance for 3 minutes on treadmills, you’re listening.

Because of YouTube, when a band doesn’t have a video out for a track people want to hear, the fans will make the video themselves. There are a mind-boggling amount of lyric-videos or photo-montage videos out there just to fill the void and provide YouTube with musical content to LISTEN to (not to mention the much more elaborate, and often amazing, fan-made videos out there).

A personal example-

After a few months of being out and many million plays on YouTube, Warner Music Group pulled the 3oh!3 videos offline, including their hit – Don’t Trust Me. In the downtime, three fan-made videos (all of people wearing “Kanye shades”) subsequently took its place. Each of these amassed at least 4 million views. So currently, the official Don’t Trust Me video, back online now, is the third most viewed version of the video.

UC: You recently started shooting videos on a DSLR.  How has it changed production/post?

IR: I’m wouldn’t say I’m “part of the DSLR revolution” or anything – its just a really good tool. We’ve used the Canon 7D a few times now for different reasons. For one video, it was to sneak some plate backgrounds that would have been impossible to get with the RED, which we used for principle photography. Another video, though, was shot entirely at night, using only a 35W LED panel shoe-mounted on the 7D and a car for a backlight (and some practical lights). I knew we were doing something special when we were shooting things the behind-the-scenes guy couldn’t capture on his HVX-200.

Never Shout Never – “I Love You 5″ from Isaac Ravishankara on Vimeo.

On the downside, the form-factor makes handheld tough and particularly shaky if you aren’t using a rig. Lens availability is great, but photo lenses aren’t manufactured to be doing the type of focus pulling I usually want. And the DSLR’s compress in-camera to h.264, which isn’t nice to an NLE program like Final Cut.

Another thing that I’ve found, is that there’s a certain mentality on set when shooting film vs. large camera HD (Red, etc) vs. DSLR. It’s as if the larger and more expensive the gear, the more care needs to be taken with what is in front of the lens. This though, is something that is likely to dissipate as people get used to shooting with smaller digital cameras.

All videos directed by Isaac Ravishankara – http://gotisaac.com/

*Brandon and Henry will call me out on this.