This is a letter I recently sent to everyone I know associated with the band :
This is Andrew Bowser, music video director and editor.
I am ashamed at the lack of integrity coming from This Providence and their record label. I submitted a treatment for their song "Keeping on Without You" in early October.
The band/label/management passed on my idea and moved on with another director.
Now weeks later, I see the premiere of the music video for said song. There are numerous elements syphoned from my treatment and implemented into the final video.
-Desert landscape setting
-"Junkyard" setting
-Dirty and tired lead characters "searching for one another"
-Sullied old photographs of lead characters
-Lead singer waking up on his back surrounded by trash (and photo of girl)
Excerpt from my treatment :
"We open on a shot of Dan's eyes as he awakens in the middle of a
junkyard. He is lying flat on his back and across from him in the dirt
is a photograph of a beautiful young woman. She is wearing a polka
dotted dress and is smiling brightly."
I understand that you took what you liked and removed my narrative in
exchange for something more non-linear and impressionistic- but this
plagiarism is still wrong.
This isn't the way music videos are to be made. I should have received compensation from the label if you were going to utilize ANY of the elements from my treatment.
-Andrew
17 comments:
Ok. So. I am the producer of the "This Providence" video and I can promise you there is no plagiarism from the creative end here. Basically the treatment / emotion displayed runs parallel with the lyrics.
About the location: we shot at the salton sea, because I had done a photoshoot there before and liked the location.
About the shot from above.. We found that mattress day of, and it wasn't even planned. Turned out pretty well though.
About the pictures... Dont coin yourself a genius to come up with this, its done all the time. IE Papa Roach (the reference we used) and Blink 182.. Yadada
Not to mention. The original idea we had was to show real peoples photos of lost loved ones... But due to rights we had to bend the idea to what we could achieve.
Bottom Line.. Before you go out and start causing a ruckus, think of all the directors that submit hundreds of treatments for each video, there are bound to be similar treatments every time. As a word of advice, the last thing you want to do is approach the label and management and publicly announce this stuff yourself, you'll just end up ostracized.
I wish you luck in the future. I hope this eased your mind somewhat.
Best
Hey man! I appreciate your feedback, I do however feel the similarities are too close for this to be a coincidence, but I appreciate you getting in touch.
Yikes I deleted my own comment by accident...
I wanted to also say, I agree it will ostracize me and I am okay with that.
I don't want my claims to come off as arrogant, I don't consider myself a genius by any means- I am simply seeing what I am seeing.
But your response is just as valid as my claim- and if I am wrong I am sorry.
I would like to comment and say that even if the producers and/or directors had never seen or heard of Andrew's original treatment, the band and label had. For sure. That being said it was This Providence's responsibility to note the OBVIOUS similarities and steer the producers and/or directors in another direction. There is no excuse for this. Period.
"Hundreds of treatments"? Uhh- This Providence? 100s? You guys probably made that video for like 4 grand. I'm not sure if you had 100s of directors of Andrew's quality submitting for that. Obviously the band liked some of the ideas from his treatment and wanted to use them. I feel bad for the director who probably just used the ideas that the band told him they wanted. It's just lame and uncool on their part- and sorta funny that the producer is trying to act like Andrew is crazy for thinking it's strange that numerous ideas he submitted for a music video were used in THAT music video. I'm not sure if Andrew cares about being "ostracized" from people who run their business that way.
As a friend of the team that produced "Keeping on Without You" I can tell you that the ideas in the video were discussed long before they found out they'd been hired. Also as the photographer of the images featured in the video, I was given total creative freedom with photographing the portraits, so I definitely wasn't involved in the great conspiracy you think happened.
But thank you for the free publicity and views this has given the band.
Megan, again I feel the similarities are too close to be mere coincidence, I am sorry if that's offensive to the creative team involved.
I'm not accusing anyone of being involved in a "great conspiracy" I just can't help but feel there was a discrepancy somewhere along in the process.
I also can't quite follow your point, are you saying the director of this team already had these ideas before finding out he got the job?
Or are you saying that the ideas were in place by the label and band before the director was hired?
If that's what you are saying then I agree. I am assuming that somewhere along the way my treatment was scrapped for parts and certain aspects of it were then implemented into the final concept.
I think this could've been done before the creative team was hired, it may have been a discussion between label and band- but I think my ideas were a springboard for what became the final treatment.
What I find curious about this whole thing, is that no one has come forward and said concretely :
"HELLO, MY NAME IS SO AND SO AND I WROTE THE IDEA AND DREW THE STORYBOARDS AND IT SAID DESERT/JUNKYARD AND GUY WAKING UP AND OLD PHOTOGRAPHS AND DIRTY LEAD CHARACTERS...."
I think the label possibly said to the creative team "What we like about the treatments so far, have been junkyard, old photo, Dan waking up...yada yada, can you work with that?"
And someone agreed to working with that and incorporating those elements into the video, elements that I added to the idea pile.
It's not a far fetched concept, I appreciate everyone attempting to "teach me lessons" about how the business works, but the advice is unsolicited.
Plagiarism on any level is a real threat to artists. The music video creating process at this smaller level of production has a very "grab bag" structure and that's where my issue lies.
I've worked with bands numerous times before who will ask me to utilize ideas they liked from other treatments. They don't understand that those are ideas that aren't my right to use.
It's a common mentality and it is you and D-Quas who are naive in thinking it's an impossibility.
don't get too excited about this. the band isn't very good. any drama at this level will be a non-issue a year down the road.
I just read about this for the first time, so im out of the loop on details but my favorite line is from the producer..
"about the pictures... Dont coin yourself a genius to come up with this, IT'S DONE ALL THE TIME."
I mean come on the creative genius is just running through his blood! Why would they ever need to borrow your ideas...They can just steal them from IE Papa Roach.... pshh silly Andy!
I could be completely wrong, but Andrew were you formerly in the band Zella Mayzell, and responsible for their music videos? I don't know if this point has ever been raised before, but you're video for "Straight Ahead At The End Of The Court" happens to be extremely similar for the video "All Things Ordinary" by The Anniversary. I don't think that you plagiarized their video, which was made years prior, but I do not feel that what This Providence did in their video is much, if at all, different. Don't mean to spark any debates, and you seem to respond to everyone rationally. Art imitates art, in some cases more directly than others. Unless something is word for word or frame for frame the exact same, it is difficult to accuse someone with the same concept or idea as plagiarism.
Jason
This providence doesn't deserve a video of Andrews caliber.. They're a sub-par, soon to be forgotten boy band.
Jason, I watched the video for The Anniversary this morning after reading your comment. I can honestly tell you I hadn't seen it before now.
But you're right it's really similar to the Zella video. I think that's a case of a band having a similar concept because they were going through a similar journey personally. People were most likely asking that band to alter their image in the same way I felt pressured in my band, out of that emotion came a similar creative response.
Although you have to admit, The Anniversary video does not have the same destination the Zella video has and doesn't make as many of the points we made.
And again, I am not accusing anyone of stealing my concept, I am accusing them of using DIRECT IMAGES from a treatment I SUBMITTED TO THEM as a springboard for their final video.
I think I had misunderstood the fact that you actually submitted that specific image to the band, for that specific video, which kind of makes some of my statement come off as slightly ignorant. Since they had your treatment for the video in their hands, specifically for that song, they should recognize your input (regardless of how much) if it is in the finished product.
As for the videos, I do agree with you that the Zella video made much more substantial points, especially about a lot of the music/image that is being produced even years after the Zella video came out.
In light of our exchange, I think today would be a good day to throw in my copy of the Murder, Porn and Fatherhood E.P.
If the concept had items directly borrowed from your video concept for the song, then I'm not getting how the band is necessarily at fault. Did you submit it to them directly or to the label?
BTW, I happen to love This Providence. I don't expect everyone to, but kind of ridiculous to say how bad they are just because it isn't your preference musically. I've seen them many times, and enjoy their music a lot. Dan's got a great voice and stage presence.
Whatever happened, I hope this issue is successfully resolved.
I do think it would have been best to address this with the parties involved privately first, IF this wasn't tried first just because it's much more professional.
Melanie, I e-mailed the record label and band's publicist first. But beyond that, they didn't check with me before posting their video publicly. This is a public matter because it is the public that needs to be made aware of such things. There needs to be vindication for little guy and the only forum for that is a public one when it deals with art that was publicly released. Also, yes the band was given my treatment very early on in the process.
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