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No MVP here - they went all the way the first time. Be sure to switch to 1080p and go full screen, it's breathtaking. But it makes me wonder, what is the ROI on

No MVP here - they went all the way the first time. Be sure to switch to 1080p and go full screen, it's breathtaking. But it makes me wonder, what is the ROI on this? Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months, and how long will it take?

alexwolfe 15y ago
The ROI is creating something incredible that you can be proud of forever. This is art! I hope people will always have the courage to create amazing things without worrying about the financials.
- topherjaynes 15y ago
  That (they had to have a good time making it), and the purely promotional reason of this is in their portfolio! If they we're bidding on a job for me and they showed me this I would throw money at them. Dedication, quality, and creativity.
- TheHegemon 15y ago
  Well really they said it "only" took 1,357 hours. Which is roughly 62 hours a month. Even if the people were being paid $50/hour, which is unlikely considering I assume most of them will be volunteers, that comes out to about $50,000. They said they used 288,000 jelly beans. There is roughly 400 jelly beans per pound. You can buy bulk jelly beans for $85 for 10lbs. Which comes out to $61,200 for the jelly beans. I'm sure they could get a non-name brand or bulk discount so it could be much less. So definitely less $100,000 for the music video. They can make that money back pretty quickly if they become a YouTube partner and the video goes viral. They would only need about 50million views to pay back the costs of making the video. Plus, how can you put a price on art?
  - ghshephard 15y ago
    Your math is off on the Jelly beans. 288,000 / 400 = 720 Pounds. JellyBelly Jelly Beans Retail on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-Flavors-3-Pound/dp/B000XK0FFW http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-Flavors-3-Pound/d...) for $9/pound. So, even if they didn't buy them wholesale (hard to believe) - it's still only $6480 worth of jelly beans.
  - benjoffe 15y ago
    There's a plug for the 'jelly belly' brand at the end of the video where they show their logo, I'm pretty sure that means they would have either gotten them for free or they sponsored the video.
daenz 15y ago
The ROI is probably poor, but then again, many artists aren't in it for the ROI. More power to them.
patio11 15y ago
Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months The actual people moving the jelly beans into position were, according to the making-of video, unpaid. Music is like video games, movies, journalism, political campaigns, etc: grunt work gets done by an undercaste of young people "paying their dues" with the promise that they will be allowed to graduate to the interesting, high status stuff if they just stick with it a little while longer. (This is a lie.)
- pyre 15y ago
  There's also just friends of friends that participate because they think that it's fun. I know of several people that would enjoy participating in such a project just because they find it fun.
juiceandjuice 15y ago
The ROI is name recognition and differentiation, with the goal of a recording contract.
- Tloewald 15y ago
  She has four or five albums out and has gone viral before.
MichaelApproved 15y ago
That's not true, there were several versions to prove the concept. Before they went all out, they created a story board of each scene, then they animated it and then they went for it.

alexwolfe 15y ago

The ROI is creating something incredible that you can be proud of forever. This is art! I hope people will always have the courage to create amazing things without worrying about the financials.

topherjaynes 15y ago
That (they had to have a good time making it), and the purely promotional reason of this is in their portfolio! If they we're bidding on a job for me and they showed me this I would throw money at them. Dedication, quality, and creativity.
TheHegemon 15y ago
Well really they said it "only" took 1,357 hours. Which is roughly 62 hours a month. Even if the people were being paid $50/hour, which is unlikely considering I assume most of them will be volunteers, that comes out to about $50,000. They said they used 288,000 jelly beans. There is roughly 400 jelly beans per pound. You can buy bulk jelly beans for $85 for 10lbs. Which comes out to $61,200 for the jelly beans. I'm sure they could get a non-name brand or bulk discount so it could be much less. So definitely less $100,000 for the music video. They can make that money back pretty quickly if they become a YouTube partner and the video goes viral. They would only need about 50million views to pay back the costs of making the video. Plus, how can you put a price on art?
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Your math is off on the Jelly beans. 288,000 / 400 = 720 Pounds. JellyBelly Jelly Beans Retail on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-Flavors-3-Pound/dp/B000XK0FFW http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-Flavors-3-Pound/d...) for $9/pound. So, even if they didn't buy them wholesale (hard to believe) - it's still only $6480 worth of jelly beans.
- benjoffe 15y ago
  There's a plug for the 'jelly belly' brand at the end of the video where they show their logo, I'm pretty sure that means they would have either gotten them for free or they sponsored the video.

daenz 15y ago

The ROI is probably poor, but then again, many artists aren't in it for the ROI. More power to them.

patio11 15y ago

Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months The actual people moving the jelly beans into position were, according to the making-of video, unpaid. Music is like video games, movies, journalism, political campaigns, etc: grunt work gets done by an undercaste of young people "paying their dues" with the promise that they will be allowed to graduate to the interesting, high status stuff if they just stick with it a little while longer. (This is a lie.)

pyre 15y ago
There's also just friends of friends that participate because they think that it's fun. I know of several people that would enjoy participating in such a project just because they find it fun.

juiceandjuice 15y ago

The ROI is name recognition and differentiation, with the goal of a recording contract.

Tloewald 15y ago
She has four or five albums out and has gone viral before.

MichaelApproved 15y ago

That's not true, there were several versions to prove the concept. Before they went all out, they created a story board of each scene, then they animated it and then they went for it.