Stingomania Records Breaks Music Video Production Records: Produces 19 Music Videos in 10 days at its Marathon Music Video Production (MVP) Camp
While the rest of the entertainment industry was wondering what is next in stock for the upstart Stingomania Records Label, the upstart record label recently made another audacious move to carve its name into the record books with its recently concluded history making Musical Video Production Camp.
In a period of 10 days from January 17th-27th, Stingomania executives convened what is now regarded as the 1st MVP Camp for young and upcoming artistes at an exclusive location in Lekki. At the MVP Camp, a group of 43 people including 8 artistes on the Stingomania label, their friends and executives of Stingomania records, most of whom have never been previously involved in music video production, simply kept shooting one musical video after the other with a couple of HD Cameras. By the time the dust settled 10 days later, the Stingomania Squad has produced 19 incredible music videos in barely 10 days.
The most stunning part of this almost impossible achievement is that the whole camp idea was an impromptu brain wave of the CEO and his team of highly motivated executives and artistes. All they started out to shoot was one music video for Trybson’s Dudukoko and the event simply developed a life of its own and at the end of the camp over 43 people had gathered at the camp to contribute one thing or the other.
At the end of the 10 day period, the participants as well as the executives of Stingomania records were pleasantly surprised to realize they have shot a total of 19 musical videos for 8 of the artistes on the Stingomania records label at different locations in Lekki. Some of the musical videos produced include videos for hits such as Dudukoko, Alepo, Stingo Girl, Koto and Reasons for TRYBSON, Kolo and Kainje for AYDU AMAH; Love Wan Tin Tin for EMX, the extremely controversial 2ICE as 9ICE for BABA NEE; Pay the Money, Overnight, In my life and Ko Ye Mi o for OVIS TEE; Show Your Logo for EAZY LIZY; Shimpaka for WHICHLEVELZ and Wind E for OBESERE.
This unique achievement by Stingomania Records in producing 19 music videos in 10 days with a bunch of non-professionals puts them straight into the record books since there is no record of anything like this ever having been done by any company in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world prior to this. Without any experience in music video production or directing, the creative Stingomania chairman was able to use the combined energy and synergy of 43 enthusiastic and extremely innovative young people to come up with different wild concepts and then execute them using what he called a ‘mass attack and mass defense’ strategy where everybody, including total strangers and domestic staff such as the driver and cook, is allowed to contribute ideas as it occurs to them and make suggestions on anything about any video being shot. Any of the 43 people on set were allowed to make any suggestion at any time on technical issues such as concept development, video angles, character selection, lighting position and props to use for each video.
When interviewed, Ope Banwo, the CEO of Stingomania Records, an attorney by profession, explained that the purpose of the MVP Camp is partly an attempt to dispel the myths surrounding the production of musical videos in Nigeria and a desperate attempt to find solutions to the high cost of making music videos in Nigeria.
According to Ope Banwo, ‘I was in shock when they told me that to produce a classy video costs about N1.5 Million ($10,000) at least. To me, that effectively closed the door of music videos on young upcoming talents who have no money and for small music labels like mine with very low budgets to work with. Also, since Stingomania records have 9 different artistes under contract, we knew we wouldn’t be able to compete with the more established labels without putting out serious money for videos for my artistes’.
The Stingomania boss continued ‘For us at Stingomania records, solving the high cost of video production was a life or death problem for the record label. Therefore, facing the choice between spending over N20m on videos for our artistes or watch the label go quietly into oblivion, we came up with a concept where we would assemble a small group of young people with no previous experience in music video production but who are willing to work together as a team to have fun while figuring out the mysteries of music video production in an atmosphere where creative expression is allowed to reign”.
“On January 17th, we started out the Music Video Production (MVP) Camp with about 5 people and before you knew it people started coming from everywhere, mostly uninvited, and we kept welcoming them and giving everyone an opportunity to contribute to whatever we were doing. The energy, enthusiasm and synergy continued to build and the young guys just kept coming up with crazy concepts. The experience is one of the most fulfilling events of my life.”
While the market will ultimately decide whether the videos being produced can compete in the highly competitive world of music videos, independent feedbacks coming from the MVP Camp indicate that some of the videos produced at the MVP Camp are legitimate contenders for the most creative and best videos of the year. The first of the videos to be released on YouTube, the video concept for EMX’s Love Wan Tin Tin hit single seemed to have held viewers spellbound with its masterful combination of simplicity, audacity, and creativity
