RECORD COMPANY
Creative Services: Senior Vice President • Vice President • Director (creative Service And Video)
JOB OVERVIEW
The creative services office is responsible for the imaging, art direction, and design of CD and cassette covers, media advertising, and other collateral material. At RCA Label Group, Mary Hamilton directs and oversees staff and freelance artists who are responsible for the physical image in print, video, and other forms of the label's artists. They are literally charged with making the artists' hair, makeup, clothes, and lighting look good for the camera, and ensuring that the appropriate image is projected in print and video.
PREREQUISITES
“You have to be open to change. You have to be capable and willing to put yourself on the wavelength of the person who is at the helm. Communication: being able to get numerous people on the same agenda. Art direction and international diplomacy [are] kind of the same thing.”
CAREER TIPS
“Ultimately, if you want to do something, you can. The opportunities are there. You just have to put forth the effort and you will find a way for it to work.”
Take some classes in video production; learn about photography; study design and art direction—become well-rounded and well-versed in these areas. In addition to reading music trade magazine, read about fashion trends. Watch videos and stay abreast of what others are doing.
“You have to be willing to take what comes and if you feel a bit over your head, great—enjoy the swim. You can do the doggy paddle or you can do the breast stroke.”
A DAY IN THE LIFE
On a non-shoot day, Mary Hamilton stops off to check on the retouching of a photo shoot before she arrives at the office between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. Most days begin with returning phone calls to managers, hair and makeup stylists, photographers and others, trying to lock in times for a photo or video shoot. Then there are meetings to ensure everyone has the same concept and vision in mind. She meets with photographer and video director reps who come to show their clients' portfolios, attends various departmental and interoffice meetings, and reviews and approves budgets.
THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS JOB:
“I hate the politics!“
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS JOB:
“The challenge of having some participation in the creative process of taking a new artist and finding what about that human being is appealing—what people will become infatuated with—and trying to project that on film, in print, or video.”
POINTERS FOR THE JOB SEARCH
Build an appropriate portfolio. Don't fill it with random projects from art school. Find a local band and offer to design their CD, or redesign CDs already on the market to get experience. “I look at so many portfolios of graduating students who don't have any idea of what reality is. It is going to take them a few years in the field to learn. You've got to be willing to pay your dues.”
MARY HAMILTON, VICE PRESIDENT OF CREATIVE SERVICES/VIDEO, RCA LABEL GROUP/NASHVILLE
Mary Hamilton arrived in Nashville with little more than the clothes on her back, some college art training, and a four-year-old son to feed. “We didn't have a place to stay, not a job, not anything.” Her one contact in town worked at a publishing house, where she was hired as a freelance illustrator of children's books. Brought in-house in 1977, she took advantage of the opportunity to learn every aspect of the printing business, and was later promoted to art director. “I was illustrating and doing mechanicals back in the days before the advent of computer graphics. It was old school, where you spec'd the type, got it set, cut it up, pasted it, and laid it in. It was very labor intensive.”
After seven years in book publishing, Hamilton needed a new challenge. Through a friend, she got an interview at RCA Records and was hired as director of creative services. At the time, the label had no in-house art department, so the total responsibility fell on her shoulders. As she had done previously, Hamilton learned everything she could about her new job, which meant talking to the product development and marketing departments, photographers, stylists, graphic artists, printers, and everyone else involved, to learn about their jobs. As the liaison between the artistic and the commercial sides of the business, she felt it was essential to be able to speak both languages.
About four years later, she approached her boss with the idea that artist videos, which had previously been a separate entity, should be integrated into the same image concept as all other media. Her boss, convinced of the wisdom, as well as the cost savings behind the idea, promoted Hamilton to vice president of creative services/video for the RCA label group. www.rcarecordslabel.com
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