Rio Caraeff Talks About His Work For MJ

(27-11-2012) Rio Caraeff is the CEO of Vevo, one of the leading drivers of music distribution by adding modern technology access to music videos - via YouTube, Xbox, iPhone. The service is rapidly becoming a significant source of revenue for artists and labels, which are looking to capitalize on music videos like they never could before. In September, Vevo became the most popular channel on YouTube, and earlier this month, they launched the service in Europe, where it's now available in Spain, Italy, and France.

In a recent interview Caraeff talked about his current work but also about work he has done in the past for Michael Jackson.

INTERVIEWER: Have you always loved music videos?

RIO CARAEFF: I grew up on MTV living in New York in the 1980s. I remember watching The Box; I remember later watching Martha Quinn and Pop-Up Video and TRL. In the 1980s, the one video that's burned into my cerebral cortex from such an early age was probably "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. Later, in the mid-1990s, I had started a special-effects company, and we did a lot of work for music videos, TV commercials, and some feature films. One of my favorite videos of all time was one I worked on then with Michael and Jacket Jackson called "Scream," which took place in outer space on very fun sci-fi sets. [... ]

I remember in the mid-1990s building one of the first artist websites out there--certainly the one with the largest budget at the time--for Michael Jackson. This was before I worked at Capitol. His double album was called "HIStory" and I remember building it all and having access to his company's archives--all his photos and videos. We built this great website and I remember sitting there with my partner and saying, 'Okay, we're done. Should we just launch it?' I remember him saying, 'Well, we should probably show it to them to get their approval.'

Okay, but how do we show it to them? Cause they didn't have Internet access. So we called them up and they told us to make a video tape of it, and messenger it to them. So we sat there trying to figure out how to do that, and ultimately, I had to surf the site while my partner stood over my shoulder with the camera video taping the screen. Then we made a bunch of VHS copies and messengered them to Epic Records and Michael Jackson's people. It took a while to get the approval. But yes, there was a time when you'd video tape websites and send them around for approval. [... ]

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Source: MJFC / Fast Company