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103rd out of 153 books
—
15 voters
Video Slut: How I Shoved Madonna Off an Olympic High Dive, Got Prince into a Pair of Tiny Purple Woolen Underpants, Ran Away from Michael Jackson's Dad, and Got a Waterfall to Flow Backward So I Could Bring Rock Videos to the Masses
by
Sharon Oreck
When video killed the radio star, Sharon Oreck was calling the shots.
Video Sluttakes an irreverent look behind the scenes of the music-video industry during its eighties heyday. Oreck, one of the top producers of all time, bluffed her way into the business with no experience whatsoever and went on to produce more than six hundred video shoots with Madonna, Sting, Mick Jagg...more
Video Sluttakes an irreverent look behind the scenes of the music-video industry during its eighties heyday. Oreck, one of the top producers of all time, bluffed her way into the business with no experience whatsoever and went on to produce more than six hundred video shoots with Madonna, Sting, Mick Jagg...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
May 25th 2010
by Faber & Faber
(first published 2010)
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This book took me much longer to read than it should have because I kept having to go to my computer and YouTube the videos described within. For a child of the 80's I was really less familiar with them than I should have been. It might have been helpful for Oreck to put up a website with links to her work to make tracking them down less complicated.
For the most part, chapters regarding Ms. Oreck's large-scale productions were interspersed with ones about her personal life prior to becoming a r...more
For the most part, chapters regarding Ms. Oreck's large-scale productions were interspersed with ones about her personal life prior to becoming a r...more
This book was exhausting! It felt like work just trying to read it. It set on my nightstand for far too long as I often felt like I just didn't have the energy to labour through it. At the heart of the problem is Sharon's "writing". Often all of three run-on sentences, compromising two paragraphs, take up an entire page's text. I'd have to mentally take a deep breath just to finish a sentence. A sentence that contains more hyperbole than the Grand Canyon could hold. A sentence packed with every...more
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Sharon Oreck interposes her professional and personal life into a wacky, hilarious tale. From trying not to get her ass kicked by Joe Jackson to getting michael to fein interest in Naomi Campbell, you are introduced to how exactly she was put into this positions of power in the first place. A teen mother at 16, kicked-out, alone and on welfare. Sharon refused to live off the system anymore and did what she could to survive to:( i.e. bullshit her way to the top). it's a quick read, funny at times...more
I picked this up because I'd just read that big MTV book and it was really good. Sharon Oreck gets a lot of space in the pages of that book because she's on OG music video director. I thought this book would be great as a companion to that one but....
The author tries her best to cram WIT WIT WIT MOTHERFUCKING WIT into every goddamned sentence, making it pretty much unreadable. You never get into any narrative groove because Oreck is trying so fucking hard to show you how clever she is. This one'...more
The author tries her best to cram WIT WIT WIT MOTHERFUCKING WIT into every goddamned sentence, making it pretty much unreadable. You never get into any narrative groove because Oreck is trying so fucking hard to show you how clever she is. This one'...more
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Funny! She is a pretty good writer, not amazing but if you like her voice (I did) you will probably be OK. Her story is interesting, the vignettes are often funny, and the insight into a few famous videos you remember and maybe loved is great. There are a couple slow parts and awkward transitions but if you can get past that stuff and just get into the story you will enjoy it.
You really have to have been a teen-ager in the 80s to get the utter hilarity and fabulousness of this book. Sharon Oreck manages to meld her autobiographical account of how she went from pregnant teen to video director extraordinaire and she does it with humour, good-natured self-deprecation, and lots of cred.
Totally worth the price of admission for the accounts of what Prince and Madonna demanded during a shoot, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson's asshat of a father, and the unlikely and mete...more
Totally worth the price of admission for the accounts of what Prince and Madonna demanded during a shoot, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson's asshat of a father, and the unlikely and mete...more
This witty narrative goes back and forth between Sharon's life as a teenage mom and Sharon's life as a successful rock video producer. I especially enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at popular 80s videos - and then enjoyed watching them on YouTube after reading about them.
Contains course language and several drug references, but is a funny nostalgic read for children/teens of the 80s.
Contains course language and several drug references, but is a funny nostalgic read for children/teens of the 80s.
A producer from the "golden age" of rock video tells her own life story as well as shares some behind-the-scenes looks at the hot personalities of the day...Madonna, janet, Michael, ect...
If you are a child of the 80's, READ THIS.
Hi-LAR-ious!
The music video stuff isn't terribly revealing ... and it's actually only half of the book: the book is equal parts autobiography and career memoir.
Made me want to go back and watch some of the videos to see the locations that she talks about.
An amusing and easy read.
Half of the chapters in this book were about specific music videos the author produced (fun!) and the other half were about the author's life before she produced music videos (snooze). The "behind the scenes" stories about some of the most popular videos ever (Like A Prayer, Wicked Game, Nasty) were hilarious.
Ugh. I feel like I have to read this, since I spent the $9.99 for it.... but seriously, it's gonna be tough to get through.
The most interesting parts of this book was when she talked about her past.
Never finished it
May 14, 2013
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Sharon Oreck is a film, video, and commercial producer. Between 1984 and 2000 she was the owner-operator of O Pictures. She is an Academy Award nominee and the recipient of a Grammy Award, two Women in Film Awards, and several MTV Awards."
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