Video Slut

"It has been said (and not only by me) that the Music Video ‘Industry' is (was) the worst aspects of the film industry and the worst aspects of the music industry combined. Sharon Oreck's Video Slut is a loving record of that particularly ridiculous time and place when MTV owned a sizeable chunk of pop-culture real estate, ushering into existence a unique kind of Artist/Carny. These are stories from the front lines—told unflinchingly and hilariously by someone who obviously appreciated the absurdity as it was happening. Who owns the film rights?"—David Fincher, director of Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"This book is very, very funny and the eighties diva behavior Sharon Oreck describes is spot on and wonderful. But it's also interesting to hear her own story of how she went from teen mom to accidental music video producer and went on to become one of the most successful producers of the MTV era."—Sam Raimi, director of Spiderman and The Evil Dead series

"One thing I try not to make a habit of is blurbing; it's a disgusting pastime and a one-way-dead-end for expression. But after reading Sharon Oreck's deliciously witty book I decided to break my rule, which sent me tumbling down a steep and hellish slope, revisiting all of my horrible patterns and compulsions from the past, breaking every rule that I had ever made for myself. Thank you Video Slut. Thank you thank you thank you thank you."—Michael Cera, star of Superbad and Youth in Revolt

"Oreck provides amusing, often biting glimpses of an array of hotties, druggies, incompetents and others who join with high-maintenance stars and pompous record-company executives to produce video promos for the latest song hits. Crises abound: Neighbors called the police when 20 crosses were set afire during a Madonna shoot; homeless cross-dressers pursued Janet Jackson on the streets of Los Angeles; and dozens of pigeons splattered on the ground after their release during the making of a Sheila E video . . . Frenetically entertaining."—Kirkus Reviews

"Oreck is a producer of films, commercials, and videos. An Academy Award nominee for the 1984 short film Tales of Meeting and Parting, she entered the music video industry that same year. Steering her company, O Pictures, from 1984 to 2000, she made hundreds of videos with minor and major music makers, including Mick Jagger, Sting, Madonna, Prince, and Chris Isaak. Looking back, she covers her career in a breakneck, word-juggling style as she introduces the reader to such respected video directors as Herb Ritts and Mary Lambert: With her blonde, baby-fine locks and cornflower blue eyes, Mary was a hipster ultrafemme from Arkansas with a yielding, buttered grits accent that allowed others to view her as a wide-eyed doe while she ran them down with a ten-ton truck. Amid such multilayered metaphors, she tosses off occasional funny lines as she recalls talent tantrums, budget constraints, daily disasters, and production problems while intercutting her own personal peaks, such as having a child at age 16. Switching between past and present tenses, Oreck succeeds in documenting the milestone merger of music/film history in this entertaining memoir."—Publishers Weekly