Jeez Nino
You misread that one! Everyone on b-roll charges LESS than you do! Not more!
Anyway, if you wanna go face to face on this, I just got an invite from Kev Johnson to speak at some b-roll conference in April. I couldnt go to the Kentucky one last week, so he asked me to send some video responses that he showed. You can see ’em on Youtube if you wanna. Just search for Rosenblumtv.
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
Cliff wrote:
“Why would you respond with a tone of feeling threatened by a bunch of Solo VJ’s who, according to you, don’t know what they are doing?”
Step down to reality Cliff, I’ve been doing this for 38 years and I have 2 more to go before moving on to the next stage of my career, do you seriously think that I would feel threatened from someone who has 1 client showing on his blog, four amateur self-assignment video clips as demos and his highest accomplishment was being accepted to attend a seminar 15 years ago?
Are you for real? Threatened by what, do you seriously thing that a broadcaster would hire you? For what, shine producer’s shoes?
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
“I guess that reflects the quality of what you get, like anything else. I can see though that at your rates, you are pretty much priced out of the lower end of video work, particularly online”
Michael, the more you talk and the more you reveal that you have no knowledge whatsoever what’s going on in this business. And if this is what you’ve been reading on B-Roll then you have a serious comprehension problem too. Find me anyone in broadcasting who is making more than $2,450 a day for a HD crew of two. I would love nothing that you and I to have an open discussion in public about our production skills but anytime that I challenge you you go into hiding. I can’t say that I blame you, after reading your postings for six years, with your level of knowledge and skills of professional productions you’ve done the right thing, VJ is right where you belong, anything more complicated would only add to the confusion that you already have about this business.
rosenblumtvJanuary 29, 2008
Dear Nino
Well, it sure has been years since I hired a crew. I mean, why would I do that? What a waste of money. But of course, I know the going rate because my Production mgr at DCI tells me all the time when we make our budgets. And of course as an avid reader of b-roll, I can see that they are pretty varied – I guess that reflects the quality of what you get, like anything else. I can see though that at your rates, you are pretty much priced out of the lower end of video work, particularly online, But I suppose you don’t mind, (as you’re always telling us how busy you are down there and all).
Cliff, much as I love you, Travel Channel is now owned by Cox Communications. Do ya think they have an interest in the whole VJ thing? I mean, what with their TV stations and stuff? hmmm?
Cliff EtzelJanuary 29, 2008
Don’t forget to mention KRON to Discovery
Was that another attempt at a condescending comeback, Nino?
You do know that the Travel Channel is owned by Discovery Communications. And Michael developed the Travel Channel Academy – so I’m quite sure Discovery is aware what Michael has been doing.
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
I’m sorry Michael, I thought you were joking, I got a little confused with your previous statements when you mentioned that you know everything about professional productions; janitors in this business know what the going rates of professional crews are, anyway, $2450 is fro HD crew; photographer, soundtech, HD equipment. Same with SD equipment $1450. The only breakdown that I can give you is that the soundtech (who BTW is also an assistant) gets on average $350 per day, the rest is for the photographer and his gears.
I’ll be damn if I could ever understand how you can keep saying that your VJ services are cheaper than regular crews when you don’t even know what the going rates are.
rosenblumtvJanuary 29, 2008
Please, Steven Spielberg…
is it just for you/
You and gear
Or is there also a sound guy… maybe an assistant.
This isn’t secret stuff, is it?
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
10 hours of more skills that you ever knew existed.
rosenblumtvJanuary 29, 2008
Just out of personal curiosity, what does the $2450 a day buy? Is that just for you, you and gear, you and gear and sound guy?
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
Michael wrote:
“Of course, I think that being a VJ, a creator of content, is very much a career, ableit a career that is just getting started – as the technology to do this reasonably (as opposed to dragging around a UMatic camera and tripod and deck, the essence of the OMB) now allows.”
I wonder where I get the ideas that you are using 20 years old technology and styles of productions to make comparisons in order to make yourself look good.
Don’t forget to mention KRON to Discovery, also please thank them form me as I have just completed a five days HD F900 shoot done for Discovery at ($2,450 per day) and I have 5 more coming up.
Cliff EtzelJanuary 29, 2008
Nino – If my comment causes you to respond in such an adolescent manner – I must be close to the mark.
For someone who supposedly is secure in his skills, you come across as feeling threatened.
Why would you respond with a tone of feeling threatened by a bunch of Solo VJ’s who, according to you, don’t know what they are doing?
rosenblumtvJanuary 29, 2008
Nino
I love you bro.
I am actually in ‘real’ production on three series as we speak. I guess I should hire you as my production manager so you can clean up our ’20 year old’ ways of working.
Oooops. Did I mention we were down at Discovery at their invitation to give a full day seminar to their entire production staff on how we work? Well…maybe it was for their 20th Anniversary of Production Day or something… or maybe not!
NinoJanuary 29, 2008
Cliff, you have some serious understanding problem. Did you read anything that I’ve been writing for months? You are talking changes but have no clue of changes to what. The revolutionary method of productions that you describe so new and unique is older than you. I’ve been doing solos when I want or need for over 30 years and back then was with film, everybody in this business has been doing it. Your problem, among many others, is that you never been around real productions and have no idea of what’s going on, all you know is what Michael has been describing as methods of productions, and he doesn’t know it either because every mentions that he makes about real productions have been dead and gone over 20 years ago; anyone who listen to either of you can only wonder where on earth are you getting your information, either one of you have any clue of what’s going on in today’s productions.
Learn before opening your mouth man, you start sounding more and more like an incompetent fool.
Cliff EtzelJanuary 29, 2008
Nino – All I read from you is the same diatribe, different thread.
Michael asked in his last sentence, what your problem is – It’s simple – You refuse to accept change. It goes outside your comfort zone.
Change is inevitable – either you embrace it or you don’t – we know which choice you have made.
rosenblumtvJanuary 29, 2008
Nino
I have investor who ask fewer questions than you do, and at least they deliver.. generally.
From you, all I get is the same question over and over and over and over.
“You have trained thousands of people. Where are they?
BBC, German TV, Swiss TV, Danish TV, KRON, KRN, KGTV, NY Times TV, Washington Post, A&E, Brooks, NPPA, on and on and on.
And yet it is never enough for you. You really don’t want an answer, you just want to keep asking the same question again and again.
Like a child.
What is it you don’t believe.
That there are no VJs working anywhere in the world? That all those postings on TVspy or b-roll about VJs are fantasies? There must be 100 web sites and blogs just devoted to VJs. Go read them!!! That the NY Times, and the Washington Post and now NBC and ABC Network news are NOT really hiring these people? That all the VJs at the Gannett stations and newspapers are figments of someone’s imagination? That you are the only person in the world who earns a living?
I really don’t understand what you are driving at. VJs are here. They are here to stay, and there are going to be more and more of them. That you don’t want to accept it, well this is really your problem. How are they making money? Do you think that all the people working for ABC News, for instance, their new overseas bureaus are doing this for free? That the VJs at the Washington Post are doing this for free? And while we are on the subject, you have made a career out of chasing me down for years now, asking pretty much the same question over and over. What, really is driving you to do this? Even my ex-wife gave up after a while, and believe me, there was more in it for her than for you. In short, just what is your problem?
NinoJanuary 28, 2008
Cliff please, this is grown ups talk.
Michael, are we on he same page? Whose posting are you answering. Who’s talking about the travel channel or TJs, read the header of this thread and listen to your video, you are talking about careers as VJs trained by you, you are not mentioning at all that this is just an introduction to video productions, your video show your teaching as a sure career, you don’t mention anything in the video that this is just the beginning of the learning process and there’s a long way to go..
Please show us some links of where all this work of VJ has been going, what’s so hard about that.
“I noted your comment on b-roll today suggesting that those who are hired by newspapers as VJs (look, there are real VJ jobs!) might not be too secure in their employment.
This simply underscores your lack of understanding of where the online video world is fast headed”.
Michael, I work side by side with these guys at least once a week, I’m just repeating what they are saying. This is not theory or statistics, this is reality. They don’t affect me a bit, I just feel sorry for them.
“As for ’six years’, I have actually been at this more than 20 years now, and as I mentioned many times over, my graduates are all over the industry”.
20 years? That’s even worse that I thought. So why do you have problems showing us some links on how these guys are making money, all the good things and al the potential we hear come from you and no one else. There must be a few grateful VJs out of thousands that you claimed you trained that are actually making money.
$January 28, 2008
How is the network “supporting them”?
Do you mean the network will gladly take something from them for a very small sum of money IF they think it’s good enough for them to air?
Is the network paying them to take your class or giving them something else we are not aware of?
The claim of “support” seem hollow.
The network seems more interested in getting something cheap without having to invest any of their own money investigate a subject or to produce it to air.
I guess they want to be the youtube of broadcasting!
Cliff EtzelJanuary 28, 2008
Michael – your response to Nino is about as simple as it gets. If the detractors aren’t willing to understand this, they never will.
rosenblumtvJanuary 28, 2008
Dear Nino
I will explain this to you very slowly, and hopefully for the very last time.
The people who take the Travel Channel Academy understand full and well that they are not going to get full time jobs in the world of cable after four days. Why you don’t understand this is beyond me. No one in their right mind would think that you could learn all you need to know for a full time job in 4 days.
However, what they are getting is an excellent start to the world of content creation for online and perhaps for broadcasting. They all understand this is just a beginning. but they are also getting a long term relationship with a network that is committed to supporting them and growing their skills and even paying them for their work.
You can see all their work on the Travel Channel website and also on What’s Your Trip.
As for ‘six years’, I have actually been at this more than 20 years now, and as I mentioned many times over, my graduates are all over the industry.
The world is changing fast and I understand that you are a bit bewildered and angry and you don’t like it.
I noted your comment on b-roll today suggesting that those who are hired by newspapers as VJs (look, there are real VJ jobs!) might not be too secure in their employment.
This simply underscores your lack of understanding of where the online video world is fast headed. Probably the MOST secure job you can get at a newspaper today is in the video/online dept. That’s where they’re hiring and that’s where they’re investing, while they’re cutting back everywhere else.
You have had a good run as a cameraman or photogpraher or DP or whatever you want to call it, but the future is going to be very different, and you do a real disservice to young people just starting out to try to scare them away from the only place that is growing in this field. You are giving very bad advice.
NinoJanuary 28, 2008
Michael, you know damn well what I’m talking about it, your claims of potential work in cable and television for your graduates is a fantasy, their level of skills is a minute fraction to what is needed to even get started in this business. It did not work since you started this at least six years ago and will not work in the future, the competition is too knowledgeable and is getting better every day. You keep saying that your teaching is so uniques, then one of your own teacher said on her blog that those techniques you teach can be found on any beginner books. Stop hiding behind asking others to show you their work, you are the one making claims of non existing successes. We showed you what’s making money for us, a lot of money, if you like it or not is meaningless, our clients are the ultimate judges, we provide what clients need and pay for. I have showed what I did 15 years ago as a OMB. Every photographer can do in a blink the type of work that you call unique, the reason that they do not do it is because it does not pay. If you think that I’m wrong then back up those potentials that you are describing in your video. This is a visual business, show the actual links of where all this work went, show videos on actual web sites done by your graduates who actually got paid as a direct result of your teaching, don’t keep sending us to your web site with the same self assignment clips that you had there for years. Six years Michael and still noting but words and claims of success but yet nothing to show. Don’t you think that before asking someone to hand your their hard earned money you should show some actual proofs of success? Talk talk and more talk, more projections and still no work showing anywhere, be honest, just tel that this is an introductions and in order to get anywhere they need a lot more.
rosenblumtvJanuary 28, 2008
Dear Nino
I am always happy to respond to your questions, but frankly your comments have now descended into some sort of incomprehensible blather. For the life of me I cannot figure out what point you are trying t make any longer. I think you have lost the plot. A quick google of cameraman +b-roll, for example, elicits more than 10,000 responses which seem to use cameraman and photographer interchangeably.
In any event, as I said many times before, I am not with the Academy running a cameraman school neither am I running a professional photographer school. What I am attempting to do (and actually succeeding quite well) is to introduce a whole new generation of people to the power of a camera and editing software and the idea of creating content.
You can see their published work on the Travel Channel website. Take a look. We have all seen your work as well. Not much different from much of the TCA grads, frankly. A bit more static perhaps, but I think that has more to do with the producers who told you what to do, so I don’t hold you accountable.
As always, I am always happy to look at examples of work you have written, directed shot and cut. Please send the the links. I will be more than happy to post them.
Meanwhile, we are quite content to purchase pieces from our grads. We would even purchase them for you if you care to upload them. We don’t play favorites.
NinoJanuary 28, 2008
Michael, quite elegantly is difficult to believe that someone with your alleged experience in this business could write this, you just don’t have a clue of who does what in this business. Cameramen are usually referred to camera operators, those are the ones who you see at sports events operating hard cameras and taking directions from a director sitting in the productions truck, or those that you see in a TV studio operating the same cameras and also taking directions from a director. A director could be directing as many as 20 or more cameramen on any given event, all cameramen are also TV photographers.
TV Photographers, also referred to as directors of photography, (that’s what our titles really is) create what’s in front of the camera either by finding the needed images or by creating them, he is the director and the photographer. No one specializes in one particular area, a trained photographer can handle every assignment that he chooses or is given to him. Do you seriously think that someone would go to school for four years only to learn how to operate a hard camera? That’s just one of the subjects in addition to every other phases of production, from planning, scripting, shooting and editing. In addition they learn all the fine art elements necessary to create images with impact, something totally missing from every piece of VJ video that you have shown. Nobody goes to school just to become a cameraman, it’s just one of the many things that an educated photographer does.
I already showed you what HS students are turning out.
vhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=Nv6NFmKmIEM
This is just one of the video they did over ten years ago. Just go and see some of the HS art shows that also include video and photography. The stuff that these HS kids are turning out these days would send any of your VJ work into hiding.
Just look at your own video again, you are right, the demand is there, but there are thousand of other guys with hundred times more skills than you average VJ that will snatch any available job because of his educations. Let’s face it, anyone who had the choice to hire someone to do a job, given the same cost, would they hire someone with four days of education or one with four years of education.
If some of your VJ with no previous training or experience but strictly with your fours days course, is making a living or making any money, at least for paying for the tuition and the equipment from your teaching, why can’t we never hear from them or see any of their “published” work ? People have been asking you this for year and you haven’t come up with anyone yet. You own it to your student to show proofs of success before asking for money, not just statistics.
rosenblumtvJanuary 27, 2008
Dear nino,
Your comment quite elegantly proves my point. The notion of a professional cameraman who does nothing but shoot is rapidly going the way of fireman on a locomotive. This is not to say that great cameramen will not find work. Quite the contrary, there will, I think always be a market for the excellent cinematographer or shooter, but the mediocre and lousy will very soon find themselves unemployed.
We are not running a school to teach people to be cameramen. We are introducing them.. And this is an introduction…to the concept of being a content provider. There is a world of difference between the two. One is just getting started while the other is drawing to a close.
NinoJanuary 27, 2008
Nice speech Michael, high on statistics, low on reality. Simple eye opening economics, the supply already exceed the demand by a large percentage. Only about 30% of qualified video photographer are continuously busy, the other 70 percent are struggling. Read any of the professional forums, yes Cliff, B-roll included, and you’ll see than one of the greatest concerns in the freelance field are professionals discounting their services by as much as half of the customary rates in order to get jobs, any jobs at all. These are knowledgeable photographers with years of education in all areas of productions, and still they can not make a living, even with years of education. The problem is that educational institutions are pumping out graduates at a rate that far exceeds the industry needs and demands, this includes television as well as the web, only those who far excel above the rest are constantly busy. Even wages for those employed are well below standards of college graduates in other professions. With this type of skilled and educated competition having difficulties getting jobs, if you think that spending four days of training will get you any job then you are living in a world of fantasy. It might at the best give you a taste of video production but if you think that you’ll make money from it, think again.
pencilgodJanuary 26, 2008
Steve you only get to make a first impression once. I’m still living down work that I did as an 18 year old. This is not a forgiving industry and for a lot/most of the course graduates this will be the beginning and the end of their career.
LenslingerJanuary 25, 2008
It’s not that we professional TV makers don’t think there’s room at the table for the babycam set. It’s that we’re deeply offended by newcomers to the form dismissing our years of passion and practice as outdated methodology.
I got no real beef with Michael Rosenblum. He makes good points, thinks outside the box and has a product to sell. Have it it. For me, it’s his shrill supporters (read: Cliff Etzel) who have yet to do dick, yet never pass up a chance to tell me I’ll be out of a job in five years.
I shouldn’t let it bug me, but it does.
Why? I’ve been cranking out solo work for eighteen freakin’ years. While not all of it is pristine as some two person crews, I got laundry list of working newscast producers who will tell you my daily product is often the best thing in their shows. I’m quietly proud of this achievement, mainly because they’re a relatively few in my industry who do it this way and do it well. For years I’ve built my reputation as a broadcast auteur – one who will run circles around lesser crews. Every morning I find an assignment, pitch it to the suits, shoot the matter at hand and conduct interviews. I then go back to the station, review my footage and write a script. Minutes later I hand said script to our main anchor who voices it. I then take my footgae my script and my voiced track and edit it together for broadcast later that day. Most times I’m headed home by the time the thing airs. It ain’t revolutionary – no matter how small your lens is.
Despite how I spend my every working day, I’d never call myself an expert on all things video. Yet, somehow blowhards with little more than their own websites are shrieking at the top of their lungs about how I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. This is where my southernly manners come to an abrupt end. And it’s why so many of my breeed are aghast at the attitude of the Cliff Etzels and Howard Owens of the world. You wouldn’t walk into a veteran mechanic’s garage and tell him the hybrid you drive proves everything he’s dedicated his life to is wrong, inferior and ethically bankrupt. Not without ducking a monkey wrench or two.
I only post this to further explain the wrath of we TV folk. TV News Photogs haven’t been well respected over the years. Now we’re getting heckled from the cheapseats. And we’re supposed to smile and nod?
Piss off! (That means you, Cliff.)
John ProffittJanuary 25, 2008
I work for a public media company in one of the smaller markets in the U.S. Over the past 10 years, due to the economics that Rosenblum cites in his presentation, our ability to produce anything — of any quality — has eroded to virtually zero. We can’t afford the staff nor can we afford professional contractors. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are with lenses and lighting and sound — we can’t afford your work. And we operate a public TV station, where we ostensibly care deeply about quality.
This brief video has helped our Board begin to understand the economics of the video world and why we’re in this painful position. So thank you, Michael, for doing the video. Getting our Board to read stuff is hard, but they’ll watch a video. Much obliged.
As for the pro detractors in these comments… I don’t get it. Rosenblum is not saying there’s no room for well-done work. There’s infinite room for well-done work. But there’s also infinite room for badly-done work, plus a spectrum of quality in-between.
There are only two major points professional video producers need to remember:
[1] the video marketplace is now effectively infinite, and that affects supply/demand equations that drive price
[2] the video marketplace now hosts a spectrum of quality choices — it’s no longer a binary world of “crap” and “brilliant”
In a market like this, the truth is that the real professionals — the perfectionists and prima donnas — will make more money than ever before. The demand for top-quality work will rise as the marketplace expands.
The amateurs, pro-am players and the professionals just starting out will find lots of work to do, too, and they’ll even make money doing it… they just won’t be paid terribly well until their game raises well above the madding crowd.
The ones that are really screwed are the mediocre folks. The guys feeding from the TV trough but largely phoning it in. The guys without high-end artistic vision or technical perfectionist streaks. They’ll be squeezed between the real pros at the top, vacuuming up all the good work, and the cheap folks at the bottom that are doing 80% of traditional TV quality for 20% of traditional TV fees.
So the bickering in the comments here is irrelevant. Rosenblum is right. The technical snobs are right. In an infinite market, there’s room for everyone.
steveJanuary 25, 2008
Pencil —
I was just teasing you about your framing/lighting. I know you’re a professional and I respect your perspective. However, if you were a newbie, and took the four day course and learned that there are no circumstances under which piss-poor framing is acceptable, it would help all your work moving forward. The Academy students get a big dose of what not to do, in a very enjoyable way, and their work improves dramatically over four days. The course does not turn out ready made professionals, but it does provide people with the building blocks for more professional looking work, and a strong grounding in what mistakes not to make as they move forward.
pencilgodJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff 20+ years and I’m still learning. I still make mistakes but in an industry where the smallest thing can bite you on the ass, you only get one go and time really is money I save productions a small fortune because I don’t make a lot of mistakes.
Of the 30 or so stories I’ve posted you want to hammer me on a VJ reply I did in half an hour?
Well fine but at least it was in focus and white balanced something the “professional†VJ testimony video couldn’t accomplish.
I know my stuff was substandard but I thought the content was good enough for me to post it, but obviously if the framing and exposure bother you that much it proves that people notice quality and are distracted from what they are viewing if it isn’t up to standard… so you have just proved that VJ’s will never be able to replace traditional crews… thanks.
As to we are using the same arguments well that could be because they are all still true.
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff, sorry if I use the word “no good” I simply condensed what you have wrote about us on this page alone.
“out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile – and basically lacking any amount of unique creativity.
You’re stuck in an old way of doing video and the very thing this new paradigm does is threaten your world view of what it means to produce video.”
Were you expecting a positive reaction to this?
Cliff EtzelJanuary 24, 2008
Putting words in my mouth again Nino – I have not stated they were “not Good”. I eluded to the content as lacking visually.
I don’t profess to be perfect by any means – I’ve never made such a statement nor will I make such claims. I have worked with visual content creators in one form or another from such entities as Nat Geo, Newsweek, Time, Life, et al – so I know quality content when I see it. So far, I’m not impressed by the detractors. I expect the quality of content from those who are still learning – myself included. But for those detractors who state they have been doing video for 20+ years – I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed by any means.
With regards to your attempt at trying to ridicule me with the “the worst ignorant is the one who doesn’t think he is one.”
Once again – I prove my point about those like yourself who lack any professional credibility.
I didn’t post for awhile just to see if things had changed here – it appears the same detractors are making the same recycled statements – and still getting nowhere.
Now to become the observer once again and see what choice comments will be slung back at me as attempts to be right.
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Let me add one thing Cliff. I told you this before, every one of those professional that you criticize and keep calling no good would bend backward top help you with any question you might have about this business.
On the same subject also let me give an important lesson in life, the worst ignorant is the one who doesn’t think he is one.
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff wrote:
“Nino: Old way – out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile”
Cliff you know me, when it comes to my profession a love getting into healthy exchanges, but after reading this I realize that you have no clue what this business is all about it. Any further conversation is just a waste of time because you would not understand it.
Let me put things in proper perspective so you might understand. Those gears that you have and consider state-of-the-are high tech, I can buy them with what clients right now pay me for one day of HD work. I actually own two toy cameras, considerably better that the one that you have and they are sitting somewhere in my van in case somebody ask for.
However, the equipment is meaningless, a good photographer can create good work with anything, so I went back to your blog. Cliff, the high school students that I volunteer to train when I have free time would laugh at your work, never mind professionals.
Do you realize that you have one client listed? The other 3 video are self-assignments. Do you realize that your resume consist in “Call me and we discuss it”? Your biggest accomplishment is being accepted at a seminar in 1992? I also realized that you have removed those photographic award that you had listed in the past, I imagine that this was after I made a search and did not found your name anywhere on the award recipients list.
Cliff if you insist on criticize those who have made a lifetime commitment in the improvement and advancement of this profession and call them no good, you should have at least something to show, it might give you some credibility, but you have absolutely nothing, just a big mouth with no substance.
$January 24, 2008
FINALLY!
An actual VJ presentation from the promoter himself!
And the quality of the final product speaks volumes!
All these years. All that experience and this is the best he can do.
Boy that sure is worth paying money to learn!
Not.
pencilgodJanuary 24, 2008
So Americans are watching 3 hours of video on line per month???
That’s opposed to an average 4 hours 35 of TV per day and increasing by 3% a year…
My math’s isn’t great but why are we even having this argument?
And not to be a further fly in the ointment but how much of that internet time is spent watching shows made for TV with proper standards?
Ok so who’s turn is it to tell me were doooomed.
pencilgodJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff what I put up was a test shot. The idea was to have a quick run through, get my thoughts right, view it and shoot another, properly framed exposed and better audio… then my neighbor kicked off his chainsaw so I was stuck with the one and only audible take and no time to relocate. I have got a life.
Getting VJ stuff to look good takes time and when things go wrong, just like they did for the blogger above Tanya on day three of her course finding out she had shot it all on night vision, I was screwed because I was trying to do two jobs and didn’t have time.
If I had a cameraman behind the camera then my test record would have been better.
Just as Michael used someone behind the camera for his second demonstration about mini cams I know if you want it done right you need a cameraman to shoot it.
I hear a lot about how much money VJ saves but very little about at what they cost the product. If you built cars without safety features they would cost a lot less as well but who would buy them and would you want to be responsible for selling them?
Cliff EtzelJanuary 24, 2008
Nino: Old way – out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile – and basically lacking any amount of unique creativity. From what I’ve seen of the still frame captures on your site – that describes “old way”. Solo VJ’ism requires one person to wear many hats – and constantly striving towards excelling at all of them. The profession is still young, and will refine itself over time.
pencilgod – I disagree with your assertion. If you know what you’re doing, you should be able to attain the same level or near same level of quality. It requires rethinking how one shoots and how to accomplish more with less. Again, this all comes back to the idea that traditional broadcast will continue to rule – I disagree with that notion – Internet broadcasting is the future – and to discount it is remiss on the detractors parts.
If Adobe is willing to invest significant amounts of financial resources behind their initiative to be an all in one solution for Internet Broadcasting, what does that say for those who adhere to the notion of traditional broadcast avenues being the primary outlet? Don’t believe me? Read the statistics here and then make your own conclusions. I seriously doubt any detractor will be able to refute the information. I’m not saying TV will go away, but as Michael pointed out – there is going to be a marked shift, (if not already happening) in viewing habits – especially with the 18-34 demographic. Combined with more high speed fiber being trenched right up to peoples homes – which will allow HD content to be streamed real time via the net, h.264 compression now a part of Flash video and other technologies in hardware and software, this IS going to change the face of the landscape for how content is viewed and distributed – and what shooters are going to be paid. The days of high ticket billings to clients due to multiple people on a production crew are going to be replaced with smaller invoices due to clients becoming unwilling to foot the bill for production crews.
Lenslinger – not worth my time to warrant a response.
Detractors continue deny it all they want with their arguments about Solo VJ’s (or self contained production shooters if you will) not having what it takes – I believe that the Solo VJ profession will continue to evolve into something that will make traditional video content creation look like it came from the horse and buggy era.
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Please keep in mind that I don’t do projections from statistics, everything that I say comes from real experiences in working in this business day in and day out. What will happen tomorrow in this business comes from the constant flow of information that broadcasting clients provide to us every week. We as photographer are on the front line of this industry, we provide the prime product that will generate revenue for our broadcasting and commercial clients. Clients need us to be prepared for what’s ahead. The future of this business is not made by a self proclaimed guru writing on a marking board, the future is made by the clients who have invested millions into the future of their organization and we will gear our skills around those investments because some of that is for us.
What’s true about what Michael said is that more and more video is being used on the web, in fact almost one third of the projects I work on are also be used on the web in addition that regular broadcasting. Among my clients ESPN.com has been increasingly using more and more videos. ESPN the magazine is now using full video production features and now there’s ESPN New Media that’s mainly web programming. Every other of my clients also is making wide use of videos for web. These are trend setters, like they set standard of quality for television they are doing the same for the web. The productions I do for broadcasting or for the web are exactly the same, they are full production done with real broadcasting equipment, and the ration is 50/50 SD and HD. These organization have experimented with everything on the market, VJ styles and small prosumer cameras included and have decided that using experienced crews with full professional gears is the only way to go. Michael soon or later you will learn that today’s in the grand scope of things, the cost of a crew is a drop in the bucket. Substituting good quality with very poor quality is not worth saving a few hundreds of dollars a day. This is why no network has implemented the VJ concept, granted they are all experimenting to some degree but the involvement ends there. VJs do not have sufficient knowledge to handle the diversity of assignments needed in today’s broadcasting. This is why after six years of Michael preaching and projections VJ are non existent in broadcasting, in commercial productions and on the web.
ebJanuary 24, 2008
The video presentation was simple and to the point.
Basic 101.
2 + 2 = 4
I agree.
It’s hard not to agree that 2 + 2 = 4
Now, the question above was… So how are people on a four day course supposed to not only learn to shoot but write and edit to any level of quality? They can’t, they won’t and they never will.
This is just the beginning for these folks. Basic 101 training. They will begin down a road that some will follow, and improve, and find their niche. They will improve over time… just as I did, and you did. Except they will be learning with small cameras and laptops. Eventually, they will become profiecient enough to sell a product. Or they won’t and they will take another road.
You can’t argue with Michaels video presentation. Because its all true.
101 Basic. Nothing earth shattering… for those with their eyes open.
I have a website. I put video on it. I can eventually make it into a channel – with programming – IF I have the persistance and drive and money to do it.
I am one of thousands, millions… who can and will do the same thing.
Simple economics. Basic truths.
Will higher quality professionals have a place as well? Of course. Just like in any business… there is low quality, high quality, and average. High end, low end… But Michael pointed out the basic truths that in the past… there were only 3 providers. Now there is an infinate number.
NEXT. This one isn’t worth a debate 😉
LenslingerJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff, dial it back a notch. You’re getting spittle all over the monitor.
pencilgodJanuary 24, 2008
Steve you are exactly right. It is terrible. I’m a fully trained professional cameraman with over 20 years of shooting and still I have trouble doing VJ so it looks good. That’s the point. VJ’s work will never look as good as a team. Michael will argue “good enough for web†but as you point out badly framed, badly lit stuff still look bad on the net.
So how are people on a four day course supposed to not only learn to shoot but write and edit to any level of quality? They can’t, they won’t and they never will.
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Cliff, why don’t you explain what the old way and the new way is?
Cliff EtzelJanuary 24, 2008
Nino – what’s to debate ? You’re stuck in an old way of doing video and the very thing this new paradigm does is threaten your world view of what it means to produce video.
Why should anyone literally waste their time debating an issue you have no intention of changing?
The detractors can deny the change is coming – doesn’t matter – it’s still happening.
Your self righteous taunting only confirms how little credibility you or any other detractor has with the rest of us who visit this website in the spirit of community.
All the detractors do is push me to prove them wrong.
Thanks for the motivation 😀
NinoJanuary 24, 2008
Well Michael, I guess you don’t want to debate the validity of your theory, smart boy.
steveJanuary 23, 2008
Pencilgod —
Your video is framed terribly and the lighting changes partway through when the sun goes in. How can you expect us to take you seriously when the video you post is so technically impaired?!?
I think graduates of the Travel Academy make better quality video than this example of your work.
rosenblumtvJanuary 23, 2008
Jeez Stephen, it must be 4AM! I can’t get it to embed in the comments, but here’s the link and I urge everyone to take a look. Great job. Love it! But of course it proves the point. When video for the web is required, you have made it yourself for next to nothing. It’s like the Long Tail. We’re not suggesting that ALL video is going to go this way, but there sure is going to be a whole lot more demand at a whole lot lower price. It’s not for you, but it does represent a great entry point for the beginner.
pencilgodJanuary 23, 2008
Here you go Michael I made you a reply. I don’t know if I can embed it in the coments but I will give it a go.
For the Solo VJ detractors – If you don’t get the clue via this straight forward, self explanatory video – then you REALLY are living in denial.
Do any of the VJ detractors honestly believe anyone here takes you seriously? I for one sure don’t.
You have earned a reputation here that precludes any of you from having any amount of credibility as a direct result of your incessant adolescent attacks on a viewpoint that you don’t agree with.
Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant – Michael, David Dunkley-Gyimah, Robb Montgomery and others are willing to be trailblazers in the development of higher quality content for the web. They evidently are uneducated (sarcasm mine) in seeing what is coming.
Live in your glass bubble if you choose – the archaic way of shooting video will have its place, but it will take up a MUCH smaller section of the overall video content creation pie.
Those of us here have given the detractors every opportunity to show us that they can do it better – challenge is for the detractors – none has shown that they can.
The various detractors talk the walk, but not vice-versa.
Whether any of the detractors want to believe it or not, the change is occurring and you can either sit by or become a part of it.
Mel TaylorJanuary 23, 2008
using the simple mix of video and a white board to make your point, worked VERY WELL.
NinoJanuary 23, 2008
“From The One and Only Henny Youngman:. A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months. …”
I see many similarities with this joke from the great late king of one liner. Michael, did you make this recording 6 years ago? Because you are saying exactly what you said back then and back then the same thing was going to happen in the next two years and hasn’t happen yet.
I have to go to work now but in the days to come would you be willing to accept an intelligent debate on this issue without resourcing to your traditional childish name calling?
54 Comments
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Jeez Nino
You misread that one! Everyone on b-roll charges LESS than you do! Not more!
Anyway, if you wanna go face to face on this, I just got an invite from Kev Johnson to speak at some b-roll conference in April. I couldnt go to the Kentucky one last week, so he asked me to send some video responses that he showed. You can see ’em on Youtube if you wanna. Just search for Rosenblumtv.
Nino January 29, 2008
Cliff wrote:
“Why would you respond with a tone of feeling threatened by a bunch of Solo VJ’s who, according to you, don’t know what they are doing?”
Step down to reality Cliff, I’ve been doing this for 38 years and I have 2 more to go before moving on to the next stage of my career, do you seriously think that I would feel threatened from someone who has 1 client showing on his blog, four amateur self-assignment video clips as demos and his highest accomplishment was being accepted to attend a seminar 15 years ago?
Are you for real? Threatened by what, do you seriously thing that a broadcaster would hire you? For what, shine producer’s shoes?
Nino January 29, 2008
“I guess that reflects the quality of what you get, like anything else. I can see though that at your rates, you are pretty much priced out of the lower end of video work, particularly online”
Michael, the more you talk and the more you reveal that you have no knowledge whatsoever what’s going on in this business. And if this is what you’ve been reading on B-Roll then you have a serious comprehension problem too. Find me anyone in broadcasting who is making more than $2,450 a day for a HD crew of two. I would love nothing that you and I to have an open discussion in public about our production skills but anytime that I challenge you you go into hiding. I can’t say that I blame you, after reading your postings for six years, with your level of knowledge and skills of professional productions you’ve done the right thing, VJ is right where you belong, anything more complicated would only add to the confusion that you already have about this business.
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Dear Nino
Well, it sure has been years since I hired a crew. I mean, why would I do that? What a waste of money. But of course, I know the going rate because my Production mgr at DCI tells me all the time when we make our budgets. And of course as an avid reader of b-roll, I can see that they are pretty varied – I guess that reflects the quality of what you get, like anything else. I can see though that at your rates, you are pretty much priced out of the lower end of video work, particularly online, But I suppose you don’t mind, (as you’re always telling us how busy you are down there and all).
Cliff, much as I love you, Travel Channel is now owned by Cox Communications. Do ya think they have an interest in the whole VJ thing? I mean, what with their TV stations and stuff? hmmm?
Cliff Etzel January 29, 2008
Was that another attempt at a condescending comeback, Nino?
You do know that the Travel Channel is owned by Discovery Communications. And Michael developed the Travel Channel Academy – so I’m quite sure Discovery is aware what Michael has been doing.
Nino January 29, 2008
I’m sorry Michael, I thought you were joking, I got a little confused with your previous statements when you mentioned that you know everything about professional productions; janitors in this business know what the going rates of professional crews are, anyway, $2450 is fro HD crew; photographer, soundtech, HD equipment. Same with SD equipment $1450. The only breakdown that I can give you is that the soundtech (who BTW is also an assistant) gets on average $350 per day, the rest is for the photographer and his gears.
I’ll be damn if I could ever understand how you can keep saying that your VJ services are cheaper than regular crews when you don’t even know what the going rates are.
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Please, Steven Spielberg…
is it just for you/
You and gear
Or is there also a sound guy… maybe an assistant.
This isn’t secret stuff, is it?
Nino January 29, 2008
10 hours of more skills that you ever knew existed.
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Just out of personal curiosity, what does the $2450 a day buy? Is that just for you, you and gear, you and gear and sound guy?
Nino January 29, 2008
Michael wrote:
“Of course, I think that being a VJ, a creator of content, is very much a career, ableit a career that is just getting started – as the technology to do this reasonably (as opposed to dragging around a UMatic camera and tripod and deck, the essence of the OMB) now allows.”
I wonder where I get the ideas that you are using 20 years old technology and styles of productions to make comparisons in order to make yourself look good.
Don’t forget to mention KRON to Discovery, also please thank them form me as I have just completed a five days HD F900 shoot done for Discovery at ($2,450 per day) and I have 5 more coming up.
Cliff Etzel January 29, 2008
Nino – If my comment causes you to respond in such an adolescent manner – I must be close to the mark.
For someone who supposedly is secure in his skills, you come across as feeling threatened.
Why would you respond with a tone of feeling threatened by a bunch of Solo VJ’s who, according to you, don’t know what they are doing?
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Nino
I love you bro.
I am actually in ‘real’ production on three series as we speak. I guess I should hire you as my production manager so you can clean up our ’20 year old’ ways of working.
Oooops. Did I mention we were down at Discovery at their invitation to give a full day seminar to their entire production staff on how we work? Well…maybe it was for their 20th Anniversary of Production Day or something… or maybe not!
Nino January 29, 2008
Cliff, you have some serious understanding problem. Did you read anything that I’ve been writing for months? You are talking changes but have no clue of changes to what. The revolutionary method of productions that you describe so new and unique is older than you. I’ve been doing solos when I want or need for over 30 years and back then was with film, everybody in this business has been doing it. Your problem, among many others, is that you never been around real productions and have no idea of what’s going on, all you know is what Michael has been describing as methods of productions, and he doesn’t know it either because every mentions that he makes about real productions have been dead and gone over 20 years ago; anyone who listen to either of you can only wonder where on earth are you getting your information, either one of you have any clue of what’s going on in today’s productions.
Learn before opening your mouth man, you start sounding more and more like an incompetent fool.
Cliff Etzel January 29, 2008
Nino – All I read from you is the same diatribe, different thread.
Michael asked in his last sentence, what your problem is – It’s simple – You refuse to accept change. It goes outside your comfort zone.
Change is inevitable – either you embrace it or you don’t – we know which choice you have made.
rosenblumtv January 29, 2008
Nino
I have investor who ask fewer questions than you do, and at least they deliver.. generally.
From you, all I get is the same question over and over and over and over.
“You have trained thousands of people. Where are they?
BBC, German TV, Swiss TV, Danish TV, KRON, KRN, KGTV, NY Times TV, Washington Post, A&E, Brooks, NPPA, on and on and on.
And yet it is never enough for you. You really don’t want an answer, you just want to keep asking the same question again and again.
Like a child.
What is it you don’t believe.
That there are no VJs working anywhere in the world? That all those postings on TVspy or b-roll about VJs are fantasies? There must be 100 web sites and blogs just devoted to VJs. Go read them!!! That the NY Times, and the Washington Post and now NBC and ABC Network news are NOT really hiring these people? That all the VJs at the Gannett stations and newspapers are figments of someone’s imagination? That you are the only person in the world who earns a living?
I really don’t understand what you are driving at. VJs are here. They are here to stay, and there are going to be more and more of them. That you don’t want to accept it, well this is really your problem. How are they making money? Do you think that all the people working for ABC News, for instance, their new overseas bureaus are doing this for free? That the VJs at the Washington Post are doing this for free? And while we are on the subject, you have made a career out of chasing me down for years now, asking pretty much the same question over and over. What, really is driving you to do this? Even my ex-wife gave up after a while, and believe me, there was more in it for her than for you. In short, just what is your problem?
Nino January 28, 2008
Cliff please, this is grown ups talk.
Michael, are we on he same page? Whose posting are you answering. Who’s talking about the travel channel or TJs, read the header of this thread and listen to your video, you are talking about careers as VJs trained by you, you are not mentioning at all that this is just an introduction to video productions, your video show your teaching as a sure career, you don’t mention anything in the video that this is just the beginning of the learning process and there’s a long way to go..
Please show us some links of where all this work of VJ has been going, what’s so hard about that.
“I noted your comment on b-roll today suggesting that those who are hired by newspapers as VJs (look, there are real VJ jobs!) might not be too secure in their employment.
This simply underscores your lack of understanding of where the online video world is fast headed”.
Michael, I work side by side with these guys at least once a week, I’m just repeating what they are saying. This is not theory or statistics, this is reality. They don’t affect me a bit, I just feel sorry for them.
“As for ’six years’, I have actually been at this more than 20 years now, and as I mentioned many times over, my graduates are all over the industry”.
20 years? That’s even worse that I thought. So why do you have problems showing us some links on how these guys are making money, all the good things and al the potential we hear come from you and no one else. There must be a few grateful VJs out of thousands that you claimed you trained that are actually making money.
$ January 28, 2008
How is the network “supporting them”?
Do you mean the network will gladly take something from them for a very small sum of money IF they think it’s good enough for them to air?
Is the network paying them to take your class or giving them something else we are not aware of?
The claim of “support” seem hollow.
The network seems more interested in getting something cheap without having to invest any of their own money investigate a subject or to produce it to air.
I guess they want to be the youtube of broadcasting!
Cliff Etzel January 28, 2008
Michael – your response to Nino is about as simple as it gets. If the detractors aren’t willing to understand this, they never will.
rosenblumtv January 28, 2008
Dear Nino
I will explain this to you very slowly, and hopefully for the very last time.
The people who take the Travel Channel Academy understand full and well that they are not going to get full time jobs in the world of cable after four days. Why you don’t understand this is beyond me. No one in their right mind would think that you could learn all you need to know for a full time job in 4 days.
However, what they are getting is an excellent start to the world of content creation for online and perhaps for broadcasting. They all understand this is just a beginning. but they are also getting a long term relationship with a network that is committed to supporting them and growing their skills and even paying them for their work.
You can see all their work on the Travel Channel website and also on What’s Your Trip.
As for ‘six years’, I have actually been at this more than 20 years now, and as I mentioned many times over, my graduates are all over the industry.
The world is changing fast and I understand that you are a bit bewildered and angry and you don’t like it.
I noted your comment on b-roll today suggesting that those who are hired by newspapers as VJs (look, there are real VJ jobs!) might not be too secure in their employment.
This simply underscores your lack of understanding of where the online video world is fast headed. Probably the MOST secure job you can get at a newspaper today is in the video/online dept. That’s where they’re hiring and that’s where they’re investing, while they’re cutting back everywhere else.
You have had a good run as a cameraman or photogpraher or DP or whatever you want to call it, but the future is going to be very different, and you do a real disservice to young people just starting out to try to scare them away from the only place that is growing in this field. You are giving very bad advice.
Nino January 28, 2008
Michael, you know damn well what I’m talking about it, your claims of potential work in cable and television for your graduates is a fantasy, their level of skills is a minute fraction to what is needed to even get started in this business. It did not work since you started this at least six years ago and will not work in the future, the competition is too knowledgeable and is getting better every day. You keep saying that your teaching is so uniques, then one of your own teacher said on her blog that those techniques you teach can be found on any beginner books. Stop hiding behind asking others to show you their work, you are the one making claims of non existing successes. We showed you what’s making money for us, a lot of money, if you like it or not is meaningless, our clients are the ultimate judges, we provide what clients need and pay for. I have showed what I did 15 years ago as a OMB. Every photographer can do in a blink the type of work that you call unique, the reason that they do not do it is because it does not pay. If you think that I’m wrong then back up those potentials that you are describing in your video. This is a visual business, show the actual links of where all this work went, show videos on actual web sites done by your graduates who actually got paid as a direct result of your teaching, don’t keep sending us to your web site with the same self assignment clips that you had there for years. Six years Michael and still noting but words and claims of success but yet nothing to show. Don’t you think that before asking someone to hand your their hard earned money you should show some actual proofs of success? Talk talk and more talk, more projections and still no work showing anywhere, be honest, just tel that this is an introductions and in order to get anywhere they need a lot more.
rosenblumtv January 28, 2008
Dear Nino
I am always happy to respond to your questions, but frankly your comments have now descended into some sort of incomprehensible blather. For the life of me I cannot figure out what point you are trying t make any longer. I think you have lost the plot. A quick google of cameraman +b-roll, for example, elicits more than 10,000 responses which seem to use cameraman and photographer interchangeably.
In any event, as I said many times before, I am not with the Academy running a cameraman school neither am I running a professional photographer school. What I am attempting to do (and actually succeeding quite well) is to introduce a whole new generation of people to the power of a camera and editing software and the idea of creating content.
You can see their published work on the Travel Channel website. Take a look. We have all seen your work as well. Not much different from much of the TCA grads, frankly. A bit more static perhaps, but I think that has more to do with the producers who told you what to do, so I don’t hold you accountable.
As always, I am always happy to look at examples of work you have written, directed shot and cut. Please send the the links. I will be more than happy to post them.
Meanwhile, we are quite content to purchase pieces from our grads. We would even purchase them for you if you care to upload them. We don’t play favorites.
Nino January 28, 2008
Michael, quite elegantly is difficult to believe that someone with your alleged experience in this business could write this, you just don’t have a clue of who does what in this business. Cameramen are usually referred to camera operators, those are the ones who you see at sports events operating hard cameras and taking directions from a director sitting in the productions truck, or those that you see in a TV studio operating the same cameras and also taking directions from a director. A director could be directing as many as 20 or more cameramen on any given event, all cameramen are also TV photographers.
TV Photographers, also referred to as directors of photography, (that’s what our titles really is) create what’s in front of the camera either by finding the needed images or by creating them, he is the director and the photographer. No one specializes in one particular area, a trained photographer can handle every assignment that he chooses or is given to him. Do you seriously think that someone would go to school for four years only to learn how to operate a hard camera? That’s just one of the subjects in addition to every other phases of production, from planning, scripting, shooting and editing. In addition they learn all the fine art elements necessary to create images with impact, something totally missing from every piece of VJ video that you have shown. Nobody goes to school just to become a cameraman, it’s just one of the many things that an educated photographer does.
I already showed you what HS students are turning out.
vhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=Nv6NFmKmIEM
This is just one of the video they did over ten years ago. Just go and see some of the HS art shows that also include video and photography. The stuff that these HS kids are turning out these days would send any of your VJ work into hiding.
Just look at your own video again, you are right, the demand is there, but there are thousand of other guys with hundred times more skills than you average VJ that will snatch any available job because of his educations. Let’s face it, anyone who had the choice to hire someone to do a job, given the same cost, would they hire someone with four days of education or one with four years of education.
If some of your VJ with no previous training or experience but strictly with your fours days course, is making a living or making any money, at least for paying for the tuition and the equipment from your teaching, why can’t we never hear from them or see any of their “published” work ? People have been asking you this for year and you haven’t come up with anyone yet. You own it to your student to show proofs of success before asking for money, not just statistics.
rosenblumtv January 27, 2008
Dear nino,
Your comment quite elegantly proves my point. The notion of a professional cameraman who does nothing but shoot is rapidly going the way of fireman on a locomotive. This is not to say that great cameramen will not find work. Quite the contrary, there will, I think always be a market for the excellent cinematographer or shooter, but the mediocre and lousy will very soon find themselves unemployed.
We are not running a school to teach people to be cameramen. We are introducing them.. And this is an introduction…to the concept of being a content provider. There is a world of difference between the two. One is just getting started while the other is drawing to a close.
Nino January 27, 2008
Nice speech Michael, high on statistics, low on reality. Simple eye opening economics, the supply already exceed the demand by a large percentage. Only about 30% of qualified video photographer are continuously busy, the other 70 percent are struggling. Read any of the professional forums, yes Cliff, B-roll included, and you’ll see than one of the greatest concerns in the freelance field are professionals discounting their services by as much as half of the customary rates in order to get jobs, any jobs at all. These are knowledgeable photographers with years of education in all areas of productions, and still they can not make a living, even with years of education. The problem is that educational institutions are pumping out graduates at a rate that far exceeds the industry needs and demands, this includes television as well as the web, only those who far excel above the rest are constantly busy. Even wages for those employed are well below standards of college graduates in other professions. With this type of skilled and educated competition having difficulties getting jobs, if you think that spending four days of training will get you any job then you are living in a world of fantasy. It might at the best give you a taste of video production but if you think that you’ll make money from it, think again.
pencilgod January 26, 2008
Steve you only get to make a first impression once. I’m still living down work that I did as an 18 year old. This is not a forgiving industry and for a lot/most of the course graduates this will be the beginning and the end of their career.
Lenslinger January 25, 2008
It’s not that we professional TV makers don’t think there’s room at the table for the babycam set. It’s that we’re deeply offended by newcomers to the form dismissing our years of passion and practice as outdated methodology.
I got no real beef with Michael Rosenblum. He makes good points, thinks outside the box and has a product to sell. Have it it. For me, it’s his shrill supporters (read: Cliff Etzel) who have yet to do dick, yet never pass up a chance to tell me I’ll be out of a job in five years.
I shouldn’t let it bug me, but it does.
Why? I’ve been cranking out solo work for eighteen freakin’ years. While not all of it is pristine as some two person crews, I got laundry list of working newscast producers who will tell you my daily product is often the best thing in their shows. I’m quietly proud of this achievement, mainly because they’re a relatively few in my industry who do it this way and do it well. For years I’ve built my reputation as a broadcast auteur – one who will run circles around lesser crews. Every morning I find an assignment, pitch it to the suits, shoot the matter at hand and conduct interviews. I then go back to the station, review my footage and write a script. Minutes later I hand said script to our main anchor who voices it. I then take my footgae my script and my voiced track and edit it together for broadcast later that day. Most times I’m headed home by the time the thing airs. It ain’t revolutionary – no matter how small your lens is.
Despite how I spend my every working day, I’d never call myself an expert on all things video. Yet, somehow blowhards with little more than their own websites are shrieking at the top of their lungs about how I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. This is where my southernly manners come to an abrupt end. And it’s why so many of my breeed are aghast at the attitude of the Cliff Etzels and Howard Owens of the world. You wouldn’t walk into a veteran mechanic’s garage and tell him the hybrid you drive proves everything he’s dedicated his life to is wrong, inferior and ethically bankrupt. Not without ducking a monkey wrench or two.
I only post this to further explain the wrath of we TV folk. TV News Photogs haven’t been well respected over the years. Now we’re getting heckled from the cheapseats. And we’re supposed to smile and nod?
Piss off! (That means you, Cliff.)
John Proffitt January 25, 2008
I work for a public media company in one of the smaller markets in the U.S. Over the past 10 years, due to the economics that Rosenblum cites in his presentation, our ability to produce anything — of any quality — has eroded to virtually zero. We can’t afford the staff nor can we afford professional contractors. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are with lenses and lighting and sound — we can’t afford your work. And we operate a public TV station, where we ostensibly care deeply about quality.
This brief video has helped our Board begin to understand the economics of the video world and why we’re in this painful position. So thank you, Michael, for doing the video. Getting our Board to read stuff is hard, but they’ll watch a video. Much obliged.
As for the pro detractors in these comments… I don’t get it. Rosenblum is not saying there’s no room for well-done work. There’s infinite room for well-done work. But there’s also infinite room for badly-done work, plus a spectrum of quality in-between.
There are only two major points professional video producers need to remember:
[1] the video marketplace is now effectively infinite, and that affects supply/demand equations that drive price
[2] the video marketplace now hosts a spectrum of quality choices — it’s no longer a binary world of “crap” and “brilliant”
In a market like this, the truth is that the real professionals — the perfectionists and prima donnas — will make more money than ever before. The demand for top-quality work will rise as the marketplace expands.
The amateurs, pro-am players and the professionals just starting out will find lots of work to do, too, and they’ll even make money doing it… they just won’t be paid terribly well until their game raises well above the madding crowd.
The ones that are really screwed are the mediocre folks. The guys feeding from the TV trough but largely phoning it in. The guys without high-end artistic vision or technical perfectionist streaks. They’ll be squeezed between the real pros at the top, vacuuming up all the good work, and the cheap folks at the bottom that are doing 80% of traditional TV quality for 20% of traditional TV fees.
So the bickering in the comments here is irrelevant. Rosenblum is right. The technical snobs are right. In an infinite market, there’s room for everyone.
steve January 25, 2008
Pencil —
I was just teasing you about your framing/lighting. I know you’re a professional and I respect your perspective. However, if you were a newbie, and took the four day course and learned that there are no circumstances under which piss-poor framing is acceptable, it would help all your work moving forward. The Academy students get a big dose of what not to do, in a very enjoyable way, and their work improves dramatically over four days. The course does not turn out ready made professionals, but it does provide people with the building blocks for more professional looking work, and a strong grounding in what mistakes not to make as they move forward.
pencilgod January 24, 2008
Cliff 20+ years and I’m still learning. I still make mistakes but in an industry where the smallest thing can bite you on the ass, you only get one go and time really is money I save productions a small fortune because I don’t make a lot of mistakes.
Of the 30 or so stories I’ve posted you want to hammer me on a VJ reply I did in half an hour?
Well fine but at least it was in focus and white balanced something the “professional†VJ testimony video couldn’t accomplish.
I know my stuff was substandard but I thought the content was good enough for me to post it, but obviously if the framing and exposure bother you that much it proves that people notice quality and are distracted from what they are viewing if it isn’t up to standard… so you have just proved that VJ’s will never be able to replace traditional crews… thanks.
As to we are using the same arguments well that could be because they are all still true.
Nino January 24, 2008
Cliff, sorry if I use the word “no good” I simply condensed what you have wrote about us on this page alone.
“out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile – and basically lacking any amount of unique creativity.
You’re stuck in an old way of doing video and the very thing this new paradigm does is threaten your world view of what it means to produce video.”
Were you expecting a positive reaction to this?
Cliff Etzel January 24, 2008
Putting words in my mouth again Nino – I have not stated they were “not Good”. I eluded to the content as lacking visually.
I don’t profess to be perfect by any means – I’ve never made such a statement nor will I make such claims. I have worked with visual content creators in one form or another from such entities as Nat Geo, Newsweek, Time, Life, et al – so I know quality content when I see it. So far, I’m not impressed by the detractors. I expect the quality of content from those who are still learning – myself included. But for those detractors who state they have been doing video for 20+ years – I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed by any means.
With regards to your attempt at trying to ridicule me with the “the worst ignorant is the one who doesn’t think he is one.”
Once again – I prove my point about those like yourself who lack any professional credibility.
I didn’t post for awhile just to see if things had changed here – it appears the same detractors are making the same recycled statements – and still getting nowhere.
Now to become the observer once again and see what choice comments will be slung back at me as attempts to be right.
Nino January 24, 2008
Let me add one thing Cliff. I told you this before, every one of those professional that you criticize and keep calling no good would bend backward top help you with any question you might have about this business.
On the same subject also let me give an important lesson in life, the worst ignorant is the one who doesn’t think he is one.
Nino January 24, 2008
Cliff wrote:
“Nino: Old way – out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile”
Cliff you know me, when it comes to my profession a love getting into healthy exchanges, but after reading this I realize that you have no clue what this business is all about it. Any further conversation is just a waste of time because you would not understand it.
Let me put things in proper perspective so you might understand. Those gears that you have and consider state-of-the-are high tech, I can buy them with what clients right now pay me for one day of HD work. I actually own two toy cameras, considerably better that the one that you have and they are sitting somewhere in my van in case somebody ask for.
However, the equipment is meaningless, a good photographer can create good work with anything, so I went back to your blog. Cliff, the high school students that I volunteer to train when I have free time would laugh at your work, never mind professionals.
Do you realize that you have one client listed? The other 3 video are self-assignments. Do you realize that your resume consist in “Call me and we discuss it”? Your biggest accomplishment is being accepted at a seminar in 1992? I also realized that you have removed those photographic award that you had listed in the past, I imagine that this was after I made a search and did not found your name anywhere on the award recipients list.
Cliff if you insist on criticize those who have made a lifetime commitment in the improvement and advancement of this profession and call them no good, you should have at least something to show, it might give you some credibility, but you have absolutely nothing, just a big mouth with no substance.
$ January 24, 2008
FINALLY!
An actual VJ presentation from the promoter himself!
And the quality of the final product speaks volumes!
All these years. All that experience and this is the best he can do.
Boy that sure is worth paying money to learn!
Not.
pencilgod January 24, 2008
So Americans are watching 3 hours of video on line per month???
That’s opposed to an average 4 hours 35 of TV per day and increasing by 3% a year…
My math’s isn’t great but why are we even having this argument?
And not to be a further fly in the ointment but how much of that internet time is spent watching shows made for TV with proper standards?
Ok so who’s turn is it to tell me were doooomed.
pencilgod January 24, 2008
Cliff what I put up was a test shot. The idea was to have a quick run through, get my thoughts right, view it and shoot another, properly framed exposed and better audio… then my neighbor kicked off his chainsaw so I was stuck with the one and only audible take and no time to relocate. I have got a life.
Getting VJ stuff to look good takes time and when things go wrong, just like they did for the blogger above Tanya on day three of her course finding out she had shot it all on night vision, I was screwed because I was trying to do two jobs and didn’t have time.
If I had a cameraman behind the camera then my test record would have been better.
Just as Michael used someone behind the camera for his second demonstration about mini cams I know if you want it done right you need a cameraman to shoot it.
I hear a lot about how much money VJ saves but very little about at what they cost the product. If you built cars without safety features they would cost a lot less as well but who would buy them and would you want to be responsible for selling them?
Cliff Etzel January 24, 2008
Nino: Old way – out dated methodology of creating video content using multi-person production crews with van loads of gear to deliver content that is stylized, sterile – and basically lacking any amount of unique creativity. From what I’ve seen of the still frame captures on your site – that describes “old way”. Solo VJ’ism requires one person to wear many hats – and constantly striving towards excelling at all of them. The profession is still young, and will refine itself over time.
pencilgod – I disagree with your assertion. If you know what you’re doing, you should be able to attain the same level or near same level of quality. It requires rethinking how one shoots and how to accomplish more with less. Again, this all comes back to the idea that traditional broadcast will continue to rule – I disagree with that notion – Internet broadcasting is the future – and to discount it is remiss on the detractors parts.
If Adobe is willing to invest significant amounts of financial resources behind their initiative to be an all in one solution for Internet Broadcasting, what does that say for those who adhere to the notion of traditional broadcast avenues being the primary outlet? Don’t believe me? Read the statistics here and then make your own conclusions. I seriously doubt any detractor will be able to refute the information. I’m not saying TV will go away, but as Michael pointed out – there is going to be a marked shift, (if not already happening) in viewing habits – especially with the 18-34 demographic. Combined with more high speed fiber being trenched right up to peoples homes – which will allow HD content to be streamed real time via the net, h.264 compression now a part of Flash video and other technologies in hardware and software, this IS going to change the face of the landscape for how content is viewed and distributed – and what shooters are going to be paid. The days of high ticket billings to clients due to multiple people on a production crew are going to be replaced with smaller invoices due to clients becoming unwilling to foot the bill for production crews.
Lenslinger – not worth my time to warrant a response.
Detractors continue deny it all they want with their arguments about Solo VJ’s (or self contained production shooters if you will) not having what it takes – I believe that the Solo VJ profession will continue to evolve into something that will make traditional video content creation look like it came from the horse and buggy era.
Nino January 24, 2008
Please keep in mind that I don’t do projections from statistics, everything that I say comes from real experiences in working in this business day in and day out. What will happen tomorrow in this business comes from the constant flow of information that broadcasting clients provide to us every week. We as photographer are on the front line of this industry, we provide the prime product that will generate revenue for our broadcasting and commercial clients. Clients need us to be prepared for what’s ahead. The future of this business is not made by a self proclaimed guru writing on a marking board, the future is made by the clients who have invested millions into the future of their organization and we will gear our skills around those investments because some of that is for us.
What’s true about what Michael said is that more and more video is being used on the web, in fact almost one third of the projects I work on are also be used on the web in addition that regular broadcasting. Among my clients ESPN.com has been increasingly using more and more videos. ESPN the magazine is now using full video production features and now there’s ESPN New Media that’s mainly web programming. Every other of my clients also is making wide use of videos for web. These are trend setters, like they set standard of quality for television they are doing the same for the web. The productions I do for broadcasting or for the web are exactly the same, they are full production done with real broadcasting equipment, and the ration is 50/50 SD and HD. These organization have experimented with everything on the market, VJ styles and small prosumer cameras included and have decided that using experienced crews with full professional gears is the only way to go. Michael soon or later you will learn that today’s in the grand scope of things, the cost of a crew is a drop in the bucket. Substituting good quality with very poor quality is not worth saving a few hundreds of dollars a day. This is why no network has implemented the VJ concept, granted they are all experimenting to some degree but the involvement ends there. VJs do not have sufficient knowledge to handle the diversity of assignments needed in today’s broadcasting. This is why after six years of Michael preaching and projections VJ are non existent in broadcasting, in commercial productions and on the web.
eb January 24, 2008
The video presentation was simple and to the point.
Basic 101.
2 + 2 = 4
I agree.
It’s hard not to agree that 2 + 2 = 4
Now, the question above was… So how are people on a four day course supposed to not only learn to shoot but write and edit to any level of quality? They can’t, they won’t and they never will.
This is just the beginning for these folks. Basic 101 training. They will begin down a road that some will follow, and improve, and find their niche. They will improve over time… just as I did, and you did. Except they will be learning with small cameras and laptops. Eventually, they will become profiecient enough to sell a product. Or they won’t and they will take another road.
You can’t argue with Michaels video presentation. Because its all true.
101 Basic. Nothing earth shattering… for those with their eyes open.
I have a website. I put video on it. I can eventually make it into a channel – with programming – IF I have the persistance and drive and money to do it.
I am one of thousands, millions… who can and will do the same thing.
Simple economics. Basic truths.
Will higher quality professionals have a place as well? Of course. Just like in any business… there is low quality, high quality, and average. High end, low end… But Michael pointed out the basic truths that in the past… there were only 3 providers. Now there is an infinate number.
NEXT. This one isn’t worth a debate 😉
Lenslinger January 24, 2008
Cliff, dial it back a notch. You’re getting spittle all over the monitor.
pencilgod January 24, 2008
Steve you are exactly right. It is terrible. I’m a fully trained professional cameraman with over 20 years of shooting and still I have trouble doing VJ so it looks good. That’s the point. VJ’s work will never look as good as a team. Michael will argue “good enough for web†but as you point out badly framed, badly lit stuff still look bad on the net.
So how are people on a four day course supposed to not only learn to shoot but write and edit to any level of quality? They can’t, they won’t and they never will.
Nino January 24, 2008
Cliff, why don’t you explain what the old way and the new way is?
Cliff Etzel January 24, 2008
Nino – what’s to debate ? You’re stuck in an old way of doing video and the very thing this new paradigm does is threaten your world view of what it means to produce video.
Why should anyone literally waste their time debating an issue you have no intention of changing?
The detractors can deny the change is coming – doesn’t matter – it’s still happening.
Your self righteous taunting only confirms how little credibility you or any other detractor has with the rest of us who visit this website in the spirit of community.
All the detractors do is push me to prove them wrong.
Thanks for the motivation 😀
Nino January 24, 2008
Well Michael, I guess you don’t want to debate the validity of your theory, smart boy.
steve January 23, 2008
Pencilgod —
Your video is framed terribly and the lighting changes partway through when the sun goes in. How can you expect us to take you seriously when the video you post is so technically impaired?!?
I think graduates of the Travel Academy make better quality video than this example of your work.
rosenblumtv January 23, 2008
Jeez Stephen, it must be 4AM! I can’t get it to embed in the comments, but here’s the link and I urge everyone to take a look. Great job. Love it! But of course it proves the point. When video for the web is required, you have made it yourself for next to nothing. It’s like the Long Tail. We’re not suggesting that ALL video is going to go this way, but there sure is going to be a whole lot more demand at a whole lot lower price. It’s not for you, but it does represent a great entry point for the beginner.
pencilgod January 23, 2008
Here you go Michael I made you a reply. I don’t know if I can embed it in the coments but I will give it a go.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee9ZRZGihf0&rel=1]
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee9ZRZGihf0&watch_response
Cliff Etzel January 23, 2008
For the Solo VJ detractors – If you don’t get the clue via this straight forward, self explanatory video – then you REALLY are living in denial.
Do any of the VJ detractors honestly believe anyone here takes you seriously? I for one sure don’t.
You have earned a reputation here that precludes any of you from having any amount of credibility as a direct result of your incessant adolescent attacks on a viewpoint that you don’t agree with.
Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant – Michael, David Dunkley-Gyimah, Robb Montgomery and others are willing to be trailblazers in the development of higher quality content for the web. They evidently are uneducated (sarcasm mine) in seeing what is coming.
Live in your glass bubble if you choose – the archaic way of shooting video will have its place, but it will take up a MUCH smaller section of the overall video content creation pie.
Those of us here have given the detractors every opportunity to show us that they can do it better – challenge is for the detractors – none has shown that they can.
The various detractors talk the walk, but not vice-versa.
Whether any of the detractors want to believe it or not, the change is occurring and you can either sit by or become a part of it.
Mel Taylor January 23, 2008
using the simple mix of video and a white board to make your point, worked VERY WELL.
Nino January 23, 2008
“From The One and Only Henny Youngman:. A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months. …”
I see many similarities with this joke from the great late king of one liner. Michael, did you make this recording 6 years ago? Because you are saying exactly what you said back then and back then the same thing was going to happen in the next two years and hasn’t happen yet.
I have to go to work now but in the days to come would you be willing to accept an intelligent debate on this issue without resourcing to your traditional childish name calling?