[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/7901103[/vimeo]
Andy Grove, the former Chairman and CEO of Intel said “listen to the technology, it will tell you what to do’.
If we are smart we will listen to where the technology is headed.
It has been going there for more than 40 years and it is not likely to change course now.
Listen to the technology and you will be able to get ahead of the game – instead of perpetually playing catch-up or getting caught by surprise.
You can learn more about this and where the online world is headed at NYVS.
21 Comments
Nino December 02, 2009
BTW Michael, this is one of the first things we studies in art and photography school. I guess they don’t teach this stuff anymore.
There’s something called visual psychology. This is the science of the eyes and brain reaction to light and colors.
High Key images, those are images where most of the content is lighter than the center of attention (in the case above the center of attention it’s you speaking) such as those with white backgrounds actually detract from what should be the center of attention of the image (you), that’s because the eye will be attracted or better yet distracted by the mass of white.
White backgrounds or backgrounds lighter that the main subjects are good for short programs like 30 second commercials or more delicate images such as soft portraits of women and children.
To increase the effectiveness and attract viewer’s eyes and attention to the most important portion of the image (you speaking) the lightest part of the image should be your face.
Nino December 02, 2009
I did believe that under the current tough economic conditions production costs to some of our clients could be an important factor; so I prepared myself just in case. About a year ago I put together a smaller “no frills” HD package that consisted of the Sony EX1 camera, small HD monitor, essential light package, shorter set-up times, etc. I reduced my rates for this package by one third and that’s substantial. Actually at this stage of the game I was almost looking forward to lighten the load, handle a lighter camera and travel with my small SUV instead of my big van.
After all this preparations very few takers. When given the choice between lower price and better quality with very few exceptions the majority of clients go for the better and more expensive quality.
$ December 02, 2009
Good points which I agree with.
We’ve seen quite a few VJ’s here making claims, and waiting.
Waiting for something which never arrives.
They seem to think there will be some sudden change which will wipe out all those currently working leaving them with opportunity.
Instead, we all keep working and they keep waiting.
Nino and PG are on the mark.
Professional work is not being tossed aside.
It’s being repurposed.
Not only for broadcast but the web and other platforms.
The quality makes it worthy of repurposing.
The individual VJs are still out in the cold waiting for an opportunity to be offered to them on a silver platter.
They haven’t figured out yet they need to get out there and do it.
Compete and prove their worth.
They can’t afford to do it since no one in sufficient numbers is willing to pay them for their lesser quality efforts.
I too have been grinning at the production level of the latest Michael Rosenblum videos. Lights, tripods and anything but VJ work.
It speaks volumes.
pencilgod December 02, 2009
A few years ago I did a shoot for Destination TV. It was for an in-flight Welcome to New Zealand type thing. That’s one non broadcast platform. It was re-cut and put on the web in a series of tourism videos. Two platforms. Just saw it re-packaged as a travel cooking show on free to air TV. Three platforms. Was talking about this to the sound guy and he said it’s been running on cable as a holiday show. Four platforms. All from shooting for one show. Made possible because we shot with the best quality in mind. If the attitude had been, Its not for broadcast so who cares about the quality then none of the broadcast platform would have been possible.
The opportunities for cross platform/multiple payouts is growing as long as the quality is there to sell.
steve December 02, 2009
nino,
140 characters or less, remember?
we’ll even let you talk with your hands a little, but that’s it.
Nino December 02, 2009
Sorry, I forgot about the slow learners.
Nino December 02, 2009
Michael, how many times have you said this in the last seven years?
“I think the explosion in platforms will create an explosion in demand for original video all the time.”
Yet seven years later there are no web sites that buys independent videos or give out cheap assignments like you’ve been predicting that there will be an explosion in demand. “It didn’t happen”
Go back 3 years on your blog and see how many of those who were sure the explosion will happen and were ready, were are they now? They are gone because they can’t survive on dreams.
Would you like me to give you a list?
Read again what I said above. Cheap (inexpensive) video productions have been around as long as expensive video productions have. They have been an integral part of the industry. These are qualified photographers who opted to operate at a lower level of budgets. They outnumber good photographer by a 10 to 1 ratio and they all have plenty of time available for new assignments and new clients. And trust me, they are much more qualified and trained than your best VJ.
Their problem is that they far outnumber the demands for video services. Now what you are doing or have been doing is putting a mass of new shooters in a market that is already oversaturated with suppliers of video services under your same old projection that “one day it will happen”, unfortunately in seven years it hasn’t happen yet. Subsequently nobody at the low level of productions will make any money and they are dropping out faster that they are coming in.
I hire crews and shooters every day, if you only knew how many calls I get from people who think they are ready to take on every job, until I see their reel. Most are not even qualified to shoot weddings.
Trust me Youtube and their billions of hits that you like to bring up every chance you get is no money maker unless you are Google
Michael Rosenblum December 02, 2009
Nino
As we move from a very few platforms to almost infinite platforms, if all those platforms do is repeat what we have already seen it is going to be a very very very boring world indeed.
And I do not think that that that is what is going to happen.
I think the explosion in platforms will create an explosion in demand for original video all the time.
You have posted your rates here (which I don’t charge you for advertising. Perhaps you’ll offer me a space on your website?)
There will be those who will be happy to pay your rates and there will be those who will want their product for less. My guess is, a lot, but we’ll all see.
As for training and quality, yes indeed,which is why so much of my business these days is in training, and why I am finding such a big appetite for people who wish to learn. And I think we are only at the very beginning.
Nino December 03, 2009
Michael, I’m really trying to help you out here, the more I read what you say the more I realize how little you really know about the production business.
Statements like this one really works against you.
“As we move from a very few platforms to almost infinite platforms, if all those platforms do is repeat what we have already seen it is going to be a very very very boring world indeed.â€
I’m just bringing up one of my clients as an example, but they all work in the very same way.
You’ve been making fun of my resort client “taking pictures of towels†you said. Well, If I was wealthy I probably would shoot something else but I’m not. I’ve been working for this client for 22 years doing on the average 12 resorts per years. I called a quit two years ago because I got tired of traveling. For two years they tried just about everybody, cheap shooters too, and then a few months ago they came back with an offer that I just couldn’t refuse.
Starting January 2010 thru the end of December 2011 I will shoot for them one resort per month, six days shoot. Heavy penalties added to my rate if the resort is disorganized and I must stay extra days to complete the work.
I could stop doing everything else and still live comfortably with this client alone working only six days a month. So go ahead and make all the fun you can think of but the joke in on you.
When we shoot these properties we use a standard system than evidently you know very little about it.
We follow a shooting script not a standard script. Meaning that we get clips of everything that’s visually important and not necessarily in any chronological order as it would be required by a conventional script. These are done using conventional and traditional methods. No swinging cameras, no quick zoom and everything is on tripod. Slow push, slow pan is ok.
Are these boring to me, they could if I let them but I wont. This is why they’ve been coming to me for over 22 years.
At the end of the shoot they end up with a library of video clips.
These clips are edited in several versions, nine to be precise. I have nothing to do with the edit; I don’t want anything to do with the editing. Each version is created to address a particular segment and demographic of guests. On top of all this each version gets voiced in seven languages.
They also use every possible platform that exists, they are way ahead of all of us in these areas, it’s their job.
We also try out best to shoot whenever possible as much as generic footage as possible, meaning that if we shoot a beach scene in Grand Cayman we will also try to make it look like it could anywhere there’s a beach. This greatly extends the value of the photography.
This footage is cataloged by subject and goes into a master library. Now agencies and marketing people around the world can access the library and get the footage they need for their particular project.
This footage have a four years shelf life, meaning that they will not be used after that; meaning also that will re-shoot each property every four years.
As you can see, the money spent on me in order to get the best quality as possible is insignificant when compared to the accumulated value of that footage. This is why companies and broadcasters have been choosing quality over cost.
Michael Rosenblum December 02, 2009
The improvement in processing speeds is not about the content. It is about the demand for video. As processing speeds increase and cost of platforms (not production) drops, the places that will need video explode. Once the only place you needed video was on TV sets. In the next few years you will see video on billboards, on magazine covers, on postcards, on restaurant menus. Who is going to produce all of that? And how? And at what price point? That is where the big changes are going to come. And the big opportunities.
Nino December 02, 2009
“Once the only place you needed video was on TV sets. In the next few years you will see video on billboards, on magazine covers, on postcards, on restaurant menus. Who is going to produce all of that? And how? And at what price point? That is where the big changes are going to come. And the big opportunities.â€
Same old tune Michael and same old answer.
The same people that has been doing it all along that’s who.
I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this, but let me do it again. These new technologies that you describe are not new markets, these are new platforms. Meaning that videos now have multiple outlets. Meaning that the cost of producing video is now being divided amongst several platforms thus effectively reducing the cost of productions.
10 years ago we knew for sure where our work would go, on TV or on VHS tapes. Today we really don’t know and we really don’t care. I know for sure that 80% my work goes to multiple platforms, mostly national TV and web sites owned by the broadcasters. However, few weeks ago I shot a commercial for a state bank, I don’t do many commercials anymore but this was an old customer. I’ve seen the video on TV, on their web site and to my surprise two days ago while driving home on I-75 I saw it on a new digital billboard that are being installed everywhere around here. That’s 3 platforms out of one production budget.
The fact is that our shooting styles, better yet, the shooting styles required by the clients haven’t changed because now we have more platforms, if anything it has improved with the advancement of high end HD, I don’t mean toys HD cameras.
What have changed is our rates, we went from a daily crew rate for photographer and sound tech of $1450 for SD equipment to $2250 for HD equipment; and once you have arrived at a level of skills to meet client’s requirement there’s no shortage of work.
So all those that are still listening to your 10 years old song of:
“Who’s going to provide all these videos?†the 10 years old answer is still the same, those with top skills and top equipment. This is why VJs in the real world are totally non existent.
Access to these clients is not restricted to a privileged few like you would like to make believe, “the democratization of videoâ€. Access is wide open to everyone and I’m a living proof of that, I’m an emigrant that speaks with a heavy accent and half of the time people can’t understand what I’m saying; my clients could care less if I can’t give a speech, they are only interested in my photographic skills.
Access is wide open, all is needed is knowledge and skills. Unintelligent and unskilled people will find obstacles and close doors in every industry not only in broadcasting.
There are no short cuts to success.
digger December 02, 2009
That’s not really a particularly complex or controversial idea, it’s certainly not new.
But what does it have to do with video in 2009? Do you mean faster chips would play your 5 minute video in 30 seconds? Still 20 seconds too long.
You can produce and upload videos for free, so what are you writing instead of filming? Because no-one is watching the videos. Spending 5 minutes on an idea that can be expressed in 10 words does not work, even with tacky sound effects.
Online video doesn’t need more better chips it needs more better talent.
Nino December 02, 2009
I detect a change of direction in your tone of voice.
The point is that cheap services with cheap cameras were always here, you didn’t invent anything. One of my soundmen has been shooting with small cameras for years and charging less than half of our regular freelance rates. I even send him work when my good clients only need some plain video done and don’t care about quality. This level of work has always been here. If you’ve been following many of the threads on B-roll freelancers have always complained about “undercuttersâ€; those that will take jobs away from full rates freelancers by undercutting their rates by as much as half. This has been going on forever; it’s just part of the business.
If push come to shove and the economy of this business comes to the point that clients will primarily demand lower services we can make that switch in seconds. I don’t think you can find a freelancer who doesn’t own several small cameras and editing computers. The reality is that the demand for quality services, contrary to you predictions, hasn’t diminished at all, if anything in the last five years has increased. The only area that has diminished is news, and I’ve been staying away from news for years because in my opinion it was always an unstable market.
The main difference between us however is that we fill needs. Unlike your VJ work that is mostly on spec, we work around the current demands of services and we continuously change and adapt to meet new demands. In few words I don’t live my house unless somebody is paying me. You on the contrary have been trying to create a market that doesn’t exist under the belief that it will happen; unfortunately it didn’t. The technological advances that you keep talking actually work against you.
Until a few years ago the quality on the web was so bad that wasn’t worth spending money for quality work, and this was your main selling point. Things have changed; high definition on the web is now at the highest quality ever and just like it happened on broadcast television where bad quality VJ work stood out like a sore thumb and was rejected so is now bad quality work on the web.
But I can see that you are realizing it too, this is why you are standing in a studio, with lights, in front of a background, with the camera on a tripod and a cameraman. A total departure from your original VJ style.
Welcome to the real world of production Michael. Like we’ve been helping freelancers to upgrade the quality of their skills for years, let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.
Michael Rosenblum December 02, 2009
OK. Got it.
pencilgod December 02, 2009
No I think this is a classic case of telling not showing.
I don’t want to be lectured too no matter how many times you put a whoosh in it. This is video. Show me what you mean. Don’t tell me, show me!!!
Michael Rosenblum December 01, 2009
The inevitability of cheaper processing in the future and the attendant impact on the business.
hmm… maybe this video thing doesn’t work for conveying complex ideas.
digger December 01, 2009
I’m not sure, what was the larger point?
Michael Rosenblum December 01, 2009
Yes, but did you get the larger point?
digger December 01, 2009
Well better luck next time.
Speaking of which…
The video above. The lighting is very unflattering and the editing is stale and contrived, especially the graphics.
Also chess did not originate in Persia – maybe you are thinking of checkers? But that’s very nitpicky – they are very similar games, but if you speak to an expert there are subtle differences.
Michael Rosenblum December 01, 2009
I think what we learned from Ctzn.tv is that
a) there is not much of a market for news alone
b) there is even less of a market for citizen news
I don’t think this is all that different from what many news organizations are learning, but if we don’t try things, we don’t learn anything. And we learn from each experience. Not so terrible.
digger December 01, 2009
What have you planned for Ctzn.tv? Something big from the sound of it.