Blackmagic Design possibly going public on the ASX

[Guest]

A brief article that states Blackmagic Design is going to be a publicly traded company by listing on the ASX:
https://www.afr.com/technology/auss...st-eyes-listing-as-sales-boom-20200805-p55iqh


What does this mean for the design philosophy going forward.

Could Canikony buy stock and gain some influence in the brand?

If all goes well, will this help Blackmagic soar into better sensors and tech?

Up till now, BM has been privately owned and impressively running off revenue (and maybe Australian tech incentives). And many seem to like Petty's rogue design sensibilities. Will going public temper bold choices, or create new opportunities, such as AI?

What do you think the future of BM is?

Also, not sure why this article mentioned the 12K allowing buyers to forego a camera operator. Is that how the BM12K is advertised? I'd never seen that before. Probably sounds better to investors than it does to camera op buyers.

It does seem like the industry as a whole has hints of wanting to move away from camera operators, though perhaps primarily in the studio at this time. And in that sense, companies that are not fully reliant on cameras alone are in a better position to move in that direction.

 

[ahalpert]

Going public always ties your hands. Especially if activist investors get involved.

The thinking of the 12K-no-op idea must be you shoot a wide and pan-and-scan the close-ups. I've had the same thought myself for shooting conference panels. For such a situation, you might not need an operator to pan between whoever is speaking. But that function would have little to no bearing on high-end video - anything where beauty is valued

 

[Paul F]

The only thing worthwhile it will do is end my curiosity about how they are doing financially. Other than that, who knows. It will give them more capital to work with and the owners will be able to cash out their investment.

 

[rob norton]

Going public always ties your hands. Especially if activist investors get involved.

The thinking of the 12K-no-op idea must be you shoot a wide and pan-and-scan the close-ups. I've had the same thought myself for shooting conference panels. For such a situation, you might not need an operator to pan between whoever is speaking. But that function would have little to no bearing on high-end video - anything where beauty is valued

It's funny because like John Brawley has shown, the camera's strength is beautiful colours/detail, ideal for many high end scenarios, yet could gain reputation (thanks to people latching onto Ks) as a camera operator eliminator, shooting presentations in front of hungover conference attendees - the opposite of beauty.

 

[Guest]

It's funny because like John Brawley has shown, the camera's strength is beautiful colours/detail, ideal for many high end scenarios, yet could gain reputation (thanks to people latching onto Ks) as a camera operator eliminator, shooting terrible presentations in front of hungover conference attendees - the opposite of beauty.

It reminds me of the Canon C300 debut in some ways. At least in the sense of the use being reappropriated. Canon pushed hard into this "film maker" campaign, and then it ended up finding much bigger success in offering ENG, Doc, and Reality TV.

 

[ahalpert]

. Canon pushed hard into this "film maker" campaign, and then it ended up finding much bigger success in offering ENG, Doc, and Reality TV.

Maybe that idea/image appealed to its customer base even if they were doing something different.

Leica after all put out an ad showing grizzled photojournalists having guns pointed at them in war zones. So they could sell a camera to dentists

 

[Guest]

Maybe that idea/image appealed to its customer base even if they were doing something different.

Leica after all put out an ad showing grizzled photojournalists having guns pointed at them in war zones. So they could sell a camera to dentists

Haha, some truth to that.

Except that ENG, Docos, and Reality shooters are not dentists. They are the grizzled journalists having guns pointed at them.

 

[puredrifting]

I don't like this idea at all. BMD has been killing it for the last couple of years, I REALLY am impressed at what they are doing with their whole integrated product line up
including BM RAW and Resolve that beautifully support the camera lineup. They are making products that CanSonyPan never could. The ATEM Mini line is genius. The cameras
are really good. Resolve rocks.

The only thing going public does is allow a cash infusion in exchange for undue influence. Knowing Grant and co, that cash and resources will be put to good use. But most of the things that BMD have done
that are admirable and daring would be truncated and eventually eliminated in a publicly owned organization. It's the same reason Hollywood sucks now. They went from movie studios that occasionally made
something brilliant, just by the laws of chance to pieces of worlwide multiconglomerates that bought them all and turned them into profit center cogs in a larger machine, the output went to crap and has stayed
that way for quite a while. The studios now only make tentpole reboots, series and comic book superhero pulp. Stuff that pleases shareholders but objectively is swill.

This is bad news. Being independent has been what allowed BMD to grow, flourish and innovate. Stockholder influence and the inevitable stockholder lawsuits will stifle all of that eventually. I'd go so far to say this is the end of era of sorts.
A sad day for all of us. I've really been rooting for BMD for years and would even if I wasn't crazy about their products, simply because they were different than anyone else and they marched to the beat of their own drummer. It just turns
out that the past few years, they've been on a hot streak of products that blow me away. I sincerely hope we don't lose that.

 

[DLD]

They're too small to have "activist investors". Plus, Petty is likely to keep the voting packet for himself.

But maybe they'll use the cash to acquire a photo company like Olympus or Nikon. Who knows.

 

[unomas]

I don't like this idea at all. BMD has been killing it for the last couple of years, I REALLY am impressed at what they are doing with their whole integrated product line up
including BM RAW and Resolve that beautifully support the camera lineup. They are making products that CanSonyPan never could. The ATEM Mini line is genius. The cameras
are really good. Resolve rocks.

The only thing going public does is allow a cash infusion in exchange for undue influence. Knowing Grant and co, that cash and resources will be put to good use. But most of the things that BMD have done
that are admirable and daring would be truncated and eventually eliminated in a publicly owned organization. It's the same reason Hollywood sucks now. They went from movie studios that occasionally made
something brilliant, just by the laws of chance to pieces of worlwide multiconglomerates that bought them all and turned them into profit center cogs in a larger machine, the output went to crap and has stayed
that way for quite a while. The studios now only make tentpole reboots, series and comic book superhero pulp. Stuff that pleases shareholders but objectively is swill.

This is bad news. Being independent has been what allowed BMD to grow, flourish and innovate. Stockholder influence and the inevitable stockholder lawsuits will stifle all of that eventually. I'd go so far to say this is the end of era of sorts.
A sad day for all of us. I've really been rooting for BMD for years and would even if I wasn't crazy about their products, simply because they were different than anyone else and they marched to the beat of their own drummer. It just turns
out that the past few years, they've been on a hot streak of products that blow me away. I sincerely hope we don't lose that.

Agreed 100%. And when you're no longer privately owned, your investors expect a return on investment. To me this signals higher priced cameras, DaVinci Resolve going subscription based and so much more. Finally starting to really feel like Resolve is on par with Adobe as an editing software and they go this route? Horrible move.....I might as well migrate to FCPX in the near future.

 

[John Brawley]

Leica after all put out an ad showing grizzled photojournalists having guns pointed at them in war zones. So they could sell a camera to dentists

Leica didn't really put that advert out. Leica Germany disowned the advert and it seems like an ad agency linked to Leica Brazil (not Leica but the company that makes adverts for them) made it, presumably as some kind of spec advert. The telling massive problem here is that the final image it depicts the image of Tank man in the Tiananmen Square protests being shot on a Leica which is well known to have been shot with a Nikon. It's pretty inconceivable that Leica HQ in Germany would have allowed that faux pas to happen when they have so many other great examples to draw from.

Leica don't really make adverts or branded films. The only other moving image Leica branded content are other short pieces made by the same ad agency based in Brazil. They tend to sponsor individuals and events if they do anything...

JB

 

[John Brawley]

Grant is very much..self made.

I don't think being answerable to stock holders would work out. I may be wrong. But there are some interesting details to be found in the AFR article. (they are like the Aussie WSJ)

They talk about their annual revenue and profitability and the percentage of the company that Grant currently owns. Some of it's a bit wrong obviously in terms of the product detail.

He is very much the driver though, and maybe he could be left alone, but the temptation is always that the public / stock holders know better, and generally reward conservatism over innovation and risk.

It's very impressive when you look at what he's achieved in the time he's being doing this and that the company has no debt, it's been bootstrapped all the way to where it is now.

Most people forget this is his second go round too. He did this already as another previously well known company that's all but forgotten and it ended poorly. So he started again with Blackmagic.

I started my career about the same time Grant was starting that first company. I was transferring film at the post facility where he was the telecine engineer and we became friends. I did some early testing with his capture cards back when FCP was V1.25....

JB

 

[Run&Gun]

It reminds me of the Canon C300 debut in some ways. At least in the sense of the use being reappropriated. Canon pushed hard into this "film maker" campaign, and then it ended up finding much bigger success in offering ENG, Doc, and Reality TV.

Because Canon, despite having decades and decades of experience serving the professional TV and Film markets with top-quality lenses, they just didn't understand the professional motion camera market and largely(my opinion) approached it like it was the stills camera market.

 

[Run&Gun]

I don't like this idea at all. BMD has been killing it for the last couple of years, I REALLY am impressed at what they are doing with their whole integrated product line up
including BM RAW and Resolve that beautifully support the camera lineup. They are making products that CanSonyPan never could. The ATEM Mini line is genius. The cameras
are really good. Resolve rocks.

The only thing going public does is allow a cash infusion in exchange for undue influence. Knowing Grant and co, that cash and resources will be put to good use. But most of the things that BMD have done
that are admirable and daring would be truncated and eventually eliminated in a publicly owned organization. It's the same reason Hollywood sucks now. They went from movie studios that occasionally made
something brilliant, just by the laws of chance to pieces of worlwide multiconglomerates that bought them all and turned them into profit center cogs in a larger machine, the output went to crap and has stayed
that way for quite a while. The studios now only make tentpole reboots, series and comic book superhero pulp. Stuff that pleases shareholders but objectively is swill.

This is bad news. Being independent has been what allowed BMD to grow, flourish and innovate. Stockholder influence and the inevitable stockholder lawsuits will stifle all of that eventually. I'd go so far to say this is the end of era of sorts.
A sad day for all of us. I've really been rooting for BMD for years and would even if I wasn't crazy about their products, simply because they were different than anyone else and they marched to the beat of their own drummer. It just turns
out that the past few years, they've been on a hot streak of products that blow me away. I sincerely hope we don't lose that.

I generally dislike publicly traded companies as an idea. When a company becomes a 'public company' it is no longer the customer and the company. The priority becomes pleasing the shareholders.

 

[ahalpert]

Leica didn't really put that advert out. Leica Germany disowned the advert and it seems like an ad agency linked to Leica Brazil (not Leica but the company that makes adverts for them) made it, presumably as some kind of spec advert. The telling massive problem here is that the final image it depicts the image of Tank man in the Tiananmen Square protests being shot on a Leica which is well known to have been shot with a Nikon. It's pretty inconceivable that Leica HQ in Germany would have allowed that faux pas to happen when they have so many other great examples to draw from.

Leica don't really make adverts or branded films. The only other moving image Leica branded content are other short pieces made by the same ad agency based in Brazil. They tend to sponsor individuals and events if they do anything...

JB

Maybe but I'm not convinced, considering that the ad agency had worked for Leica before and continues to claim that the ad was commissioned. Plus, the fact that Leica only disowned the ad after it pissed off the Chinese government, and they disowned it due to the Tank Man depiction and not some other reason or historical inaccuracy.

I actually liked the ad a lot. I thought it was beautiful and thrilling and appealed to me on both a macho/adventurist level as well as a political/historical level.

I'm not trying to cast aspersions on Leica. I was just using it as an example of how advertising activates the imagination in fanciful ways.

And obviously real cameramen like Leica, too. But the running joke is that they cater to hobbyists in the professional class because they're the only ones who can afford them.

Anyway, I was just trying to make a point about how people producing quotidian videos might still like to think about the cinematic capabilities of an Ursa 12K and feel a connection to "Hollywood."

 

[ahalpert]

They're too small to have "activist investors". Plus, Petty is likely to keep the voting packet for himself.

Why too small for activist investors? Because the investors wouldn't be interested or because Petty will hold onto a commanding interest?

 

[ahalpert]

I generally dislike publicly traded companies as an idea. When a company becomes a 'public company' it is no longer the customer and the company. The priority becomes pleasing the shareholders.

Yeah I totally agree. But there is another take to consider. Supposedly, by driving towards greatest profits, the companies are discovering the greatest demand and filling it. (I've heard so many people rave about all the superhero movies coming out. Which pisses me off to no end because they've sucked all of the oxygen out of the room for mid-level productions. But the reason they make so much money is because so many people like them.)

Or apple - huge company. But just as with apple - the specialists end up being ill-served because they're too small of a market to bother with. Hobbyists are well-served. And there might be some expensive scraps for high-end customers

 

[Guest]

Anyway, I was just trying to make a point about how people producing quotidian videos might still like to think about the cinematic capabilities of an Ursa 12K and feel a connection to "Hollywood."

Yes, and this is where I tend to agree with you about the Cine EOS line. Just that Canon wasn't apealing to dentists, but working professionals who could see right through there "Cine" appeal, and then the reality/broadcast world scooped them up, as they were still using 2/3" 720p ~50Mbp/s codecs on proprietary media anyway. And heck, at leas the C series used cheap CF cards. BUT, the fiction film makers by and large saw through it and moved on to other things.

Even when Canon put out the C700, it was almost to their detriment. Wasn't till the C500mk2 re-envisioned the camera into something more ENG/brodcasty did they find something that worked. (Although, I think it is somewhat under utilized as a video portrait camera. but hey, what are interviews?)

 

[DLD]

Why too small for activist investors? Because the investors wouldn't be interested or because Petty will hold onto a commanding interest?

Most "activist investors" are big mutual fund/hedge fund managers, who move sizeable chunks of money and would not be interested in the BMD due to its minuscule market capitalization. In the US, it'd probably be an OTC stock, as NASDAQ requires a $45M market cap.

 

[davedv]

The interesting thing is how many companies Blackmagic has been able to acquire without the benefit any public financing:

2009: DaVinci Systems -> Resolve (color grading/video editing)
2010: Echolab -> ATEM video switchers
2011: Teranex -> video processors/converters
2012: Cintel -> film scanners
2015: eyeon Software -> Fusion (effects software)
2016: Fairlight -> audio processing
2016: Ultimatte -> green screen processing

And unlike a lot of companies which will acquire another company and proceed to run it into the ground, all of Blackmagic's acquisitions have been relatively successful and form the basis for some of their core product lines today.

Here's a profile/interview with Grant Petty discussing how he started and grew the company:
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/ent...ate-his-300-million-video-technology-company/