FS7: "DP decided he wants an F5 instead"

digitalinnovations said:
It appears this is quite a sore-spot for the majority of us and is an ever growing issue. For those in the larger metro areas there's still quite a bit of opportunity but for those of us outside of those areas it compounds the issue even further.

The perceived "value" of the services we provide seems to be eroding faster than ever before. Everywhere you look there's talk about how "cheap" the gear is or how "anyone can buy 'X' camera and produce quality content". My personal favorite of late was a self-proclaimed social media guru / website designer who wasadvertising a seminar on how to "shoot your own" videos. The irony of undermining the value of a whole other industry whilst charging for your own seminar in a field you are not experienced in...
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One of my best stories comes from when I was contacted by a realtor. This realtor wanted to hire me to make a promo
video for her.....of course her first question over the phone was 'how much will it cost?'. I explained to her that a question
like that was very similar to one of her customers asking her 'how much does a house cost?' and told her I would need
to find out some information from her on what she wanted first. I know she always asks her prospective buyers what
kind of budget they have, because why waste her time showing a $750,000 house to someone with a $200,000 budget?
However, she wouldn't give me a budget but instead wanted to know 'what a promo video costs?' Ok, fine, I'll do this
the hard way. I asked her a bunch of questions.

(Q) Who is your intended audience?
(A) People who are going to be considering selling their home....secondary audience, those considering buying a home.

(Q) What do you want them to feel when watching the video?
(A) That selling (or buying) a home comes with a lot of difficulties. Difficulties which can be totally done away
with if you just use a realtor! It sounds easy to sell or buy a home 'by owner' and do away with the expense
of using a realtor. But realtor's are trained professionals who help you navigate all the rules and issues that
you, as a 'non realtor' know nothing about! Don't make an expensive mistake, hire a realtor to help you when
selling your home or looking to buy one!

(Q) What action do you want them to take after viewing this video?
(A) Call me and talk about hiring me as their realtor to help them sell (or buy) a home!

Now at this point I had a pretty good idea of what she was looking for. So, I was able to work up
a quick quote and email it to her. And, her response was.....(I'm not kidding you, I couldn't
make this stuff up if I tried!)

"Wow, that seems really expensive! Never mind, I'll just do it myself."

I wonder if she even noticed the irony......
 
Therein lies the rub, my friends. It's positively shocking how many similar stories we all have. Somehow, someway, over the years it's become a common thing to undervalue tv / video production. I'm not sure how this has become so ubiquitous.
 
cheap gear! everyone thinks they can do it, clients shop around and see people offering entire projects for $200 and assume that's their value.
 
following on from post above when the client said "Wow, that seems really expensive! Never mind, I'll just do it myself." I thought I'd share something I've been dealing with for a while now.

Although I am lucky to have work and good clients I am finding more and more that video production in the social media space is becoming a real pita because of the stupid ideas peddled to clients by some "social media experts" because of the amount of cheap amateurish work online the user created look has become an aesthetic that some clients and producers think we should aspire to. Taking time to light shots, mike talent properly and edit stories that have a narrative is seen as old school. It's incredibly frustrating having to point out the virtue of good production values to people who think that crap = authenticity. It's easy to say that we should just ignore the clients who don't value our skills or our fees but those clients are becoming more and more common and as more corporate video is created for social media and more decisions about how video is used are made by social media managers then these ideas are pretty bad for us as content producers.
 
I think we all just have to take it on the chin that we are not, and cannot, be in competition with vloggers and zero budget content creators. It is down to us to reframe the relationship with clients to be the 'quality' proposition.

And part of that means explaining and demonstrating that you are not in competition with those guys, but rather offering broadcast quality content at very competitive rates.

Its one one of the reasons I get arsey if someone calls me a videographer, which has all sorts of connotations.
 
..it is also important to 'get with the program' in terms of client needs.

I was in the in and out of the press office for the bristol baloon fiesta and all the blogging/intagram/facebook activity was brining hits and traffic to the clients that was certainly of value to the clients. I have not even finished downloading my cards yet.. but I was shooting the 2017 promo.

When I did PR photography a photo in The Times was seen as a victory for the PR company.. now it is likes or hits.. and in that world speed is often of value over quality. Although messaging quality is still critical.. and delivering messaging quality is still a skill (that can and should be charged for)

S
 
There has just been a very big shift in technology .. as others have said.. my first camera about 1994 Sony 400AP .. £38,000 without VAT.. you could buy a house in most of the UK for that.. or a small flat in Hackney.. .. 2 x ENG Canon zooms,another £25,000.. now you can buy a Sony 6300 with a decent lens.. for I dont know .. all the other gear too £2,000.. and its a better picture than the 400AP.. thats the way it has gone.. for good or for bad.. but the goal posts have got alot bigger.. you used to have to spend out big but got high rates.. and that kept out alot of people.. and stills was stills.. totally different worlds .. that a stills guy would shoot video would have you laughed out of the room.. Im not saying it should have stayed at £50,000 camera kits.. it had its advantages and there are alot of people who shoot great stuff on DSLR,s.. but the whole thing expect for the top end has changed hugely in the past say 15 yrs..
 
Even though I'm relatively new to the industry, I understand the historical shift. The industry is changing. It's always changing. Entry point is at increasingly lower prices. Delivery contexts are changing. Audiences are changing.

I do think that there is less money to go around, with more people competing for jobs. From a supply/demand stand-point, that puts the client/consumer at an advantage. So their ability and expectations to bargain is at an all time high.

I have students of mine who stil live with their parents and are not worried about making a living or running a business. All they want is experience, and to make connections that could help them grow. Most of their work is not very good yet, but it is very in line with their prices. And their clients are happy. While one may think that this is "messing up the market", I actually think that that is a false conclusion. It actually helps to create a larger market for people starting out in the business, which is good. Some of these clients will grow to demand higher quality a d provide higher budgets, while others will realize they never needed higher quality in the first place. This is good for the overall landscape that there are more lower-tier options. Sadly, this does mean some of us might go out of business for various reasons. But we must remember that that life does not owe us anything. And life is not always fair. Sometimes I feel there is too much priviledged white male entitlement going on.

Sure, it sucks that the good-ok' days of the pre-DSLR world has gone away, but markets and industries change and we must evolve with it. If you want higher end clients, I find that we must invest ourselves in our own content and spec work in order to show that we are capable of being trusted at that higher level. No, this does not mean being exploited by someone else. This should be your project, or a project you believe in, and others you collaborate with should be matching what you bring to the table. The point is not to produce crap. Instead, to create content that tells your desired clients why they should work with you. And if you wait until someone pays you to do that, you might be waiting around for ever. So long story short, as our skills grow in the industry, it is important to produce work that will get us out of that Solo-Op, entry-level madness as quickly as possible. And we must invest in our own upward transition, knowing that the higher up we go, the more the competition focuses on quality.

But of course there are crappy people in our industry that that will want to get as smuch for free as possible. But it is their right to be crappy. It is us who must know who we want to be dealing with and avoid who we don't want to work with. When people approach me like: "how much for a video?", I know that they are not knowledgable about video production and are either new, or just perpetually crappy. Most of the time I don't even reply. The only time I reply is if when I do some research on them, I am able to see that they have something valuable to offer, and that I could help them grow to the tier of work I want to be doing...which is always a gamble. But I do t have the money to gamble often, so I often don't.

Sorry, I dont mean to be antagonistic. It is good to vent and to get out our frustrations. And some seriously funny posts have been made on this thread.
 
White male privilege ? seriously wasn't expecting that one. Anyway it is what it is and as you say a lot more people are in the industry now, students are working for free and the expectations on rates are falling as a result. Quoting is now a guess the lowest number game and that's all just supply and demand economics. I have clients that hire me because of my skills but even those clients are finding it hard to resist the temptation of cheaper operators who work for peanuts. My rates haven't changed in a decade as a result. My initial comments were really about the rise of social media video content creation and the fashionable "anyone can do it" ideas that are making it harder and harder to survive in this industry. I've seen large clients who have done big budget work before decide to get film students or relatives who are hobbyists shoot their latest project. It's worse in stills photography but if you work in corporate video it's a frustrating time as more and more content is geared towards social and that content is increasingly iPhone generated. I agree that we should all work on our skills in fact I've been doing that for 20 years but when you finish a shoot that you know went well and the client says to you "hey it's a shame we couldn't have just borrowed your camera for the day" you kind of know which way the wind is blowing.

Im more interested these days in creating my own original content and am researching avenues to generate income from that.
 
ryaninoz said:
White male privilege ? seriously wasn't expecting that one. Anyway it is what it is and as you say a lot more people are in the industry now, students are working for free and the expectations on rates are falling as a result. Quoting is now a guess the lowest number game and that's all just supply and demand economics. I have clients that hire me because of my skills but even those clients are finding it hard to resist the temptation of cheaper operators who work for peanuts. My rates haven't changed in a decade as a result. My initial comments were really about the rise of social media video content creation and the fashionable "anyone can do it" ideas that are making it harder and harder to survive in this industry. I've seen large clients who have done big budget work before decide to get film students or relatives who are hobbyists shoot their latest project. It's worse in stills photography but if you work in corporate video it's a frustrating time as more and more content is geared towards social and that content is increasingly iPhone generated. I agree that we should all work on our skills in fact I've been doing that for 20 years but when you finish a shoot that you know went well and the client says to you "hey it's a shame we couldn't have just borrowed your camera for the day" you kind of know which way the wind is blowing.

Im more interested these days in creating my own original content and am researching avenues to generate income from that.
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My apologies if that statement of white male priviledge came across as personal. It was not intended as a personal statement to you or anyone else in specific. But an honest assessment of what I think does happen in all industries, all the time. I even sometimes feel like I deserve something. But the truth is, coming from the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, growing up poor and such, I may be a bit more sensitive to that. Again, not a personal attack on anyone in specific. But I'm sure everyone has seen or experienced moments of such a thing. I'll be the first to admit that even I sometimes can fall into those feelings of feeling like it's unfair that I'm not getting more gigs, or that I deserve something more than I'm getting.

But in the rest of your quoted post above, it seems that you relate to a lot of what I said. So at least some overlap there. And best of luck in your career. I hope that you are able to successfully transition into creating your own content, that you are wildly successfull at it!
 
No offence taken - just a bit unsure what you meant. I was just having a bit of vent but best of luck to you too.
 
Everything is changing.
Why do craftspeople have a good business despite all these DIY people but the photographers do obviously get crashed by firstname.secondname-PHOTOGRAPHY "facebook pros" ?
IMHO it's easy. Photography has lost the need for special skills. It's something where beginners get fast on a certain level. And it doesn't look like work that's why it attracts a lot of young people who want to get rich and famous without aching bones.

Same happens with film and video with a delay of about 5yrs. It kills a lot of small companies because what they did can be done with a FS5 and FCPX without big investment and without knowledge in depth.

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unfortunately some well educated and experienced photographers move to film/video business as new or additional source of income..
 
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I dunno...have a friend/colleague who does both stills and video, says stills are about 40% of his work, doesnt seem to have aby trouble commanding high prices for stills even now. Says folks for some reason have always been willing to may more for stills than video. Does corporate work, products, weddings, portraits etc.
 
ericyoung said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY
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This is a funny video, but to me it also raises a question: Why are some professions immune?

- Restaurants, even though people have their own pan?
- Barbers, even though people they have their own scissors? Hard to cut your own hair, but you could ask a friend or family member.
- Photographers, often thousands of dollars, even though people have their own cameras?

Part of the story is that people actually do these things themselves sometimes. Few people can afford to eat out every meal. My mom used to cut my hair. And lots of pictures are taken by amateurs, even some weddings.

But when they do hire a pro, yes, it seems they haggle less.
 
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abreu-canedo said:
Sometimes I feel there is too much priviledged white male entitlement going on.
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With the greatest respect you don't know me (or others here) and the journey I have taken to be able to do this job and I resent any sort of inference that a) I feel I deserve something over another because anything other than merit and b) That I have ever sought to maintain my livelihood and craft by holding others fresher into their journey than me back.

Absolutely you must evolve or die, but you must also improve and continually learn and get better and learn your craft. The best ways to be a continuing success in this industry are to be really good at what you do and be really good to work with. Both of these things are acquired skillsets.

ryaninoz said:
Quoting is now a guess the lowest number game
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No it isn't. That's what they want you to think. It's a trick.

Nobody wants cheap. They want expensive, but they don't want to pay top dollar for it. Perception of value is far more important than the numbers. Let someone walk away feeling they got a deal and you're grand.
 
combatentropy said:
This is a funny video, but to me it also raises a question: Why are some professions immune?

- Restaurants, even though people have their own pan?
- Barbers, even though people they have their own scissors? Hard to cut your own hair, but you could ask a friend or family member.
- Photographers, often thousands of dollars, even though people have their own cameras?

Part of the story is that people actually do these things themselves sometimes. Few people can afford to eat out every meal. My mom used to cut my hair. And lots of pictures are taken by amateurs, even some weddings.

But when they do hire a pro, yes, it seems they haggle less.
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Because restaurants and barbers are selling an experience as well as a product. People don't mind paying to be made to feel special for a bit. So add that into your work and there are benefits for us too.
 
This came a few weeks ago...I really didn't know how to reply so I sent her to Craigslist. The names have been changed to protect the clueless.

"I am looking for a solo videographer to film a promotional video for my boss's company XXX Law Firm. Here are the details of what she wants.

I would like to do a 1hr video at my office downtown. The purpose of the video is as follows:

- Introduce myself to the client and share the purpose of the firm, f he work we do, and why we are different.
- Speak on helpful topics for businesses.
- Video will be a promotional video for the firm yet also informative.
- Video should be designed in such a way that it can be divided up into small 3-5mins videos on topics specific to business."

Also, she is hoping to pay $100-$300. Let us know what you think."

Thank you,
 
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