hahaha whats the difference between a Tutorial and a gear review?

Shawnvfx

Well-known member
Dont get me wrong, but here is the fact,

Ive been learning everything from youtube vimeo etc etc for film making (school only taught me theories, which I still dont regret) for over 2 years

and I just realized one Fxxxing thing, that I WANT TO BUY THINGS AFTER I WATCH VIDEOS.

all videos are the same, Tutorials, Camera tests, lens review, NAB show report, gear review, unboxing, BTS.

and eventually I start to ask people who posts great videos "what lense did you use" " I bet youve used CP2s" " is that red epic ?" "what brand of the reflector did you use"

and I built up a nice and well organized B&H wishlist, categorized them as " light " "sound" "rig" etc, each of them costs around 3-4k.

I think im on a cliff, about to jump but I stopped.

always telling myself "man I wanted these toys so bad."

anyways, I bet all those videos are sponsored, its a new genre of ad if we must classify, lol.
 
Very interesting post.

I think you're right that a lot stuff these days is is sponsored, although some of it isn't. For example, the videos I post from NAB are just me seeing something I really like and asking if I can get a quick overview on video. (My site). No payments, sponsorships... nothing. One company whose product(s) I covered actually contacted me later and wanted to send me some gear as a thank you. I turned them down, even though I would have loved to have owned what they were offering, since as I've said, I only shoot videos of what I personally like).

Hmmm... did I make a mistake? Nah... I like being able to share cool things with others without always needing to make a profit out of it.

:bath:

But then there are sites like *** that ONLY seems to write about stuff if they can monetize the post (usually with affiliate links to ebay, Amazon, B&H...). I won't mention the name but I bet people can guess! It's a site that's pretty well known on these boards because they cover video and related gear. The site used to share a lot great information and videos about gear regardless of being able to make money off the post. But today? No money no post.

A big negative consequence of this kind of practice can be seen with things like Kickstarter. If there's a new Kickstarter project that has a really interesting and useful new product, you'll never see it on the site I'm not naming because Kickstarter doesn't have an affiliate program. Because they can't make money from writing about it, they don't write about it. But after a project gets funded and can be purchased on ebay, Amazon? That's when they'll write about it with affiliate links.

In my opinion, it's a rather cynical and negative way to run a site, and they've lost pretty much all credibility in my eyes. (Oh, and the site I'm talking about is in real danger of looking like this because of all the sidebar ads.)

So these days, when I visit a new gear related site I always take a quick around to see how much of the content contains the mechanics for revenue generation. The more I see of it, the less credibility a site will have. I'm not opposed to someone making money from their efforts. I just don't like it when they pretend to be reviewing or helping when in fact their interest is only about $$.

Just my 2 cents worth!
 
Just a little off topic but in regards to keylights post above, I also had a vendor offer me a "deal" when it was brought to his attention that I was mentioning good things about his companies services. I also turned him down for the same reasons that keylight did.

And funny that the owner of the company quoted dvxuser and my posts here as the reference. But again, I didn't accept the offer. :)

edit:// And to be honest. I actually think that P***ed him off a bit. haha. So, just saying. :) Cool thread.
 
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