The state of the Industry

DLD said:
Aren't you contradicting yourself?
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I don't think so? At least - what I meant was that because Netflix was first (and in many ways still best) to do streaming, viewers have thought of them as the place to go to stream stuff. Just as a matter of branding. But that perception is fading because the reality has been fading for years

as for catalog - I don't necessarily mean carrying old hits. You need to keep a fresh catalog. But the point there is both that whoever can keep making the best stuff wins. And also that being first to market really doesn't matter anymore. For example, Paramount+ has a lock on me because they've become the home of star trek. They're producing a number of new Trek series, and I think they may have become the sole provider of the older series now (not sure). Unless the new Trek totally turns into garbage, they've got a compelling reason to keep me subscribing
 
There are people addicted to a given program or talent that makes them choose a given service (sometimes to the exclusion of others, sometimes in addition to .. prices, after all, are fairly affordable). Paramount+/CBS Golazo carries a lot of global soccer, which these days is almost only available on a streamer (ESPN+ and Universal for the EPL). At the moment, however, all streamers try to be fairly broad in their appeal. But, who knows, it may change. At some point, some services may become more known for a certain, limited, type of programming. As the world turns.
 
I don't follow Netflix stock but I follow the state of the market and the economy. I saw a good video that went over all the reasons for the fall. In general there is a lot of competition for streaming subscriptions, there is a limited number of house holds that they can sell to, the pandemic gave an artificial boost to the numbers and now that it is ending it's only natural for a decline, Netflix is the most expensive service @ $20, even though they have a huge selection sometimes more isn't better, people are cutting back and non essential things like entertainment are the first to go, we are heading into a recession with high inflation so unreasonably high PE ratios that everyone was ok ignoring are no longer ignore considering the macro economics.
 
it's $20 now?!

I'm not saying that's an unreasonable price, but I remember when it was about half that, or maybe $12

wait a minute - $20 is only for 4K and a couple extra simultaneous screens. $15.50 for HD and 2 screens. $10 for SD and 1 screen
 
The recession is unavoidable following the reckless monetary expansion of Central banks and a similarly reckless fiscal spending by the various G-20 governments during the two Covid years. The most likely result is the stagflation, similar to the late 1970's.

PS. In some nations, the Central Banks are under a direct control of their elected officials; in some, there's a modicum of independence .... which was promptly addressed by Richard Nixon in his comments to Arthur Burns back in the early 1970's.
 
I disagree. I think overestimulating the economy played a part, but it's obvious that the lion's share of inflationary pressure comes from supply chain issues leading to price increases (and now the massive spike in fuel costs due to sanctioning Russia have raised the price of just about everything.) Couple that with low unemployment and the attendant upward wage pressure. We had massive stimulus during the Great recession but low inflation. The stimulus by itself we could have weathered, and it's not guaranteed that there will be a recession
 
Apparently, Netflix is beginning to lay people off. The first wave is from heir Tudum division. Which is, I guess, the BTS for the fans. But it doesn't look good.
 
The inflationary pressure is absolutely from an almost comical devaluation of the currency. Trillions literally printed and immediately pissed into the wind to save the world from [SELF CENSORED] and enrich [SO HARD TO SELF CENSOR]. The supply chain problems were and are caused by waves of anti-productivity safetyism policies here and abroad, and just drive it higher. The US was largely self-sufficient on energy not so terribly long ago, and the energy price climb began waaaaay before February.

The pair o' pennies that nobody asked for:

Streaming has had it coming. Anecdotally, we cancelled Netflix promptly in March 2020... A) I didn't know when my next paycheck would be, and B) I didn't want to fall into the trap of binge watching my life away, devoid of work. Have to say I personally developed a lot, corrected a lot with my family and marriage, spent hours watching every educational resource I could get my rippin' 3mb DSL to stream, and ultimately attracted a couple clients that quickly leapfrogged into my top ranks within a few months. Was invited to shoot at the White House (3x), started doing more travel work than ever, and FINALLY found an eager market for those Skype remote interview packages I'd been fruitlessly selling for six years :D . I don't know that my skillset would have developed to the same level binge watching Netflix's latest hot "Terrible People Being A-Holes To One Another" series. It was a "business expense" to waste hours of my life watching movies I'd never be invited to make or garbage I'd never want to make. By the time my income had stabilized and Netflix started pushing the kiddie porn, re-upping already wasn't even a question. Glad it's gone. Not entertaining any of its competitors.

Segue into the next point... there's a huge proportion of the populace for whom watching salacious crap and people being generally awful just isn't appealing. Few streamers are actively pursuing that demographic, it seems... perhaps there are some examples, but they get lost in the morass of bottom-feeding and propaganda.

Now a wee return to the career development... I've made way too many mistakes in my career development to make any suggestions on career development that anyone in their right mind should care about (I'm a freelance DP, for cripes sake)... but for whatever it's worth, the old addage is "do what you love, and the money will come." Well, maybe it's not what you LOVE... but what you're really good at and care enough about the material to do far better than they're expecting. When you give a chit, it shows, and jobs and rates will climb from there. Running a rote formula like I'd been doing for nearly five years of stagnation prior to 2020 did nobody any favors. Had life not delivered that gigantic globalist-engineered kick to the jimmies, I'd probably still have the same middling-to-low client base as before. "Good enough" can be downright dangerous to your career.
 
what is 'the industry' Im guessing most here are not on prime time drama.

I think, in no order..

people like screens and video... the market for motion content is huuuuge and growing - the means loads of work for experienced content creators

tech is great. any one can shoot good content with a phone.. only ideas have value not the kit really - this mean no work for experienced content creators

'what is watchable' is very 'under threat' or at least content is accepted by viewers doesnt need an esablisher, no jump cuts, some mids and cus - content can be created by the inexperienced - no work for experienced content creators

so 'our skill' of aquiring a 'cuttable set' (with clean audio and wildtrack) is less rated - this is a threat to traditional content makes ('us dvxusers')

so 'we' really need to be looking at what we offer and seeing where it fits in a world where you will not get fired for not getting enough noddies, non synch wides or wildtrack.
 
mcbob said:
The inflationary pressure is absolutely from an almost comical devaluation of the currency. Trillions literally printed and immediately pissed into the wind to save the world from [SELF CENSORED] and enrich [SO HARD TO SELF CENSOR]. The supply chain problems were and are caused by waves of anti-productivity safetyism policies here and abroad, and just drive it higher. The US was largely self-sufficient on energy not so terribly long ago, and the energy price climb began waaaaay before February.
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As i understand it, the US borrows money (rather than printing it) in order to spend more than it collects in taxes. Any extra money that it prints is only loaned out and will disappear into nothingness once it's repaid (thus dubbed the "monetary supply"). The inflationary pressure from stimulus comes from over-juicing demand rather than devaluing the currency. I agree about the supply chain issues. The US is still producing more energy than it consumes. But energy is a global market and it's not like Americans will sell to other Americans at a discount. If the price goes up elsewhere, it will go up here.

I agree about investing in your skill set and expanding your clientele
 
morgan_moore said:
so 'we' really need to be looking at what we offer and seeing where it fits in a world where you will not get fired for not getting enough noddies, non synch wides or wildtrack.
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I think that it pays to evaluate the goals of whatever you're making and to think liberally about how to meet those goals. The audience and the purpose of each film are radically different. You shouldn't use the same style for everything. And film style evolves over time. We want to be part of that evolution and to drive things forward.

That means different things in different contexts. People watch narrative films differently than they used to. Often, their attention is divided. Clearly, the pacing and tempo continue to accelerate.

Everything I make for social media channels lives in an environment influenced by the visual language of TikTok. When viewers are scrolling through, they need to grasp and be interested by the first frame of the video or they will pass right by. But if it's a specialized audience you're targeting, they may be willing to watch an hour of material on their subject of interest after you've gotten their attention.

so, coming back to what Sam was saying - I think that we should shed our traditional ideas about industry standards or coverage patterns. Some of those continue to hold, or at least hold at certain times. All of it is useful to consider and none of it should be reflexively thrown out. But we have to keep up with audiences whose visual language and expectations are evolving
 
ahalpert said:
As i understand it, the US borrows money (rather than printing it) in order to spend more than it collects in taxes. Any extra money that it prints is only loaned out and will disappear into nothingness once it's repaid (thus dubbed the "monetary supply"). The inflationary pressure from stimulus comes from over-juicing demand rather than devaluing the currency.
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Uh, no. The Fed "prints" money to cover up the US federal budget deficits and to bail out various industries at various times. Technically, it doesn't really "print" anymore; it just creates money out of thin air on its servers by pushing the "enter" button. Then the Bureau of Labor and Statistics falsifies the Consumer Price Index in order to make itself appear slightly less criminal.

And "energy" can be manufactured. It's just the current administration tries to bail out the US solar panel manufacturers rather than those making something out of solar panels (aka solar farms). The US has enough territory - vast empty desert spaces in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas - to supply itself with energy almost infinitely.
 
DLD said:
Uh, no. The Fed "prints" money to cover up the US federal budget deficits and to bail out various industries at various times. Technically, it doesn't really "print" anymore; it just creates money out of thin air on its servers by pushing the "enter" button. Then the Bureau of Labor and Statistics falsifies the Consumer Price Index in order to make itself appear slightly less criminal.

And "energy" can be manufactured. It's just the current administration tries to bail out the US solar panel manufacturers rather than those making something out of solar panels (aka solar farms). The US has enough territory - vast empty desert spaces in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas - to supply itself with energy almost infinitely.
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People worry about the Fed printing money because they don't understand that the Fed can "unprint" it just as quickly.

The Fed uses contractionary monetary policy to dry up liquidity. This has the same effect as taking money out of circulation.

The Fed raises the fed funds rate to reduce the amount of capital in the money supply. Banks have less money to lend when this happens. They have to pay each other more to keep funds in the overnight account in order to fulfill the Fed's reserve requirement.5 Raising the fed funds rate causes all interest rates to increase.

This practice makes it more expensive to borrow for business expansion, automobiles, and homes. It slows economic growth, drying up the demand that drives inflation.

The Fed can also reverse the effects of quantitative easing (QE). It does this by selling Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to its banks. The Fed removes dollars from the banks' balance sheets and replaces them with these securities.7

What happens to the dollars? They vanish. In other words, they go back into thin air, where the Fed got them in the first place.
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https://www.thebalance.com/is-the-f...ney-3305842#toc-the-fed-can-unprint-money-too

"The United States' energy production reached an estimated 101.02 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2021, while consumption amounted to approximately 97 Btu."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/192579/us-energy-consumption-and-production/

Regardless of how much energy we could potentially produce, we are definitely producing more than we consume
 
ahalpert said:
I agree about investing in your skill set and expanding your clientele
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Maybe not necessarily /expanding/ clientele... rather focusing on the clients I actually wanted to work for and help, vs. those from whom I was just harvesting a check.

Still plenty of the latter, but hoping that'll lessen over time and development.



ahalpert said:
Everything I make for social media channels lives in an environment influenced by the visual language of TikTok. When viewers are scrolling through, they need to grasp and be interested by the first frame of the video or they will pass right by. But if it's a specialized audience you're targeting, they may be willing to watch an hour of material on their subject of interest after you've gotten their attention.

so, coming back to what Sam was saying - I think that we should shed our traditional ideas about industry standards or coverage patterns. Some of those continue to hold, or at least hold at certain times. All of it is useful to consider and none of it should be reflexively thrown out. But we have to keep up with audiences whose visual language and expectations are evolving
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...an alternate way of approaching this old screw, in a way that has vexed artists for millennia; I'm not a goldfish. I detest making material for a goldfish-level audience. I don't get why anybody caters to audiences with short attention spans hoping to be remembered and valued, PRECISELY when the customer profile shows they don't remember or value anything.

Fuddyduddery aside... this is an artform, and somewhere, someone will be intrigued by a person bringing their own style that bucks the current trendy formula. Every podcast success formula is all about 15-20 minutes multiple times a week... I occasionally listen in to a few folks running that formula... yet my absolute won't-miss favorites clock in for hours at a stretch and are wildly successful... hell, Dan Carlin podcasts show up every couple months and take a full workday to hear and absorb.

They're successful because they're not FABs. They're authentic. Their style appeals to a certain audience. They aren't trying to appeal to everyone (thus appealing to nobody).

If there's any mega-trend, it is perhaps this growing bifurcation between a thought-challenged mass of instagram-faced FABs living on diets of pure BS and avocado, and grounded personalities of often questionable agreeability or appeal that are, for whatever value, honest and true to something beyond the 'current thing.' Or more likely that's always been there, the light and the dark, the Jerry Springer and the Bob Ross.

Again... I'm not first-world rich, so all might best disregard my blather, but there's the thoughts anyway.
 
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The Fed can stop printing but there is always a lag (both coming and going) plus the accumulated malinvestments. And those take a long time to clear.
 
mcbob said:
Maybe not necessarily /expanding/ clientele... rather focusing on the clients I actually wanted to work for and help, vs. those from whom I was just harvesting a check.
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Right but I feel like finding clients I actually want to work for happens through a filtering process where I take on new clients and then learn which ones suck and which ones are great. How pleasant they are to work with is probably even more important than what they're working on. So, I focus on expanding my clientele in order to choose which ones to keep.

...an alternate way of approaching this old screw, in a way that has vexed artists for millennia; I'm not a goldfish. I detest making material for a goldfish-level audience. I don't get why anybody caters to audiences with short attention spans hoping to be remembered and valued, PRECISELY when the customer profile shows they don't remember or value anything...

They're successful because they're not FABs. They're authentic. Their style appeals to a certain audience. They aren't trying to appeal to everyone (thus appealing to nobody).
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What's a FAB? Technically, I think goldfish are known for having short memories rather than short attention spans, but your point is well-taken.

We're all goldfish-esque compared to audiences of yesteryear. Papert made a point about how comedies have become more fast-paced. It's definitely true. My wife and I were recently watching Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life from 1991 and it felt very slow. We still got some kicks from it. Of course, any scripted drama is going to have a longer and more complex structure than any TikTok video.

And even though I'm pretty darn happy with almost all my clients right now, I don't have the luxury of choice of what to make for them. When they zig, I zig. When they zag, I zag. And I'd wager that most freelancers who service a clientele have to make some things they dislike on occasion either because they need the money from that specific project or because they need to maintain the client relationship.

But I will add that I've been telling myself for nearly a decade that I should improve my motion graphics skills because it could be profitable. I still haven't done so, and as a result I don't get asked to do it much. I'm probably leaving money on the table, but it would be my least favorite money to make.

I agree that if you build it, they will come - in the sense that the skills and styles you develop will lead to more and better-paying of that type of work. But of course there has to be a demand for it (even if the customer doesn't know they want it until you show them).
 
The sitcoms were at a 3-jokes-per-minute pace a long time ago, probably since the James Brooks-Al Burns "Mary Tyler Moore Show" from the mid-late 70's. The Simpsons probably topped the list in the early 90's with 5-per because they added the visuals that a live action program could not.
 
DLD said:
The sitcoms were at a 3-jokes-per-minute pace a long time ago, probably since the James Brooks-Al Burns "Mary Tyler Moore Show" from the mid-late 70's. The Simpsons probably topped the list in the early 90's with 5-per because they added the visuals that a live action program could not.
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Arrested Development waa probably much snappier than that. When it was good. It's also about scene and shot length. I'm not too up to date with what's popular on TV right now, and even less so with what's playing on social media.
 
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