Things are more moderner than before... bigger, and yet... smaller....

M

mcbob

Veteran
there's computers......


DVXUser Forum RULES!!!!!!!!!!!

[begin minor rant/whine/moan]
I don't know if there's a time in my 10-year video career that I've just felt more endumbified than now. Back then, I just rolled with the ol' PD150 and a Lowel 3-light tungsten kit and some mics, and I could please most customers (even though my skills ultrasucked). Shoot thing happening. Edit thing happening in a way that had a general narrative. Deliver. Everything I really needed could fit in one medium backpack. The hardest part of it all was getting the damned DVDs to write properly.

Now, the revolution of ensmallification has brought us all sorts of nifty, ultraportable ways to make moving pictures, such that everybody now demands them all in a "mobile" kit that the average Sherpa would look at and say "I might need a hand." Hybrid cameras (with at least 3 different lenses, and a recorder/monitor)... sliders (gotta have motion control now)... gimbals (did I mention that monitor?)... drones (don't forget the batteries, and lawyer on retainer). Even the former "safest" of investments, freaking LIGHTS, are now falling into the eternal churn of Moore's Law to become yet another "smaller-than-before-but-oh-needs-all-this-support-faff-to-work-right" rapidly depreciating investment that's utterly outclassed in performance within a year or two of purchase.

I'm better at building a screen composition than ever... but the sheer list of things some clients are now DEMANDING (without really knowing how or why they'll be used) is growing shockingly baffling and unaffordable. Yeah, if you want a gimbal and a mavic for your restaurant promo, it'll cost more than $300, sorry. If you're a doc crew rolling into town looking to source a Gemini, three Astras, a LiteMat, and a few Sputniks, I'll definitely need more than a verbal agreement and payment on your delayed schedule. I wish those were hyperbole, I really do.

Then you bring everything into post. Pick the right LUT and adjust it properly. Do some speed ramping. Make sure you remembered all the sound design lessons from that last tutorial. Motion graphics are so easy now, throw those in. Yeah, that shot is shaky and out of focus, but you can fix that with a plugin, so do that too. Then deliver in the right aspect... which TwitFace account did you need me to post this on? Don't forget to tag the damned thing right for our SEO, chump... how did you got this far in video without learning all about digital marketing?

I know, Adapt or Die. I'm trying. We aren't bankrupt yet, despite how hard the people that pay my bills are working at it.... just tired tonight.




...and for those uneducated in the tale of the Great Ones....

 
And it is not going to get any better.

To repeat an earlier post, Media Studies is seen as a cool career and every year in the UK universities and colleges dump out tens if thousands of graduates all chasing maybe a thousand jobs. Most ned up working in supermarkets or bars, (old joke - I 'm an actor/video shooter....great what restaurant do you work in).

Quite a few go the DSLR route living at home with mum and dad offering killer prices for video content.

It is a constant battle on price; it is a buyers market with clients demanding more toys for less money.
I think the buzzword for new cheaper camera kit is 'disruptive technology'.

Keep going old chap, I wish I could say it will get better but it will not. I know of large corporations training staff to shoot their own corporates on mobile phones to keep costs down, They seem happy enough with the quality.
It's not just camera ops thou; graphics software is becoming so good and easy to use. I can see people who are masters of Cinema 4D etc. looking worried as the latest packages hi the market.
 
It's been this way since the digital revolution. Eventually, most of what we do will be replaced by automation and intelligent assistants. There will still be some art to it but a lot of tedium of editing and even some parts of shooting are semi-automated now. Trying to make a living in this business is the real challenge. My only advice is branch out, find niches and learn how to do lots of other things that will give you money. Trying to say, "I am a videographer or producer" these days is a recipe for bankruptcy. Being able to say, I can shoot, light, do sound, write, produce and edit and truly being pretty good at all of them will still make you a living, barely. I just took a contract position as the head of a PR/Marketing team. It pays the bills and I am producing video while doing it but also writing white papers, overseeing a web portal and developing a website, doing media coaching, etc. See, you have to branch out to make money. Doing one job and doing it well and making money doing it, those days are almost over.
 
It used to be fun. Back in the day, when doing live TV, we had scads of people to handle so many aspects of the production; things like people cueing up 3/4" u-matic clips to a pre-roll of :10; engineers standing by in case something broke (which it did) and then trying to figure out how to work around it. Now things are so reliable, so automated, and so boring.

Smart people see the light and make changes. Others stick their head in the sand and hope it goes away, .... which it won't.

I read an interesting piece in Variety about the top tier Youtube vloggers and how many of then are giving up to take a rest. The grind of putting up new content each week for years on end has burned them out. Given the unprecedented volume of productions going on and the battle between networks and streamers to garner viewers, you can be sure a crash in production is coming. It's not possible to sustain this kind of production volume as the revenue just isn't there. Netflix and others are trying to buy the market and maybe they will. But that means many more will close down.
 
Vultch said:
And it is not going to get any better.

To repeat an earlier post, Media Studies is seen as a cool career and every year in the UK universities and colleges dump out tens if thousands of graduates all chasing maybe a thousand jobs. Most ned up working in supermarkets or bars, (old joke - I 'm an actor/video shooter....great what restaurant do you work in).

Quite a few go the DSLR route living at home with mum and dad offering killer prices for video content.

It is a constant battle on price; it is a buyers market with clients demanding more toys for less money.
I think the buzzword for new cheaper camera kit is 'disruptive technology'.

Keep going old chap, I wish I could say it will get better but it will not. I know of large corporations training staff to shoot their own corporates on mobile phones to keep costs down, They seem happy enough with the quality.
It's not just camera ops thou; graphics software is becoming so good and easy to use. I can see people who are masters of Cinema 4D etc. looking worried as the latest packages hi the market.
Click to expand...

We just did a shoot with the CEO of a national company this morning for a "green" video. Apparently almost all of the other companies involved were shooting(THEIR CEO'S) on iPhones/cell phones, but the person in-charge of this companies communications/video's said NO. We were two-man crew, F55 w/primes, prompter op and make-up. Thank God there are still some people and companies out there that care about a quality product.
 
Run&Gun said:
We just did a shoot with the CEO of a national company this morning for a "green" video. Apparently almost all of the other companies involved were shooting(THEIR CEO'S) on iPhones/cell phones, but the person in-charge of this companies communications/video's said NO. We were two-man crew, F55 w/primes, prompter op and make-up. Thank God there are still some people and companies out there that care about a quality product.
Click to expand...

Thats the problem, these kinds of clients are becoming the exception, not the rule.

It's funny, in this new corporate gig, they want me to do everything, lots of one man band. Ironically, not because of costs, they have tons of money. Because of tight security controls, we are patent pending on new technology and the owners of the company are extremely paranoid about corporate espionage. So if I am under three layers of NDA/NCA, I'm the safe contractor to be able to produce content for them. They don't want to bring anyone else, even under NDA as we are getting ready for patent filing. I just tell them I can do everything but setups and being mobile, it just takes a lot longer with just one person doing everything than having a proper small crew. Mostly interviews and lots of testing and facility b-roll. It's cool though, lots of creative autonomy for me in this gig, a rarity.
 
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Ahh...Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. I should have caught that quote sooner.
1989 I believe. A couple years before I got into video. Boy have things changed since then. Never could afford to shoot on film and I sure do not miss tape at all. Heck, back then just putting titles on the screen was a chore. And the dreaded generation loss. And interlaced.....
Still have a couple U-Matic 3/4 Sony decks that haven't been used in years along with DVC-PRO. My best DynAmorphous metal head S-VHS deck no longer plays right. The only tape format I ever have to deal with now is either VHS or Mini-DV, because consumers used those.

Like others said the state of our industry is gloomy. For about a decade there seems to be an endless barrage of people trying to do this and do it CHEAP.
So many people competing over the same little work out there and lots of clients now expecting good work for cheap. And as mentioned earlier, a growing number of clients who don't even want good work - just iPhone video, etc.
Used to be if you could do motion graphics and 3D modeling/animation then you had a big advantage, but now that has changed too. If you had multiple cameras you had an advantage but now they are so cheap others do too.
Could go on and on and we have discussed this before..

I wondered if maybe one day the hordes of people trying to do this would thin out since it's increasingly hard to make a living at this. People would give up and then things could get better. But it seems that for every one person who gives up video and does something else before they starve, there are 20 more newcomers to take their place and try the same thing. So the cycle continues, and all the while the clients have gotten used to lots of cheap work and expect big things for little pay.

It's interesting because I can now do things I never dreamed of being able to personally do 25 years ago thanks to great gear and software: Things that would cost over a million dollars not that long ago, yet now people want it for dirt cheap or free.

I probably don't have too many years left so I remind myself of the positive side of all this, too:
I love being able to shoot aerial. That was very difficult and costly until recently.
I love being able to use 3D to do things I could never afford to do practically.
I love 4K and 480fps.
I love action cams that you can mount on everything. This used to be a real pain.
I love solid state recording.
I love being able to draw directly on the screen.
I love motion graphics and digital photo editing. How neat is that?
I love helping a client brand and succeed with their business. I love helping them look better than their competitors.
I love being able to transfer files over internet instead of sending tapes and DVDs.
I love an internet forum where you can give and receive help rather than having to figure it out on your own.
I love capturing an event for a performer or bride that they will cherish all their days on earth.
I love being able to reach people around the world with media that can help save broken relationships, find answers to life's challenges and peace for their soul.

So yeah so much more can be done by the common man than before, and thus so many are doing it.

"Be excellent to each other.
and...
Party on dudes!"
 
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