What would you like DVXUser to be in the future?

Noel Evans

Noel Evans

Mod V3 New and Improved
Staff member
This is a little premature on my part, however as a Mod, I am very interested in what Users actually want. Where would you like this site to sit in terms of helping you into the future? Feel free to add your thoughts in as little or as many words as you'd like.

I'll put up my thoughts to begin with which comes from another discussion. It's quite simple, but changes the approach somewhat.

- Move "Filmmaking" to be the primary purpose of this site. Perhaps add some sub sections that include the updated world we live in. Things like - Creating for Social and Social Media Marketing (for your film - for your business).

- Keep and update camera related forums, however lower them to a secondary component of the site.

With the many camera manufacturers all producing usable options these days, it's my feeling this is now a secondary to the actual art of creating. I also firmly believe that if we shifted focus here it would put everyone down the same path as people moving in the same direction, where the camera they use is far less important (and a less divisive part of the discussion) than what they're actually trying to achieve.

When this site first started it was a bunch of users all using the same camera. Camera arguments therefor didn't exist. It was essentially a bunch of people using the same tool and that brought with it a camaraderie. Then along came other 24P options, followed by HD and then DSLR and the rest is history.

So please go ahead and put your thoughts down. I am looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts.
 
I think this should remain a technical forum. If you lose that identity you will lose all your membership and not gain new followers. Perhaps cameras no longer need to be so primary a focus, as there are other parts of this forum for other filmmaking tech. But there are two types of production crew -- those who work in groups of people where the areas of work are divided and those who work primarily as jack-of-all-trades, where they touch all technical aspects of production. If you move away from specialized camera department focus, you begin to lose the participation of the people who are involved in larger crew work and by definition higher-level production. This in fact has already occurred. Continue in this path at your peril, because it will lead to the path of "democratization via YouTube" and this forum will either be overrun by amateurs or simply be rendered into insignificance because there are lots of places for people exclusively in such a space to go instead of here.

One of the great values DVXUSER has had in the past and should attempt to rebuild (in my humble opinion) is a greater mix of the high and low. There is absolutely nothing to look down on for the person in a smaller market who has a van full of gear that encompasses camera, audio, lighting & grip, and who works regionally shooting commercials, interviews, and corporate work. THat's great and it can be both fulfilling and financially rewarding. But there's a lot to learn and value from people who work with a crew of 20 or more. These people use more specialized tools and have more specialized knowledge because they generally have deeper access to a variety of tools both old and cutting edge. If the forum continues down the democratization path then the more specialized people will simply leave along with their knowledge and experience. It's not "better" just different. Don't cut off that knowledgebase.
 
I should add. There are no right or wrong responses here. Just an open list to put your thoughts down. The more people who express their thoughts the better.
 
I agree with Mitch. Some of the other places on the net that attempt to appeal to the “filmmaker” seem inundated with amateurs that can’t even ask questions in an understandable manner, because of their almost complete lack of even basic knowledge, despite it being more readily available and easily accessible than at any other point in history. Some of the ones I’ve seen would be the equivalent of someone going on an auto mechanics forum and not even knowing what a wrench was.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not against helping educate people or trying to be “elitist”, but a person should have at least some basic knowledge of things in a field they’re interested in and trying to participate in.
 
IDK but I think about 1% of people on this forum are making films. The rest either work in video production (corporate) or like talking about tech specs of new equipment.

I don't see how you can shift the focus unless enough new forum members sign up to discuss filmmaking and become the majority of the site, or enough of the current members are happy to change directions.

In the past, sharing information about techniques etc. was like you were being let in on a secret. But the work itself was still the most important aspect of it all. Now it seems like BTS is more valued than the work itself. People just want to find out the technical information so they can 1:1 copy it on their upcoming shoot and take credit for it. This is a huge difference compared to truly being interested in how something was achieved.

Hardly anyone shares examples of work anymore either!
 
People don't share work or tests because rather than being appreciative of the effort, contributors are picked apart and told how they did it wrong; especially tests. The best example being the Zacuto shootout, which was a big hit with everyone until the cameras were revealed. Zacuto went from hero to zero in a matter of moments. It was disgusting.

If someone does a lens test, invariably most people respond with "You did your test all wrong" or "Your test is invalid". Who needs that?

Everyone is a critic now.
 
Noel Evans said:
When this site first started it was a bunch of users all using the same camera. Camera arguments therefor didn't exist. It was essentially a bunch of people using the same tool and that brought with it a camaraderie.
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I appreciate the history. I wasn't around much in the nascent years. But that makes sense.

I'm glad that the site has survived even though the market has changed. I think most agree that cameras are good enough --- not just good enough but swell! (I'm still disappointed by the lack of global shutter.)

I can only speak for my own taste. I am not going to try to second-guess the crowd.

1. The threads specific to a make and model are a snorefest. I don't even click into them. Highly technical comparisons of models are also tedious.

2. Threads about movies and art are the most fun for me. Also threads about technique (for example, lighting).

---

Having said all that, I will get technical about the forum structure itself (although I'm pretty sure it is unimplementable).

1. The subforum structure is constrictive. There are just too many of them. A better organization technique would be tagging. Basically have no subforums at all. You just post!

2. An advantage of tagging is that your post could have more than one tag (but with subforums, a post can only exist in one. Subforums are basically the same thing as folders. Anyone who valiantly tried to invent a useful folder structure for their email back in the day hopefully realized it had the same problem, and when Gmail came along and just gave you awesome search, I realized that is what I actually wanted.)

2. Tagging itself should hardly be necessary, if there was forum software with really good search. After all, "tags" are just key words. And the key words of your post already exist in the body thereof. This is how Google works. (By the way, when I want to find something, I don't use DVXUser's own search. I use Google's domain-specific search to search only dvxuser.com. It works about a zillion times better. Also Google has no archaic "please wait 30 seconds between searches because we party like it's 1999.")

3. I guess the forum would have to bring order to the surface, either through manually added tags or a more organic key-word analysis --- so that when you come to the home page you have a list of threads to read, sorted in some fashion.

4. Although honestly I just click New Posts and scroll. There aren't too many per day. I have a feeling this is the habit of others.

In the absence of an awesome tagging and search platform (I know, we just moved), radically pruning the number of subforums, down to just a handful of broad categories, would get you 80% there with 20% of the effort. Do we really need a forum for camera XYZ123, if people can just put that in the Subject line?

5. I wish it had good chat. Maybe the new version has a decent implementation. I haven't tried it. Anyway, it would be nice to hash out certain things on a different channel than the main thread. DVXUser has always had something that it called "chat", but it worked much differently than chat in modern apps.

---

I don't want to complain too much. For what it is, DVXUser is decent. I have enjoyed it over the years a great deal --- at certain periods, when I am in the mood and at the same time someone posts something interesting. These two things don't always line up, and my participation ebbs and flows.
 
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I disagree about eliminating subforums for certain cameras. People buy (or are considering buying) specific cameras and wish to discuss how certain features work. My guess is most new members joining DVXuser arrive because they find a forum specifically discussing the camera they are interested in.
 
Run&Gun said:
Some of the ones I’ve seen would be the equivalent of someone going on an auto mechanics forum and not even knowing what a wrench was...
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On old AOL WWII History forums, there was a folder about tanks. There, after several months of participating in discussions, a frequent poster asks, "What is a turret?"

In any case, on a forum such as this, there is enough room for both on-topic and off-topic discussions. I think folders/subdivisions are beneficial. Tagging key words helps too.
 
DVX, at least as long as I’ve been here over the last seven years, has been a catch-all, general forum that covers everything. You can find cameras, audio, lighting, those that do corporate, broadcast/network TV, doc, and even true movie/filmmakers working at the highest levels.

I understand and appreciate why Noel is reaching out and looking for feedback and direction/guidance, because the site is not “what it used to be”. But I’m not sure what you would really change, especially focus wise without fundamentally changing DVXUser(outside of the design and technical/interface issues that we’ve complained about that are baked in to the new software that we’re unfortunately stuck with).

None of the forums/sites are perfect. Besides here, I frequent REDUser which is a mixed bag of crap with a handful of true professionals and a whole lot of sycophantic rude bro’s who think they’re “it”, because they have a RED. JWS is obviously good for sound, but a lot of the guys there are mostly doing narrative type work, so some of them can get dismissive if anyone starts talking about doing something outside of the way that they work. And I’ve started frequenting some of the subs on Reddit and it’s mostly amateurs and really low-end guys that either have no clue what they’re talking about or the guys that think everything has to be done like it is on a narrative set or commercial. Again, there are some professionals there, but the majority is just noise.

To me, DVX is kind of the last bastion for the real world, working person or knowledgeable amateur. And I’d love to see a revitalization in the site, but I really don’t know how we go about it, because I generally like what is here. We just don’t have the participation that we used to.
 
Paul F said:
People don't share work or tests because rather than being appreciative of the effort, contributors are picked apart and told how they did it wrong; especially tests. The best example being the Zacuto shootout, which was a big hit with everyone until the cameras were revealed. Zacuto went from hero to zero in a matter of moments. It was disgusting.

If someone does a lens test, invariably most people respond with "You did your test all wrong" or "Your test is invalid". Who needs that?

Everyone is a critic now.
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^^^ I couldn't agree more. But this is just sort of a culture/manners thing. A little tricky to enforce except perhaps by peer pressure.
 
ahalpert said:
That was how I located the thread in my search. :) But I suppose I should have linked to the beginning
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I thought your name was Ahal Pert.

Anyway, as I had mentioned before, the general video/audio/film making, etc., discussion has sort of moved off smaller forums onto YouTube. Just looking at the DP Review clips, I see many have 500 to 1,000 comments, on top of the 50,000+ views. And even that is getting split into smaller and smaller slices because the cost of entry into the YouTube world is so low. It is what it is in 2021.
 
Mitch Gross said:
I disagree about eliminating subforums for certain cameras. People buy (or are considering buying) specific cameras and wish to discuss how certain features work. My guess is most new members joining DVXuser arrive because they find a forum specifically discussing the camera they are interested in.
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This could be true. Although for me personally, I followed dvxuser for about 10 years since someone in college told me it was a thing. I never posted because I didn't feel I had enough authority to contribute. I mostly looked at the first few posts on a new thread when it got pushed to my Feedly blog congregator but didn't come back later to see if more people posted.

Then when covid hit, there were really useful threads about getting economic assistance and generally weathering the pandemic with your video business. Those were of great personal use. I started contributing and appreciated the camaraderie of people in similar situations with similar concerns.

So, for me, dvxuser presents a broader opportunity to commune with fellow camerapeople, both professionals and hobbyists. The cultural and political concerns are just as relevant as technical discussions.

I wouldn't eliminate camera-specific subforums but I see the forum itself as a diverse bazaar of info and discussion for people who like and use cameras
 
I don't think we have super control over who posts here and why. (Although kicking Brawley off was a huge mistake.) I think it's more like "if you build it, they will come."

It doesn't bother me that there are lots of threads I don't read because they don't apply to me. I don't see the need to shut down or discourage any types of activity.

I would maybe encourage people or make it clearer how how find the "New Posts" feature so that newbies can get in on current conversations. I think that browsing the subforums is not that fruitful unless you have specific info you're looking for. I see newbies or uncommon posters reply to threads that haven't been touched in years, and I assume that's how they got to them.

I think that Liam Hall had some interesting ideas in the Jumped the Shark thread about enhancing the professional networking opportunities of the site. That could get more people coming here..

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a list of people's current and past professional roles or hobbyist interests under their username so you instantly grasp where their knowledgebase is coming from. Not to discount it but to contextualize their working preferences with their working concerns. (Eg hobbyists can chase IQ without worrying as much about reliability. Big time TV DPs can chase the best results without worrying as much about budget.)
 
Keep them coming. Some great suggestions here. I second the thought that the site should focus on techniques as a primary topic.
 
Paul F said:
People don't share work or tests because rather than being appreciative of the effort, contributors are picked apart and told how they did it wrong; especially tests. The best example being the Zacuto shootout, which was a big hit with everyone until the cameras were revealed. Zacuto went from hero to zero in a matter of moments. It was disgusting.

If someone does a lens test, invariably most people respond with "You did your test all wrong" or "Your test is invalid". Who needs that?

Everyone is a critic now.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean but that's hardly something to get vexed about. It was, after all, primarily a marketing film and a very clever use of social media.

I don't share many tests these days, because I'm too lazy to do them properly and there is usually someone, like CVP or CML who do them far better, but years ago I used to have to shoot them for Kodak (you may remember them as a motion picture film manufacturer rather than a printer ink supplier) to accompany whatever product launch film I'd made. We did everything by the book but still got abuse from armchair DoPs. and wannabes. Oh, how we laughed...
 
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