Why Did i Choose video as a business

[firehawk]

Want to make a small fortune in video production? Simple - Start with a large fortune.

Where I'm at I've noticed a big influx of newcomers for the last decade approx. There are two longer term "real" production houses that produce high(er) - end national content and every year there are a couple dozen other listings, which pop up and fade away.
I hear comments like the janitor one a lot when I'm out on a shoot. "I'm thinking (or going) to start my own production business." I used to see it a lot when I worked for NBC. Camera ops thought all they needed was a camera and computer and to just throw in commercial music like they did at the station, not having a clue what was really involved.
Every time I hear someone say that I just think, "Good luck. You better have deep pockets."

I've found that even though we don't have as good of cameras or are as skilled as the big boys here, we are better at customer service, better writers and more creative than they are. That seems to help. We don't have RED cameras, but we have many cameras, a good aresenal of gear and lots of post production abilities and that also seems to help. We can always do the work cheaper than they can, but that endless line of newcomers with a cheap camera, cheap computer and pirated software can do work cheaper than all of us. Yet those guys are limited in what they can do and usually lacking in the customer service and sales department.
So, to me it seems we try to fit in the mid area, striving to offer comparable products as the big guys, while having the smallest guys constantly trying to chew on our legs.
I'd say it's a tough field. Sure seemed a lot different about a decade or so ago. I wonder if that's how it is across the USA.

 

[sadude]

Where I'm at I've noticed a big influx of newcomers for the last decade approx. There are two longer term "real" production houses that produce high(er) - end national content and every year there are a couple dozen other listings, which pop up and fade away.
I hear comments like the janitor one a lot when I'm out on a shoot. "I'm thinking (or going) to start my own production business." I used to see it a lot when I worked for NBC. Camera ops thought all they needed was a camera and computer and to just throw in commercial music like they did at the station, not having a clue what was really involved.
Every time I hear someone say that I just think, "Good luck. You better have deep pockets."

I've found that even though we don't have as good of cameras or are as skilled as the big boys here, we are better at customer service, better writers and more creative than they are. That seems to help. We don't have RED cameras, but we have many cameras, a good aresenal of gear and lots of post production abilities and that also seems to help. We can always do the work cheaper than they can, but that endless line of newcomers with a cheap camera, cheap computer and pirated software can do work cheaper than all of us. Yet those guys are limited in what they can do and usually lacking in the customer service and sales department.
So, to me it seems we try to fit in the mid area, striving to offer comparable products as the big guys, while having the smallest guys constantly trying to chew on our legs.
I'd say it's a tough field. Sure seemed a lot different about a decade or so ago. I wonder if that's how it is across the USA.

You seem to be going into the USP of your business and what separates you from the rest. I find that type of thinking doesn't work down here because nobody actually knows what a video production company is. Therefore separating my USP from the competition is irrelevant, i spend more time just trying to sell the concept of videos for businesses and trying to punt the benefits.

 

[filmmakinglifestyle]

Today i tried to give a video "FOR FREE" in exchange for the guy keeping it on his website, the thinking being that allot of his customers find him through the web and his customers are also my type of customers as he is in the signage industry.

After two hours of filming he starts getting all paranoid and telling me that video doesn't help sell business and he thought it would just take half an hour or so.

The reason the guy started acting nutty is because you were working for free. When you work for free, you denigrate the value of your work. People don't respect that which they don't value.

When you charge high prices, people respect you.

cold calling/warm calling and networking does not work. The only work i really get is through the website but it seems everyone is competing against my website now.

There are many more advertising methods. People "competing against your website" is natural. This is capitalism. Produce great work and have an awesome marketing strategy and you will crush that competition.

 

[cyclone]

One of the biggest problems is that clients really don't know what good work is. They used to rely on a few people that they trusted in the production world and the bigger clients trusted their agencies, but that has all changed. Agencies are being squeezed out of the business because clients think they can write and produce their own ads just as well - and they believe this (and don't want to pay the markup). They don't recognize good work (and their spouse is a "writer" and their son , as has already been mentioned, has a DSLR and an editing program). Most clients think great production is just getting it in focus with everything in the scene flatly lit. And it used to be that we would NEVER send out the audio mix as an MP3. Now that's all that gets produced these days.

 

[digifruitella]

One of the biggest problems is that clients really don't know what good work is. They used to rely on a few people that they trusted in the production world and the bigger clients trusted their agencies, but that has all changed. Agencies are being squeezed out of the business because clients think they can write and produce their own ads just as well - and they believe this (and don't want to pay the markup). They don't recognize good work (and their spouse is a "writer" and their son , as has already been mentioned, has a DSLR and an editing program). Most clients think great production is just getting it in focus with everything in the scene flatly lit. And it used to be that we would NEVER send out the audio mix as an MP3. Now that's all that gets produced these days.

This sounds like where I work at to a T... and what you say about clients not knowing what good work is - truism I'd say in certain places. The worst part of it is, if you know better and you try to give advice on how to do things better or what not to do - it may largely go unnoticed or simply ignored because "this is not the type of work we do" or variations of that, and then they wonder why their business / clientele is not growing.

 

[cyclone]

then they wonder why their business / clientele is not growing.

Clients have forgotten what protecting their Brand means.

 

[Josh Bass]

Amen to all of it.

I have had shoots where client sends a video of a previous piece they've done that they want me to match, and all I see is bad lighting, sometimes no lighting, handheld camera, etc. Sure, I CAN match it, but do I want to? Do I want to try to outdo the older video? If I'm getting paid the same either way does it matter? Willi better lighting/compositions/etc. be noticed/appreciated?