Jul 14 2008
Video: from bespoke to off-the-peg
Tampa Bay: where your dreams can come true, you can get the respect you deserve:
Each time you send me a video story that either makes it on the news or on our web site, Tampa Bay’s 10 will pay you TWENTY DOLLARS!
A couple of month’s back I blogged the changing skillsets required for video producers: “As video itself becomes a commodity, knowing where to put it becomes the marketable talent”.
Today The Guardian takes up the theme at the other end of the spectrum:
We want your thoughts for a session at next month’s Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, which will examine the rise of the marketing executive, and ask whether TV’s powerbase is shifting from programme makers to branding experts.
Clearly the notion that the proliferation of point and shoot video cameras means that “any idiot can produce successful video” is, at best, somewhat optimistic. Wishful thinking - like imagining having a machine gun at the Battle of Hastings.
But the changing techscape does mean that mastery of the technical aspects of camera operation is no longer a guaranteed ticket to ride:
Producing successful video for any platform involves a slew of different skills, talents, attitudes. Historically these roles have been assumed by a varying number of professionals. Over recent years more affordable technology has combined roles - first camera, sound and light were merged, then camera & edit, now camera > edit> distribution.
But what happened to the producer? the researchers? the PR wallahs? the marketing department?
Well - in many instances the cameraman is now taking on those roles. Video production is moving from a bespoke to an “off the shelf” business model, and as it does the $$$ move from the techies to the suits and the laptop jockeys. But look closely and the jockey is wearing a suit, designer glasses, and carrying a camera: Idiots need not apply, unless you live in Tampa Bay.
I’m reminded of something Michael Rosenblum said during the Travel Channel Academy I attended last summer. Roughly paraphrased, it went something like this:
It costs $x00,000 to produce a one-hour show like [some Travel Channel show].
So what if you, or you and couple of friends, are able to produce a 30-minute travel show and deliver it for distribution on all the Travel Channel platforms? What fee would you ask for that 30 minutes of video? Think about how long it would take to produce it, what it would cost you.
Would you do it for $50,000?
Would you do it for … $10,000?
(I surely would NOT do it for $20!!!)
Well of course this is what capitalism and a free market are all about. What does a half hour of quality TV cost? We’re all about to find out.