I QUIT…. Working for nothing.

[Scott Sheriff]

[Mark Suszko] “OTOH if I’m a pro myself, or had experience dealing with pros, would the hardware info there really be of much value? Could I use it as a shopping list to buy my own stuff to compete with you? I suppose it is a positive for netting clients, in the cases where you have specific file formats and you’re looking for someone already able to deal with those.”

It’s all a guessing game.
Go ahead and use it for a shopping list. It’s not like it’s proprietary. It’s not like we haven’t told a million people on the FCP forum how to fix their broken system, even though they are the competition.
Why list the plugins? I’m not shooting for the local ‘I need you to make me a video’ client. I’m looking for people that are already doing video, that might be interested in trying someone new. Some of these people have specific needs like EMA, that type of thing that they might have used before. And speaking of EMA, sure anyone can buy it. But wouldn’t you assume that someone that already has it on their system is fairly proficient at using it, as apposed to the person that was downloading it during a session and is learning it on their nickle?

Why list the hardware and interface sundries? Because I will let you come and use my system for self edit, and a some have come by to do some training. If you were in either position, wouldn’t you want to know what the set-up was? Also have had calls from producers in the past that wanted to know if I was doing this on a laptop, or had a ‘real’ edit system, and what platform I used. So if this scares away some folks that are looking for a final cut X editor to sit with them in a coffee shop and cut their video, oh well.
Another thought, I filled in for a Shake guy on vacation and when I got there they didn’t have a full size keyboard or a tablet on the system. Not having either is a real PIA with Shake, and I could have brought my own had I known. Having the hardware on the web page might have tipped me off. Seems like all my friends that have audio studios do very much the same thing. Maybe I learned that from them.

Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post Production

The Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair

[Scott Sheriff]

[Robert Fargo] “Didn’t mean to offend!”

I wasn’t offended.

[Robert Fargo] “Do you feel that web design is best left to pro’s or do you handle it “internally” much like what has been lamented in this thread re: video production?”

In my case I don’t feel I’m doing the same thing that I complain about. Here’s why.
I’m only doing it for myself. I’m not a zero experience web design guy trying to solicit web design clients or outside web design work. Just like these (amateur) independent film makers that are all DIY. I don’t care about that, they are not hurting rates. Not the same thing as noobs soliciting paid gigs when they have got no experience. They are hurting rates, and bringing standards down.
I also don’t go to professional web design forums and solicit advice from working web designers, while also competing for their clients, or even when I have problems doing it DIY.
I do pay for web design, but at a heavily discounted rate. My web host, like many, have templates and limited design and trouble shooting help as part of an expanded hosting web package which I pay extra for. But I am paying someone, something. And someone at my web host is getting paid to help people like me. This in some way may be hurting your rates, but I don’t see it as the same as if I were taking your web clients by doing web design for a tenth of the going rate.
In a way, this could be its own thread, as there seems to be a lot of nuance to this, and a bit gray at times.
But I’m done because F1 qualifying is on!

Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post Production

The Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair

[Bob O’hearn]

Whew! This thread had me reaching for the xanax. I laughed, I cried…

I get it! I’m seeing it! I feel it! It’s driving me crazy. (In a good way)

Time to re-invent myself once again.

As my dear mother once told me, “ a pat on the back is a good thing, as long as it’s low enough and hard enough”

Seriously, I have been wrestling with this situation for more than a year. I do mostly pharmaceutical corporate work, which is where I got my start about 15 years ago, while holding a position in sales and marketing for a large company.

Five years later I have taken the “video production” out of my company name and now use my skill set to focus on digital media strategy. On line video strategy is what I’m offering now along with the tools I have developed over the years.

Most of the in-house folks I deal with on a daily basis do not get the impact a well produced on line video can have.

With the economy the way it is and the access issues pharmaceutical sales people are having globally, I feel the perfect storm is looming.

I feel in five years my dog will be able to edit and the perceived value of what I’m doing now will continue to diminish, sooo…. off to the races.

All the best,

Bob O’Hearn

[Andy Jackson]

So after reading through all the replies I have definitely come to the conclusion that the video industry is dead.

There is no way of making a full time professional career anymore.

Doing it part time or free seems the way its going.

Looking on craigslist, peopleperhour and mandys.com proves there is no money or future prospects.

The internet, cheap cameras, computers, software free labour have completely destroyed the profession.

[Mark Suszko]

Destroyed it as we knew it, yes.

That doesn’t mean it’s replaced by a complete void, though. Plenty of Graphic Artists and printing specialists experienced this ahead of us, back in the 80’s. They quit, or they adapted, and some survived.

You may not want to be a part of the new paradigm, and that’s okay. Its not for everybody.

I would suggest, if you can’t find clients you like, why not become your OWN client? That is, instead of waiting to find people that want to pay you to execute their stuff, hire yourself and produce your own original content, go out and market that. Make something you believe in, that you’re proud of, that fills a need.

This is one of my own end strategies. Whenever I retire, I have some plans to partner with my artist wife to create a series of animated children’s stories, illustrating folk tales from the old country. I’ll also make some animated space operas, the way I want to make them. Then I’m going to niche market the heck out of those online, and no, it won’t make me a millionaire, but it should bring in a little extra to go with my pension, and perhaps attract a few pieces of work on commission.
Primarily, I’ll be doing it for love first and money second. If you do stuff the other way around, it rarely achieves greatness.

[Andy Jackson]

Producing your own stuff when you are trying to pay your bills each month is not a viable option.

How do you suggest you pay for the marketing etc?

Its easy to say when you have a guaranteed income being a pension.

Lucky you for doing it for the love first and money second.

This is the same attitude all the newbies have got and look where its got us!

[Mark Suszko]

Well, Andy, not that you’re really interested in an answer, but I’m probably going to crowd source the marketing expenses for my series thru something like Kickstarter, or whatever the hot method is at that point in time. I’ll use samples of the finished work to gin up contributions. The Polish folk tales animations will probably sell fairly well in Chicago, which has more Polish people in it than all of Warsaw. I might also reach out to other large communities in Ohio and whatnot. And the market niche I’m exploiting is people not unlike myself; second and third-generation Americans who were casually aware of a cultural heritage but lost most of it when the grandparents died off. Now they want to pass some pieces of that heritage on to their kids, and they will look for easy ways to do this, like my videos.

The production costs will be negligible; I’m using the same cheap yet powerful hardware and software tools as anybody else can buy. The labor and creativity is the valuable part, working with my wife, who’s an awesome artist, and we’ve both had a fascination with animation all our lives.

By the time my product is ready to go, distribution will almost certainly all be virtual, so, little or no costs there. I will probably work a deal for some underwriter to cover the expenses in exchange for advertising, then we’ll sell copies at blow-out pricing so that nobody will bother trying to undercut the price thru piracy. I may also try it out on the festival circuit, more for a lark than anything.

So that’s my little fantasy of what I want to do when I grow up. We’ll see how it goes, but I can tell you this: the same alignment of events that you are cursing for upsetting the existing video production paradigms, is what is making my silly little animator dreams possible at the same time. To attempt what I’m going to attempt, back in the 80’s or 90’s, would have taken years and over a million bucks to achieve, if it could be done at all. So I can’t make good money shooting weddings any more, boo-boo – other new opportunities now present themselves.

I live relatively frugally. I have investments and a pension coming. It ought to be enough, along with occasional side jobs. Lucky for me, writing is even cheaper to perform than video is, and I plan to make more money writing in my retirement. I think I will survive.

I think your trouble right now Andy is that you’re not ready for change and you’re having more fun wallowing in self-pity and knocking down people’s suggestions than in planning your next moves. Its scary, unfamiliar territory. But consider the kids coming out of college today: experts say they can expect to change their careers – not jobs, mind you, but entire CAREERS – five times in their adult years. Five careers, each with a beginning, an arc of progression, reaching some high point, and a denouement. Only to pick themselves up and start fresh all over again in the next career. Medicine. Law enforcement. Jurisprudence. Consultant. Restauranteur, hell, I don’t know what their resume’s will look like.

I know they have to learn to keep learning, to be adaptable, to be a professional Human Being. That’s how you survive the next wave: you learn how to surf it, or you let it smother you.

[Andy Jackson]

The video business as a profession is dead in the water.

FINAL!!!!

[Tom Sefton]

Andy,

I think everyone here can feel your pain. However, I don’t believe that the industry is dead or dying. It is changing, and always will change. Unfortunately there are plenty of clients out there that will look around for the cheapest producer and use them = why do you want them as your client? They will waste your time, waste your energy, ruin your business and will never appreciate what you are doing. Don’t give them another thought.

Bob made a wonderful and very eloquent point. I’ll try and put it another way – why chase after a lowballing clown for a job? Why waste your valuable, precious and experienced time?

I know it is easy to say, but chase the clients who pay top dollar. Don’t offer to do it for less, offer to do it twice as well, faster, with less hassle, better results and more add ons. I’ve been saying for years that people who chase a client by offering to be vastly cheaper are shooting themselves in the foot. The client will always associate you with cheap, not good, and you will never get your prices up once you have offered to do it for £250. Go after the big clients, go after the guys who know video/motion graphics/media is worthwhile. Invest all of your energy and time in locating someone who spends FORTUNES on video and chase them until you collapse or win them over.

[Walter Soyka]

[Andy jackson] “So after reading through all the replies I have definitely come to the conclusion that the video industry is dead. There is no way of making a full time professional career anymore.”

That’s a strange conclusion to draw, since media consumption is higher than ever and a number of the posters here are full-time video professionals.

[Andy jackson] “Looking on craigslist, peopleperhour and mandys.com proves there is no money or future prospects.”

You are looking at all the places people look for CHEAP labor, and basing your judgment of the state of the industry on that alone. Look elsewhere. Not all clients value low cost above all else. When you play the game “Who Can Be Cheapest,” even the winners lose.

I’m not sure where in the UK you are, but the BBC are airing 2500 hours of Olympic coverage in the next couple weeks. Did they crew on Craig’s List?

[Andy jackson] “The internet, cheap cameras, computers, software free labour have completely destroyed the profession.”

What industry isn’t affected by lower labor costs and faster shipping/communication? It’s not just manufacturing — you can outsource legal and medical opinions, too. The camera operator has the same protection here that a tradesman does — you have to physically be at the shoot.

That said, the Internet need not only benefit your competition. You can use it to expand your market, too.

The industry is certainly changing, but it’s not dead yet. It’s not even dying.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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