Lighting kit … comments?

[John Sharaf]

Neil,

Believe me, I understand.

I thought long and hard before I replied to your query, as I knew a possible s**t storm was brewing, but I could not stop myself!

I would never suggest that you don’t do what is necessary for your own survival, but you must be aware of the road kill that is created, and then act responsibly, which it seem from your last entry that you are doing.

From the beginning we’ve all tried to do the best we can for our clients; often going beyond the call and agreeing to cut-throat deals, including extras at no charge, waiving overtime and meals, etc. The problem comes when the clients then expect all these things every time, and that is exactly what is happening now. The water’s been poisoned for everyone, and there’s no going back.

In the last year, I’ve seen my best and biggest network clients actually vaporize (poof). I’ve had others close their doors and disappear. Some just refuse to pay the bills. Others systematically book and cancel, and the ones that are left want to pay half or less of what they’ve paid before, and none of it has to do with me (or you) not doing a good job.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not just camera people or lighting technicians; it’s auto workers, telephone repair workers, longshoremen, factory workers of all kinds, people who work in warehouses, essentially anybody who has worked in an industry long enough to have advanced to a higher pay scale that now finds their livelihood threatened.

Obviously the technology has had an effect too, as you suggest. Why would anyone pay the legacy costs of production for a video that’s 2×3 inches in size on a stuttery internet presentation?

The true scope of unemployment is a well kept secret and the reality of under-employment even less known. I can tell by the number of calls and emails I get from others looking for work that times are bad and don’t seem to be improving.

When I see my peers at trade shows like the recent NAB and guys in regional markets tell me that they’ll be happy to work forty days this year, I have visions of the dust bowl in the 1930’s. I used to have some months in which I’d work forty days (by double dipping).

I can only hope that we’re in the bad side of a pendulum swing, and that eventually it’ll all come back, but my suspicion is that the cost cutting that’s been going on, in order to raise corporate profits, will not allow the type of spending that benefited film workers in the past.

When an entire section of the country is being wiped out by an uncontrolled oil spill that’s been going on for forty days, I am forced to wonder about everybody’s future. And who do they turn to to fix the spill? James Cameron. Please, give me a break. If our life is a movie, it’s turned into a disaster film!

See what I mean? I should have left well enough alone. Buy the Diva and aim it at your subject, it’ll be beautiful, and hope for the best!

I’m sorry,

JS

[Dennis Size]

John, I’ve known you and your work for what seems like a million years, and you have always been a true gentleman (over and above being a brilliant artist …..painting with light). You have nothing to apologize for.

Your thoughtful response, as always, was both eloquent and insightful. I admire you for that. I wisely chose to stay out of it! (Can you imagine MY response?)

As a sidenote, I did check out Mr Myers’ company’s website. They posted a recent project for GOOD MORNING AMERICA. You used to do work for them didn’t you?

Be well, and keep your chin up old friend.
DS

[Alan Lloyd]

One of the things that is often not understood in the race to the bottom that our society (not just economy – we live in a society, and the economy is only a part of that) is seeing is the loss of the knowledge of how to tell a story well, and not only in the technical sense. I would also add that we’re seeing a similar erosion of the knowledge of why it’s important to tell a story well. And I couple that with the loss of interest in well-told stories I see at large.

We’re also witnessing an over-enthusiastic response to “shiny things” in general.

Part of a generalized hollowing out of the world we inhabit, I suspect.

As Yogi once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be!”

[Neil Myers]

Just so that there are no misunderstandings, we did not produce the GMA segment … that was done by GMA in-house. We pitched the story on behalf of our client and got them to do the story. GMA then produced the segment.

Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS

[Neil Myers]

Funny you should say that, because “story-telling” is our core competency. That has not changed since we started our business 21 years ago. What has changed is the medium.

Taken in a much broader context I believe that is still true. In the 1800’s pitchmen and traveling salesmen created intricate stories. Their medium was a group of people gathered on a street corner, so they then implemented that story as a pitch.

The industrial revolution, combined with railroads lead to national distribution. National magazines sprung up and advertising (and PR by the way) was born. Advertisers crafted intricate stories, but now implemented those stories through printed advertisements.

Radio, and then TV changed the medium once again. Now people who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) read a magazine were including in the fray.

And now, the Internet is changing everything once again. People such as myself are still doing what people have been doing for the past 150 years — crafting stories. But our medium has changed, so the way we implement the story has as well.

The interesting part? The medium has come full circle. We’re now back to marketing to “communities”.

I am not as experienced or as talented as you guys when it comes to lighting, videography, sound, etc. That’s why I am here, trying to improve my craft. But I do feel pretty competent as a story-teller. That’s what I have done my whole career. Ultimately, that’s what my clients hire me to do.

If you are interested, here is an example of what we do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D0XMGVouuU

The budget for this video was $6,000. That included:

1. Script
2. Videography
3. Stock footage
4. 3D animation (we used a free-lancer for that)
5. 2D AE work (we did that)
6. Voice-over
7. Music
8. Editing and mastering

That budget is at the high-end of what clients in our industry pay for YouTube videos. But it is by no means a “large” budget. We had to be very efficient to get all of that done and still make a profit.

Feel free to critique the video … I am sure there are many things we could have done better. I am also happy to learn.

Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS

[John Sharaf]

Dennis,

Thanks for your encouragement. Yes my chin is up and my arms are swinging wildly!

I suppose the situation at ABC is at the root of my sensitivity on this subject. The fact is that hundreds if not thousands of lives have been adversely affected as a result of bean counters in control of profits at the expense of a proud organization made up of real people (i.e. journalists) being penalized for essentially trying to do a good job.

One can not help but be embittered by these developments and the “joke” that is left is only am embarrassing imitation of the news.

This same scenario plays itself out everyday now in industries across the spectrum of American life, as I mentioned in the previous post, but I think every once in a while we must shine a strong light on these things, as I hope I have done in this case.

I too saw Neil’s website and was frankly confused by the GMA video there. I’m glad he has since clarified his involvement, but again I think we’ll see more and more of the blurring of line which it represents; namely the new Digital Journalists enlisting the aid of there friends and families to crew their productions for free and everyone (and their uncles) publishing links to ABC News stories and the like, claiming (or at least inferring) authorship. This is absolutely fine on one’s blog, but I was taught higher standards regarding the truth when I started at network news many years ago, which obviously have fallen by the wayside to the benefit of business decisions.

These feelings come in waves, and while I might sound crazy, I assure you I am not, and I know that because they are echoed by lots of other folks in the same position as I. I’m grateful for this forum as an outlet, and I believe that though oblique, discussions like this do have a place in lighting and for complete lighting directors, as without our skills and abilities to shine that bright light on the subject it will forever remain in the dark. I have always cherished the opportunity to make an appealing picture to enhance a subject or point of view and I guarantee I will continue to do that going on.

Cheers,

JS

[Rick Wise]

Neil,

Your $6,000 budget — do those listed costs cover everything including in-house expenses like salaried employees’ time on the project, overhead such as sales, heat, electricity, building rental, etc. etc. I suspect $6,000 is only part of the true costs. If that figure represents actual total costs, everything included, then you have one lean, mean videomaking machine.

As for comments about the craft of telling a story, the posts on that refer to the video craft of telling a story — using camera and lights and shadows and colors to enhance the story. To my eyes your sample video is good journeyman corporate video. One of the weaknesses is the rather dead “read” of your interviewee; one is tempted to go to sleep while watching him. It doesn’t help that he is videotaped in a dead environment. No eye candy anywhere there. Fortunately he is not on screen very long. The narrator is professional and the whole package generally neat and complete.

Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Neil Myers]

The $6,000 is what we were paid. So our costs had to be less than that. We operate on about a 11% profit margin at the moment. That is too low … I would prefer 15% to 20%, but I cannot complain because many of my competitors are losing money at the moment.

We are pretty lean. We have no choice to be otherwise in this environment!

Thank you for your comments. I’ll take the criticism regarding the deadness of the interview to heart and work on that in future videos.

Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS

[Alan Lloyd]

And telling a story is exactly what you did there. Set up a problem, explain it succinctly, and illustrate the solution.

Nothing too out of the ordinary, and you did it well.

As Rick mentioned, a bit of “eye candy” may have sweetened things (see what I did there?) but overall, nicely done.

And interviewees can be far, far worse than that, I assure you.

I shot one long ago, back in my very early independent days, where a mega-corp was visiting “retail partners” and the poor guy the retailer sent out was obviously petrified. He responded to the client’s every question by glancing down at and shuffling his stack of 3×5″ cards for something approaching an answer, that he then delivered in a muted, frightened-schoolboy tone. No affect, no expression, nothing.

On the way down in the elevator after the interview, the producer told us he didn’t think he would be able to use anything, because the short-straw-drawing victim du jour was so flat. Thanked us for a good job of lighting and recording, shaking his head ruefully at the sacrificial lamb we’d just been handed. Called us again, even.

Your guy was nowhere near that, I promise.

[Neil Myers]

Thanks for your kind comments. This was an interesting job in a couple of ways. First, the premises were straight from the 1960s. Extremely drab. Worse, they constrained us to shooting in a HUGE section of the building that was abandoned. Nothing but old carpet, walls and blinds.

Second, the spokesperson my client wanted me to interview was, in fact, very energetic and knowledgeable. We set him up first and used an adjacent conference room as a backdrop. It looked good to my eye. When then shot a second guy (the one you see in the video) as “protection”. Good thing, because the first fellow’s accent was ultimately too much for us to use.

What I should have done was keep the first framing with the second interview — it was much better. But I wasn’t sure if we would be using both shots or just one and I wanted to mix it up just in case. Mistake.

Here is the first guy’s framing and lighting.

Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS