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Movies and NLE marketing
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[Claude Lyneis] “Hmm, I wonder what China will be usin”
There is a homegrown Chinese NLE. But they use all of the above. In fact, Chinese investors seem to be buying heavily into Avid.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Tim Wilson] “Or are people really saying that Ronny Courtens can stop bothering with these epic tales of the workflow warrior-poets building FCPX workflows through sheer force of will? That Oliver never needs to ask another editor or color grader about their software choices?”
Thanks for the kind words. One of my guiding principals in these interviews when talking about NLE specifics is to try to get to the “how” of their use. In other words, what special twist, if any, do they add to using the tool in filmmaking. What does editor A do differently or more innovatively than editor B with that same tool.
For instance, the Fincher team has made heavy use of After Effects in the editorial process. They also dealt with high-res, overscanned footage in an interesting manner. Plus a LOT was stabilized, because Fincher wants perfect camera moves. The Focus/WTF team made greater use of native camera media than is common on nearly any other film.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Tim Wilson] “I’m being rhetorical here, at least to the extent that it seems blazingly obvious to me that the answer is OF COURSE these stories matter. I want MORE of them, even though I’ll never do that kind of work in those kinds of places. Aside from my general curiosity about how EVERYONE does EVERYTHING, stories like these ESPECIALLY matter for the people who DON’T need persuading. They, we, need encouragement. Inspiration. “
I don’t have a problem with these stories. I find them quite interesting and can occasionally glean useful information from them. However, I think there is an inherent bias in covering them. Nobody is writing a story about how someone edited a video with FCP X in a matter of hours and because he/she was more efficient and got the video out quicker, that allowed him/her to hit a wave of public interest which allowed the video to go viral. Nobody is writing about the editing tools and techniques of Youtubers who make a good living with their videos. Personally I’d love to know about the production workflow of AJ+ or Attn: or any of the other Facebook media creators. Those could also be interesting reads, but I’ve never seen one on Creative Cow.
It’s always, go to the biggest production you can find. It’s “old school.” Nothing wrong with that. But where is the “new school?”
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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here. -
[Brett Sherman] “Personally I’d love to know about the production workflow of AJ+ or Attn: or any of the other Facebook media creators. Those could also be interesting reads, but I’ve never seen one on Creative Cow. “
Well…
That time a couple of years back I tried to bring a leading young editor doing things differently into the forum, inside a day he got so much pushback from the entrenched thinkers here he basically exited with a “why bother?”
Forums are like neighborhoods. Some are welcoming and make newcomers feel like the regular residents are interested in what the newcomers bring to the conversation. Other neighborhoods kinda make you feel like if you don’t speak the proper language fluently or prepare your meals in the proper way – you’re not really all that welcome.
This place can be a bit like the Hyde Park speakers corner – or maybe more like the scene of the Eminem rap battle in 8 mile. Most folks just lurk because it’s safer that way?
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “This place can be a bit like the Hyde Park speakers corner – or maybe more like the scene of the Eminem rap battle in 8 mile. Most folks just lurk because it’s safer that way? “
Maybe in this particular forum, but we’ve got over 100 of ’em. We’ve also got over 300,000 active members and hundreds of posts going up every day. Do ALL of the millions of people who pass through the COW every month post? Of course not, but a very few experiences from people who come to a forum with Debate in the title who don’t actually care to debate anything combined with the absence of data isn’t a strong foundation
[Brett Sherman] “Personally I’d love to know about the production workflow of AJ+ or Attn: or any of the other Facebook media creators. Those could also be interesting reads, but I’ve never seen one on Creative Cow. “
I couldn’t agree more. This is one reason I pushed back so hard on the vertical video haters — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, et al are a huge part of what “our” industry is actually creating. Certainly the places where audiences are, even more than movies and TV.
I, am, alas, sorely bandwidth-constrained these days with operational stuff, which is why I haven’t been posting much, and writing even less, but no kidding, Brett. I absolutely agree with you.
Thanks,
Tim Wilson
Creative COW -
[Oliver Peters] “For instance, the Fincher team has made heavy use of After Effects in the editorial process. They also dealt with high-res, overscanned footage in an interesting manner. Plus a LOT was stabilized, because Fincher wants perfect camera moves. The Focus/WTF team made greater use of native camera media than is common on nearly any other film.”
Exactly. When you read stories that put those specifics in context, you see why it would have been insane for either team to have made any other choice than the ones they did.
And as you note, Oliver, even when introductions are made to us by PR people representing the software companies, you still shape the story by the WORK. Not all filmmakers are super in tune with tools, and indeed, some of them really don’t care…but I do enjoy hearing from people who are thinking things through, whether it’s their NLEs, location management, casting choices, whatever.
This year’s festival season is off to a crazy start, and I’m actually having a hard time tracking stories right now, but two things have really, really stood out.
One is that Premiere Pro is on the rise. I know that Sundance and SXSW aren’t the world, and that, say, “documentaries in competition at Sundance” is a narrow slice of the world (45 documentary features screened out of 1701 submissions), but still, reading something like “68% of films entered in the US Documentary Competition used Premiere Pro CC as the primary NLE” feels big.
Even bigger: “42% of projects relied on Premiere Pro CC as the primary NLE – a 90% increase from 2016!“ Again noting that 113 feature films selected out of 4068 is by definition not statistically significant….but wowza, nearly double year on year, within a market segment that absolutely IS significant….well, all of a sudden, Premiere nearly doubling its footprint at Sundance feels significant indeed.
I’m still gonna wanna hear more about why, but it suggests that there are non-random reasons at work here. Not that this
My other takeaway as a reader these days is that ALEXA is queen of more than you might think. IndieWire asked everyone at Sundance what they used, and while not everyone replied, the overwhelming majority replied Alexa. Damn near all of them, actually.
Among other things, it speaks to the wisdom of ARRI’s position that by aiming ALEXA at the rental market they could make a better camera that’s ALSO more accessible to a wider range of filmmakers. Certainly I’d bet that people who shot with ALEXA spent less to rent their cameras than almost anyone who bought a camera.
Business model aside, most of them talked about the look…and this is begging the question, is it just that ALEXA users are more likely to respond to surveys? We also have no access to the information about the 3900 films that didn’t make the cut. Is there something about the “look” of Alexa and what the Sundance staff thinks “looks” like “a Sundance movie” that makes non-Alexa movies less likely to make the cut?
Because you can say all day long that tools don’t matter, but when you hear people talk about WHY they choose, you realize that it’s not true.
That is to say, yes, you can make lots of good things with lots of good tools, so I want to hear why this one for this project. No review can do that. Good project profiles can.
Not that any of this is an answer to your original question, Oliver, as much as it is an agreement with the question. ???? Other than Adobe calling “Adobe Premiere Pro the official editing tool at Sundance 2017”, and documenting the claim pretty thoroughly if also in broad strokes, it’s been awhile since anybody out there has stuck the landing with one of these more specific stories.
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[Tim Wilson] “Business model aside, most of them talked about the look…and this is begging the question, is it just that ALEXA users are more likely to respond to surveys? We also have no access to the information about the 3900 films that didn’t make the cut. Is there something about the “look” of Alexa and what the Sundance staff thinks “looks” like “a Sundance movie” that makes non-Alexa movies less likely to make the cut?”
Large numbers of movies come through our doors every year and those that are shot on the Alexa stand head and shoulder above the rest – there really is no competition.
It takes beautiful, beautiful pictures, whoever is shooting with it.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
It’s a funny thing – Alexa have used the same sensors for years and shunned the pixel drive from other camera manufacturers and the cameras produce beautiful images. Red have cornered the market for Netflix but for cinema, arri is still king. Small screen goes for red much more often – even for better call Saul, which after breaking bad was shot on film is an interesting move.
Alexa has such an incredibly loyal following – so much that many rental markets are dominated by the request of a DoP and many of those only want Alexa. I’m looking forwards to seeing if the new helium sensors from red make any difference to what major releases use – especially with the tie in with panavision – a stunning technical achievement, but to be honest for a cinema experience I still don’t think you can beat film. Can’t wait to see what Christopher Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema do with Dunkirk. Red is making some inroads to Hollywood but they seem to be used much more for VFX based films…?
NLE and movie making is really interesting. I thought that FCP started to get real recognition when Cold mountain was cut on it. I also find it really cool that one of the most celebrated editors of the last 35 years doesn’t use software made by avid, Adobe, Apple or blackmagic. It’s a personal choice that is fit to the task in hand…
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
[Bill Davis] “That was true in the late 1990s when editing was a mysterious process done in TV stations and carpeted suites.
But it just hasn’t been that way for decades now.”
I do think that it’s easier to move up market than down market and that’s the fight Avid has been struggling with for a good 15 years. To protect it’s high end business Avid kept offering crippled, overpriced NLEs to compete with FCP Legend so it’s no surprise that ExpressDV, Express Pro, etc., tanked. There is certainly still a higher end market (and I think it’s expanding as streaming sites get more into the original content business), but the middle market no longer has to accept the high end solutions as their solutions. The one-size-fits-all approach has disappeared as technology keeps making gear better and more affordable as well as opening up new distribution models (how profitable those models are is another question though).
[Bill Davis] “It seems like EVERYBODY understands the basics of using a computer to assemble image streams today. And millions, not thousands, now own and understand the means of production. That’s also why YouTube is what it is, not to mention the juggernot that the “Lets Play” kids have created totally on-line.
They usually could care less about being “moviemaker famous” when their peers are spending vastly more money and time on alternate forms of leisure time stuff.
That’s an apple’s to oranges comparison though. Of course kids that are into video games, Lets Play vids and Twitch streamers probably aren’t dreaming of making it big in Hollywood, anymore than they are dreaming of making it big playing hockey. But kids that have watched Star Wars 99 times, make zombie movies with their friends on the weekends and look for tutorials on how to add muzzle flashes in post just might have aspirations for Tinseltown. To Oliver’s point, the people that are really interested in movies will want to find out what cameras, NLEs, etc., are used by their favorite filmmakers just like kids that are really interested in video games/Lets Play videos will want to know what controllers, computers, KB/M, etc., their favorite gamers use. That’s the bedrock of aspirational marketing.
Since video games got brought up, there is an interesting parallel to this in the esports world. For example, Overwatch is a new (relatively speaking) first person shooter from Blizzard that they are launched with the goal of making it into an esport, and there is a constant argument in the community about whether the gameplay in Overwatch should be primarily balanced for the casual scene or the pro scene. Creating a successful pro scene will keep the game viable for years (maybe even a decade or longer) in a market where casual gamers typically only play titles for months (maybe a year), but if you make the learning curve too hard you’ll lose the casual gamers which means less of a fan base to build a viable esport around.
Not an exact analogy to NLEs, but I think it’s interesting that things as different as NLEs and esports can have such similar problems.
[Bill Davis] ” And as Hollywood and the film industry turns more and more to “tent pole” thinking, the opportunities for editorial employment in big scale filmmaking are going to contract, not expand, IMO.”
Being able to ‘make it’ in Los Angeles has always been a seriously uphill battle and I think that’s part of the allure (it certainly was for me). No one admires Usain Bolt or Bill Gates because what they accomplished was easily attainable and/or achieved by many. And of course there’s the famous quote from Jobs where he asked Sculley (then an exec at Pepsi), “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Whenever I talk to high school or college kids that want to head for the bright lights of the big city my speech basically boils down to this, there’s no logical reason to do it, it’s a never ending grind, its more of a lifestyle than a job, and your endeavors will almost surely fail… but that’s no reason not to swing for the fences anyway.
With that being said, there are more movies and TV shows being created today than ever before, but there’s also more competition than ever before so I think the overall difficulty of making a living remains the same because as old barriers crumble new ones are formed. In general I think the are more opportunities for making a living by cutting together moving pictures, but some will obviously pay better than others.
[Brett Sherman] “Nobody is writing about the editing tools and techniques of Youtubers who make a good living with their videos. Personally I’d love to know about the production workflow of AJ+ or Attn: or any of the other Facebook media creators. Those could also be interesting reads, but I’ve never seen one on Creative Cow. “
To be honest, outside of the ins/outs of publishing to social media I’m not sure how unique and/or interesting those post workflows would be for people already familiar with post workflows.
For example, I doubt solo YouTubers like Pewdiepie or Michelle Phan have very exotic editing workflow because their business model doesn’t require it (though they might really be keen on the new social media publishing ability for PPro that’s currently in beta). For larger YouTubers/digital media companies like AJ+, Machima, Maker Studios, Attn:, RocketJump, PopSugar, etc., it’s been my experience that they typically have workflows that are similar to traditional TV/film workflows but just scaled down and/or on a lower budget. If you are running a digital media news company employing many people trying to make daily deadlines you’ll run into the same basic problems as a cable news channel that employes many people trying to make daily deadlines (multiple editing stations, shared storage, asset management, review/approval, archiving, etc.,.) The biggest difference will probably be that the cable news channel has a bigger budget to throw at those problems. FWIW I know that RocketJump, PopSugar, Attn:, Yahoo, and Viacom’s digital side use PPro (I think Machima does as too but I’m not totally sure).
Speaking of solutions to problems, YouTube Spaces is a clear example of direction many YouTubers are going. Sound stages, green screens, control rooms, cameras, etc., it looks like any other production space except its for YouTubers, not TV networks or movie studios. I worked on a live YouTube show recently and from a production standpoint it was put together and manned like a live TV broadcast except it streamed over YouTube. Medium sized sound stage, studio cameras, control room to put the Death Star to shame, etc.,. Big budget digital productions look a whole lot like smaller budget TV/film productions.
As I’ve quipped before in other threads, we seem to be in a weird transitional period where Old Media people are trying to get into New Media because that’s where the eyeballs are going, yet New Media people are trying to get into Old Media because that’s where the money (and prestige) is.
I’d be remiss to leave this topic without mentioning YouTuber Freedie Wong (RocketJump) and his very successful scripted YT series “Video Game High School” that ran for three seasons. Here is a link to his final thoughts on working on a series of that scale with YT as the distribution channel (and Kickstarter for a lot of the funding).
https://www.rocketjump.com/blog/vghs-post-mortem
[Bill Davis] “That time a couple of years back I tried to bring a leading young editor doing things differently into the forum, inside a day he got so much pushback from the entrenched thinkers here he basically exited with a “why bother?””
Whatever you do, don’t talk about the new social media publishing features Adobe is working on. You probably haven’t run into this yet, but some people don’t like talking about things outside of their own needs. 😉
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[Andrew Kimery] “Whatever you do, don’t talk about the new social media publishing features Adobe is working on. You probably haven’t run into this yet, but some people don’t like talking about things outside of their own needs. ;)”
Is that where they’re trying to add more revenue streams next?
You pay for the basic software, then incrementally more for the clip media, The analytics package, and a nice chunk of any of your monitization ala Stock?
It’s likely a great business model. For Adobe. And that’s their job. Lick em in and look for incremental add on sales. As it’s ever been, I suppose.
Odd thing is, I just noticed that my Vimeo Pro account added a commenting and review system that’s very close to what Frame I/O is doing.
Vimeo has direct monetization plumbed in already.
And, of course Apple has those zillion Credit Cards on file and those ultra massive data operations around the world doing lots of tracking and bean counting and payouts to App developers and piddly little individual iBook Authors like me.
So which one makes the most sense as “the platform” going forward?
I don’t have a clue – although I have a bit direct experience with all of them. Right now, Apple seems to take the least yearly via iCloud. IF I was a CC full subscriber instead of Photo only (still X2!) that would be the most costly. And Vimeo Pro and Frame I.O are in the middle.
Personally, I’ll likely eventually take the one that extracts less monthly to play and leaves me with more in my pocket.
Only time will tell what that eventually will really turn out to be.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
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