New to the marketing world

[Ron Lindeboom]

One thing that I noticed right off the bat in your video is that it needs some music to dramatize and punctuate the presentation in places — it’s especially needed at the end when you say “So if you were thinking that you can’t afford custom virtual sets … think again.”

Without music the presentation is laying flatter than it would be with music added.

Just a thought,

Ron Lindeboom

[Alex Huber]

When revisiting the functionality of the program, keep in mind that videos are not all wide shots. Perhaps your program allows scalability or “zooming in” to use just a part of the virtual set, I couldn’t tell from your demo.

But if not, it definitely needs to, or have alternate background and foreground pieces that allow for tighter shots. It’s fairly rare that you will use a very wide head-to-toes view of talent like seen in your demo, except MAYBE in an establishing master shot — and certainly not as the only available POV for the entire video. For example in the “Lakeside Update” and “Sports View Online” scenes in the YouTube demo, it would be very unlikely that a director or producer would choose a shot that wide for anything other than an opening establishing shot or show intro. Mid-shots, closeups, and even extreme closeups would more likely be the norm.

Perhaps your software allows for that, but the demo doesn’t indicate such.

Of course with tighter shots the background would not need to be as sharp to complete the illusion. This could be accomplished by providing blurability, or alternate closeup backgrounds with a pre-determined blur, or just some simple instructions such as “When editing your final video use a blur filter in your NLE to soften the background layer for a more realistic effect.”

I realize that you only asked for marketing advice for your existing product, not how to change or improve it. But these are all things that would make your existing product more usable — and therefore marketable.

/A

[Mike Piontek]

True. It could also use a lead-in to grab the viewer. I put that one together in kind of a rush and need to spend a little more time on a better one. It’s also pretty fuzzy at the beginning. I used Premiere Elements 4 to assemble it since it had a nice “direct to YouTube” save feature. I normally use Vegas and have been for years.

[Mike Piontek]

Thanks, Alex. There is a Zoom function but it’s kind of stuffed into the upper right corner of the tool bar. You’re the second one so far that has mentioned a blur. I did a lot of thinking about what to include as far as effects and such. There are a lot of things that I could add but it would wind up being a lot more complicated and ease of use was one of my goals. Blur was one of the attributes that didn’t make it. I left things out that could be easily done in the editor. My goal was to be able to create a background set and overlays, if desired with the least amount of work and prerequisite knowledge. I’m hoping to eventually get enough user feedback to determine what to add and remove. I’m always open to changes.

[Mark Suszko]

You might not get much grief from the quickset concrete mortar people, but you may from the quickset tripod makers. Did you do a lot of name checking and googling before you picked the name? If you haven’t really started yet, this may be the best time to make disruptive changes to the identity.

As far as tips on marketing such things, I would buy an ad on turbosquid.com for one thing, because that’s a huge resource for people making, buying, and using such products. Also downloaddotcom for people who need something cheap in a hurry under deadline pressure. Outfits like sounddogs probably sell their audio clips most after five PM when there’s no other place to go and you need it NOW.

My best tip and a customer request:

I think virtual sets are going to be a growth business, however, what I see looking around out there is a lot of product that looks more like FPS video game levels than practical environments. There is no getting around the need for a real artist and designer’s touch, even in tools made for non-artists to use. So I would invest in high quality components for the “construction kit” approach, and offer some less-obvious but useful sets besides the typical newsroom/office/control room/bar/game show type sets. There are tons of office and bank simulations out there already.

I was thinking about this the other week while watching the incredible art direction on AMC’s “Mad Men”. It is really hard these days, because of security and other legal hassles, to shoot scenes in airports and airplanes, for example, or grocery stores, or churches, courtrooms, dentist offices, exam rooms and surgical suites, schools, or malls, or automotive repair bays, or movie theaters and their accompanying spaces, to name a few. This is a niche not yet well exploited, with a demonstrated need. I would indeed pay good money for virtual sets in those locations, with and without brand name product placements in them, that look believable. Accurate historical or period locations would be useful too, for people making dramas and documentaries. From Roman baths to a 40’s diner to a Pullman car… you get the idea. Once you have the basic model built in whatever software, you can then sell or rent custom texture maps that re-dress the same object in multiple ways, some with green screen textures applied for use in 2 d compositing apps… and this lets you sell the same object multiple times. I think nobody offers quite this kind of collection yet and someone offering it would pretty much dominate the market space for that kind of resource. I would call it the: “You can’t shoot there” collection. Or “Impossible locations”.

I want 2% of the net for the idea.

Mark Suszko

[Mike Piontek]

I did check for trademarks and such on the name Quicksets and found none. This product was always aimed at the little guy. I would say that 90% of the stuff I’ve seen as far as quick promos and message type videos over the last few years was single shot, talking head sort of stuff. This is mainly what the little guy does. Most of these videos use the same shot throughout; never changing angles or zoom. I wanted to put the ability to create unique, personalized sets in their hands. I would love to do what you suggest but that’s a bit out of my reach for now, cost wise. I can barely afford to hire myself. Only 2%?

[John Cummings]

Now, lets talk about the guy with the coffee cup…

He looks like he just woke up.

J Cummings
DP/Chicago
http://www.cameralogic.tv

[Mike Piontek]

Well, I did say I threw the video together rather quickly. The next one will have someone with more “appeal”, I hope.

[Todd Terry]

Well Mike… you indicate that you are a software guy, not a video or production guy…

Then it might behoove you to hit up a buddy in the production world to help (or make a friend in that realm, if you don’t already have one).

I think the usability insight that you get from having a real-world beta tester from someone who does that for a living could be invaluable… and maybe they could help you produce a really polished video that really shows off your product in its best light as well.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Tim Kolb]

[Mike Cohen] “well, the rule of marketing is, tell us what you are selling and where to find it, including in your post on a forum like this.”

Actually, the best rule of marketing is to find out what people are buying…and sell it to them…

🙂

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,