the “sad” state of our industry

[Greg Janza]

This is a fantastic thread. thanks Bob for being the genesis of it.

Many valid points have been raised and on some levels it’s quite troubling that the democratization of the business has the potential to eat away at it.

However, I’m very encouraged by this same democratization. When I began working in television in the early 1990’s the only viable producers of content were well established production facilities with small armies of folks executive producing, producing, writing, directing, shooting, editing, color correcting, sound mixing, etc. etc.

The same business in 2017 now allows for an independent producer to create content for either a local television market or a national network on his or her own with no need for affiliation with a large production facility. I do all of my work out of a home office and my home edit system is equal to or perhaps even faster than many of the fully decked out edit suites that I used to work in back in the day.

I’m also encouraged by the fact that content has become king overall in the marketplace. If you can create compelling visual content with good storytelling you have a commodity that’s worth something. I think that’s what will differentiate folks in this very crowded field.

I watch a lot of online content partly because there’s so much online content and the vast majority of the stuff I watch is not very engaging. Much of it follows a formulaic approach.

A good example of this formula approach is pretty much any video created for a startup to show how x app is going to revolutionize the world. These videos are almost always very slick in style and look with a “hip” music track and the employees are espousing the great things about the company and it’s product while b-roll shows people working on their beautiful imacs in an open office setting or a group of employees sitting in a conference room “strategizing” and creating an even better app while the camera rolls.

I think the goal of these videos is to garner interest in the company by other investors as well as prospective employees but sadly the videos are just plain boring. Whether these companies truly want a more compelling video is the grey area.

But if the goal is grab eyeballs and hook an audience then those out there that can create compelling content are going to be more sought after. At least that’s the hope.

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles