Tough competition

[Mick Haensler]

[Tom Sefton] “At the moment, this is the hardest possible time to be doing what we are doing, but you can make it work. “

Indeed. One other thing that has kept me afloat the last 2 years is EXTREMELY low overhead. I am fortunate to live in a large old Victorian with plenty of room plus separate business entrance. I’ve slashed everything I can to the bone. No unnecessary equipment purchases, no upgrades I don’t have to have etc.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “Some of the worst production people I know are “former broadcasters with a lot of experience.””

Late to the thread, but I’ve seen this same thing several times. One of the more ridiculous was being pitched to sub-out work to a former National Public RADIO announcer who had gone into the video for web business. This “pro’s” stuff was quite literally (as Mark Susko has termed it in the past) Radio with Pictures, actually in this particular case more like Radio with a slide show of stills.

Now, with all of the above said, there are no doubt many of our fellow bovines who’ve left broadcast to form production companies, and several probably do excellent work. Analyzing the competition has to be on a case by case basis. We also have to make sure that our prospective clients also do this and not be overly impressed by someone just because they used to work for a TV station or a network.

The ones to look out for, especially in this age of extremely low cost NLEs, are the people who moonlight their productions on nights and weekends using equipment from their regular, daytime jobs with a broadcast or other production facility. They can have access to high end cameras, etc. without having to invest little to any of their own money.

[Roy Schneider]

Olly:
A client of mine once told me that the only way he buys is if you convince him he can’t do without it. Sounds simple enough, but can a small business do without video?
Roy Schneider

Roy Schneider
Long Live Da Cow!

[Olly Lawer]

Hi.

Thanks for all your responses. It can be a lonely game. thank you for the link regarding the ratecard. I think once I get my ratecard sorted out and not worry so much about what the competition are doing I will be in a better place to be able to attack the market. so to speak.

I suppose it’s just a little bewildering because there’s so much to think about. At the moment I’m working every hour and I think I need to concentrate on working out how best to complete editing in then the quickest amount of time and give me more time to be out there marketing.

Just as a matter of interest. My MacBook is 2006 and is running really slowly when rendering out things from Final Cut Pro and after-effects. I’m thinking of using some of my redundancy money to invest in a new MacBook Pro. However, I know how important cash flow is in this business. Is the benefit of having a faster MacBook going to be more important?

Olly Lawer