[Ryan Early]

I agree the only way to stay in this business is to constantly learn and improve because things keep changing. Technology is changing for the better and when I look back twenty years I’d rather the technology of today than what I used back then. The reason many in this industry are finding it difficult however isn’t because we aren’t improving our skills it’s because ideas about the value of those skills have changed. Learning more and improving your skills won’t change the mindset of a client base that thinks all you need is an app. How we challenge those misconceptions and sell the value of talent experience and ability now that the technical barriers are gone is the real battle we face.

[Ryan Early]

It always amazes me when people who spend a lot of money branding their businesses, fitting out their offices so they look professional, sign writing their vehicles etc etc are then content to have a video online representing their business that looks completely unprofessional. Kind of like spending a fortune building a great office and hanging a sign out front that is written in texta pen, it’s crazy. I tell clients that it’s better to have no video representing your business than one that undermines your credibility with poor production values.

[Ryan Early]

Many thanks for the tips and re encore I’ll definitely investigate that option, thanks Graham.

[Ryan Early]

I love it I was ready to invest in that company until I realised it was just stock footage 🙂

[Ryan Early]

Thanks for the replies, I was enquiring more about the current legal status but I absolutely agree with the responses here using copyright music without a synch license is a big no no. I’ve often been amazed at the risks that some producers take.

[Ryan Early]

Thanks for your response, I am finding the same thing regarding budgets so I feel your pain and frustration. What interests me is what the bulk of everyones work is these days. I do a mixture from freelance camera and edit, small vox pop driven corporates, training and larger budget corporates and docos. I am finding that the traditional corporate – presenter/crew – i.e decent budget corporate is less in favour now than the lower budget online content option which means I am now quoting against the likes of – as you say the CFO’s son with a dslr ( who will most likely do a terrible job but then the opportunity is lost ).

[Ryan Early]

I think thats a good idea. In my experience replacing the stock lens with nicer glass really increased the performance of the camera and it will give you better performance when close to wide open. I was ready to get rid of our 300 a year ago but I picked up a nice hd wide angle and the quality jump gave me an extra year of work out of it. I really love the images I am getting now with it. As I said below we don’t try to get dslr like dof but you will get nicer shallow dof with a better lens where the stock Lens would look soft. when I shot a test with it and played it back in the edit suite I couldn’t believe it was the same camera, that stock lens really does hold it back. I’d expect to pay 2-3000 second hand. Not a huge market for 1/3 inch lenses so you could be lucky.

[Ryan Early]

What lens were you using ? I replaced the stock lens with a fujinon Th 13×3.5 and the results were a lot better. With the stock lens I found the same results you had whenever I pushed it – usually trying to copy the DOF I get from a dslr. Because a lot of shooters will be used to dslrs they probably open the lens right up and use the heaviest ND to achieve the shallowest DOF possible. Unfortunately this pushes you into the soft and spongy area of the lens causing the cameras shading to increase noise in the image to reduce vignetting. I find the advantages of this camera in terms of colour detail and latitude over a dslr far outweigh the whole DOF thing anyway.

For me I leave a stop in the lens and forget about getting razor thin DOF, I use composition and lighting and work to the cameras advantages instead of trying to make it something it’s not. I own a DSLR kit and it mostly sits in it’s case I just find the colours from them anaemic. When they start bringing out dslrs with 4:2:2 then I will get excited.

[Ryan Early]

Thanks for the replies, I do some basic motion graphics but I’d rather out source to people who have more talent in that area.

[Ryan Early]

I think a lot of people outside of video production get taken in by “online video marketing experts” who tell them low quality content is better because it’s more real. My argument is that people who say this are people who are only capable of producing low quality content so they justify it by saying it’s what the market wants.

I’m interested to know what other people are producing for Youtube though, whether the medium of youtube and online content in general is changing the style of video used for corporate – will the traditional corporate video be replaced by the webcam and a mouse click to share on youtube because it’s more real?