Website is up!!! Reflection on Trends in the Industry

Well, my website, is up and running. I am still putting my reel together and will hopefully have it done today.

This whole, doing it on your own, thing is a tiring process for sure.
My client list grows and I'll be doing some pretty exciting work over the next few months.

I've decided to follow my advice and finally get incorporated. It takes some time, and a little cash, but in the end your ass is covered.

Some Reflections
I emailed an old colleague from my corporate video days, and he tells me everyones a producer now.
This got me thinking back to the early 2000's when I first started out.
I've just left school, everyone wants to be a producer, everyone wants to be some great director, all I wanted was a job. I leveraged my post production skills and created a very unrecognizable niche for myself, narrowcasting. (in-store marketing and branding)
Which was fine and dandy, but when the work dried up, as I guess the retail environment wasn't quite ready for this technology, I did corporate video at a boutique shop called Key West Video. They are no longer in business, but the two years I worked there I learned quite a bit.
Much of my shooting and editing skills came from there. Editing content quickly and efficiently, while keeping the client happy, was my number one job, and boy did I make a few mistakes.
What I do remember the most where the talks my colleague and I had.
Some were pretty silly, others serious. He would routinely play the devils advocate and be very staunch about it, so I improved in my argument style for sure.
One thing we did talk about most was the nature of our industry, and why it's so tough for people.

Everyone's a "Insert title here"


This one we see everywhere. Some rich kid gets daddy to buy him some equipment and poof, he's now a producer and director and editor etc etc. No formal training or experience, he just shoots and thinks he can impress girls and his other trust fund baby friends.
Well, this has been around since the dawn of time and really, never threatened the jobs of real artists working in this field.
Then, with the advent of cheap computers, and cheap software, suddenly, everyone could access the tools formally held by professionals. Equipment, like a da Vinci, a million dollar system, could be replaced with a fast PC and some hard drives.
Amazing isn't it? So why did this worry the professional? It wasn't that they had the talent, it was because they had the tools and could charge way less, or companies could move these services in-house or hire a family member. I routinely remember clients saying, oh I can get Steve's nephew to do it. He just got a Mac.
This diluted the industry with a million designers, animators and editors. Not to mention the costs of cameras have dropped, so everyone can now shoot.

Boutiques that charged a premium for first rate service were going out of business, losing clients to in-house departments that hired kids to be Jack of All Trades and paid them near poverty level wages to manage everything.
This bubble did eventually pop around 2005ish when companies realized they were not getting the services needed. They wanted professionals, and thus began the Producers Bubble

Producers Bubble
The bubble grew fast. With the advent of faster, better technologies, SSD, fibre, etc etc, again, people were becoming not just designers, why do the hard work? They were becoming producers. The stuff looked slick, and pretty. The quality was only present because the technology did everything for you. Everything was a preset. I interviewed someone once and their reel was nothing but after effects and motion presets timed to his music. I guess I could give him a technical merit for cutting, but really, later on I found another plugin that will do that for you as well.

What was lacking in all of this, was thought, and creative input. I see so much stuff on youtube and it is all technically amazing! Don't get me wrong, some of it is gorgeous, BUT it is not creative.
There is a huge difference between the two.
Creative content isn't so much original, it communicates.
Without communication of an idea, it is an execution and belongs on a design reel as a technical ability, and not a creative asset.
Create something that tells me, that sells me, that shares an idea.
That is creativity. My former boss, Steven Graham taught me this.

To make something for the sake of aesthetics can be creative, but only for that sake and that sake alone. For any other application, it's a waste of time.
tell me a story I yell!!!

So there is a glut of producers, all capable in using their cheap machines, but, out of all you see, do any of them tell you a real story?
Communicate an Idea?

This bubble will pop soon, as more and more content is created, the chaff will be separated from the wheat.
it just takes time, then another bubble will form, maybe this time it will be instant reality-esque voyeurism. I don't know yet.

The future is funny, as it tends to repeat the past, except, none of this technology existed 10 years ago...

You're thoughts would be appreciated!!!
Thanks


Gotta run, cheers.