In the UK media, there has been a lot of attention on broadcasters, downsizing, ordering pay cuts and consolidation within the market. This tells us that “advertising funded” revenues they have enjoyed over the years are slowly in decline. What concerns me the most is creative output will be a lot less and it will be harder for creative people to get projects off the ground in traditional ways. Therefore expect loads of repeats on TV globally. We have two main issues that face our industry, “output and audiences”. It strikes me that broadcasters have to be more street smart in their approach to engage with the audience. They really need to understand the public, by what they want to watch, when they want to watch and how we watch media.
Secondly funding projects and getting them off the ground, leaves no room for error. The competition for excellent creativity is going to be much more competitve. Whilst this is good news for our audience, Production companies, film & TV directors will have to bring something completely fresh to engage the audiences. We are seeing this now with the likes of Slumdog Millionaire breaking the UK box office record for ticket sales. We have no shortage of talent in the world, but more of a changing world. How we work, what we do and when we do things have completely changed. This gives the big broadcasters and hollywood studios a huge challenge or opportunity to adapt.
As a creative producer and someone who loves to watching news TV and films, together we will have to find explore other avenues to deliver content. Whilst internet viewing figures are on the up, I’m not entirely convinced that web TV is the only answer, but a mix of different platforms that will help engage the customer in the long run..
However, I think that Internet TV or web TV is still a great investment into the future and something that needs focusing on for it to a become viable medium.
I was out and about filming with a crew of five cameramen for Defected Records 10th Birthday bash at Ministry of Sound in London last week, I can honestly say, that had to be one of the best events in town that night. They had Bob Sinclar graced the decks around 1am. When he dropped “World hold on” the roof blow of!!! Then Defected gave us another true star of the night with a live PA of Julie McKnight, who sang her anthem “Finally”. She was accompanied by a beautiful band and Shovell as the Drum warrior….My brother Nick has put a clip up on the site, for us all to re-live the experience!!!!
Thanks Defected, may you live on for another 10 years 😉
Hi Guys, I have been pretty quiet in the last few weeks, it’s because I have so much work to produce. 😉 I wanted to share with you a very useful website, it gives away royalty free sounds and backgrounds which can be used in your video projects.
Our friends at Macvideo.tv get hold of the National Marketing Manager, Craig Yanagi at JVC to introduce the GY-HM100; the world’s first camera to record high quality native QuickTime files for immediate editing within Final Cut Pro.
This is pretty big news in the production market and it integrates with Final Cut Pro so smoothly, i can’t quite believe what they have done. So sit back for 10 mins and then you can get back to work. 😉
If I keep asking that question most people tell me, “I really don’t know!… “I’m not sure!” but a handful of people will say “I haven’t a clue” because they are making so much money that they want to keep it all for themselves. 😉
One of the ways to make a lot of money is content syndication and licensing. Every network, broadcaster and even online publisher has an acquisitions department or person whose job it is to acquire content.
Now one of the main problems of Digital Distribution is “rights control”. This is affecting the catalogues of online video companies or digital distribution companies and sometimes called aggregators. Here is the problem, the Hollywood Studios are not really giving full access to their catalogue online yet, as they want to see how they can protect their digital rights in each territory and I’m not sure they trust the current solutions available on the market. They want to see control over the way the content is managed and distributed. So.. what are the current solutions??
There are three major players in the market trying to solve this on a global level:-
1. Apple TV
2. Vudu
3. Xbox 360
IGNentertainment has put together a cool video showing us these products. Although it’s a little old now, it should give you an idea of what’s in store for the future.
What do I keep shouting about?? common already, go build an online channel, get a subscriber base and start making money from online advertising and content licensing. 😉
Another great example of content syndication on a smaller level is the “How to” sites. They are selling their content to every niche that’s out there! OK it’s not going to the Xbox 360’s of the world but it’s definitely going to other websites and online publishers.
2008 was a very interesting year as we saw the take up of online video viewing rocket to the point where we have seen a new bunch of investors in town trying to understand and monetize this space. We see the potential and we see the joy that it brings to millions of people as they watch, online, on mobile and now online on TV, thanks to slingbox and other competitors in this space.
One of the tricks is to understand video content beyond the PC or MAC and see where else video can be watched. Is it the car? is it at the bus stop? At the back of seats on buses? We are starting to see screens everywhere on the London underground, although these are mainly advertisers promoting products, but I’m convinced that to get the customers more engaged we will see screens in the trains. Now there’s a thought for a captive audience.
Whilst online video advertising is slow to take up, they have many ways to present it via overlays, opt-ins, prerolls, and product placements. This presents four different revenue streams for the broadcaster and to the brands wanting to advertise. Just remember this market is still very much in its infancy and both investors and creative companies will be coming into the market to help monazite or dare I say it “revolutionize” this space.
The broadcasters still have the content that consumers want to watch, content owners such as the bbc, itv and channel 4 don’t really care where you watch the content, but they know the tradition way we watch content is not via traditional broadcast transmission.
This presents us with a massive growth opportunity, not just from an advertising standpoint, but from the whole value chain that this business needs in order to be enjoyed. I’m taking about, cabling, fibre optics, broadband, content creation, encoding and scheduling, player solutions and screens. As we become more creative in the approach for placing screens everywhere, so does the revenues. I think Investors know this and as online bandwidth hungry content viewers increase, so does the value chain…
Now, I love “how to videos”, I also love filming, content creation and video editing. So I’m asking you, do I make “how too video tips” on production”? and then stick them on youtube.com? Well I could and I’m more than capable of doing that. But here is the thing, youtube.com, rever video , livevideo.com , google video and all the video channels are packed with people telling us about video production tips. Now that’s not including the videojug.com, 5mins.com & www.howto.tv sites of this world, which are dedicated to producing short form “how to” video. Don’t get me wrong; they provide an amazing service and I feel that if this is the way culture is going, and we turn to video sites like these to educate ourselves and not through books, then as a video expert in the field and an internet enthusiast I’m all for it. I think it’s an amazing niche in the market, and getting experts in each field to represent and produce videos rocks!
So, I started out with a question: do I make these kind of videos? is it worth it? does my niche have a big enough pull to make it worth while?? ahhhh I hear you say, yes let me say it again….”Do making these kind of videos make ME the content producer PROFIT??? Isn’t this what we work for? Well I personally would say NO it’s not worth it. As it’s a very crowded market and people out there have been doing it for a long time now. If I had a whole catalogue of videos in every niche like videojug.com then yes, it’s a great business model and welcome to profitability in the long term.
So firstly I want to thank everybody for teaching me how to learn Final Cut Pro and giving me tips on my cannon XH A1 as over the last few years, I have become a prolific video editor and director. ;-)) Secondly I want make a PROFIT from online video!
To make a profit you have to get it from Advertising, cost per click, overlays, pay per click advertising and all that good stuff. It’s funny how similar online video is starting to become like the broadcast model, “Selling advertising.” The most hit sites get the best revenue and this is all based around good old fashioned story telling. So its all in the idea and in the content that makes that hit online video channel. It needs to be a channel and not just a hit video, something that people can follow, engage or subscribe to.
Who has seen lonely girl15 or LisaNova or even communitychannel? She has 114 Videos online and 1,327,498 million views this week on youtube.com and 138,546 subscribers. All these channels have a few common threads, they are all female, reality based and in their 20’s.. Does this tell you something about our audience?
OK I’m not going to give too much away, but I think I have given you some good ideas. Right!… now I’m off to the storyboard and produce my hit online video channel..
This is one sure way to make money and earn a pay per click revenue stream from your wonderful online video channel.
Streaming, streaming video and live streaming is all the rage at the moment, its taking the USA by storm. Now live streaming coupled up with social networking and communities having fun on the internet makes room for a website called Justin.tv or Justin, NO not Justin Timberlake, but this site could make you dance just like him… You get all kinds of people and companies broadcasting live all day long. So far I have seen radio stations, live sports, gamers and bedroom producers all entertaining us with their shows. The nice thing about it is that once you find a channel that you like, all the other related channels come up and give you the niche market that your interested in. I’m really in to house music and I found grooveinjection2 a pretty cool laid back house music channel that takes me back to the early 90’s. Whats more Justin is free!!! Justin is the leader in live video and the place to broadcast and share video online.
OK OK I have to go, I want to check out the other channels.
The world of online advertising just got easier through the medium of video! HAAAA We all know the power of video and i think we all really understand that we can’t broadcast online content, the same way as we do in the broadcast world. They use phrases such as scheduling and transmission. The online video world uses terms such as playlists, upload, download, UGC and content delivery. So now we have a company called magnify.net
It gives you a player to add to your site and it helps add new videos to your website by searching the web video channels for similar videos that you have put up on your own site so you can included them on your video playlist. Its so simple!
This builds a channel and with content that is very similar to your own, keeping the viewer interested in that topic area.
OK now whilst that is cool and easy to achieve, here is the fun part.. monitising your website, The advertising revenue from your channel will be split 50/50.
Yep! 50/50 ad inventory share, hmmm I know what i’m going to do now..
Last year MK Productions produced around 100 fashion videos, mainly catwalk stuff, some hair & makeup, interviews with designers, models,nightlife videos and wannabees.. I wanted to share with you the modus operandi we, as cameramen have to face when we are standing at the end of the catwalk pointing a camera at the runway. Firstly the lights used to light up the catwalk are very bright, it’s so hard to find the right balance and to make sure the models faces don’t look over exposed. If you have a Cannon XHA1 or a Sony Z1 you should be able to get a firm control over your aperture and exposure. If you play around with these elements a little bit, you can get a great picture.
My advice is don’t have the exposure too high or you will get a trail effect and the result will give you a stop motion effect or blurred effect on your footage and its impossible to correct in post production if your footage is burnt out with white faces. I sometimes feel its also best filmed slightly under exposed so that you can play with the brightness levels and color correction in post production. Something else to consider are the people controlling the lights. They will change the lights for different clothes or models to create a different atmosphere and this can completely throw your camera and exposure off and ruin your footage. If you do film over exposed there is no way to correct the footage in post production. Trust me, it’s happened many times and it’s something I will never do again!
OK so now we have the exposure out the way, make sure you have the correct white balance in place, this can easily be achieved by putting a white piece of paper in front of the lenses and pressing the >b< balance button on the camera. This way you will get a perfect white balance for the room! (try not to use “auto function” as you will need to tell the camera what white is. Since this is such an important topic, I have included a video for you to see on a cannon XH A1.
Happy filming!
Realitypod.tv 