State of the Industry

[John Montgomery]

Post thoughts from your perspective about the current state of the industry and economy.

[Social Mohshi]

It’s starting to get annoying that production companies are trying to do the job of post themselves with cheaper software and common home pc. The truth is that they can. My sugestion is that we should distint more our work from theirs. Often we get a client that tried to do it on his own and after 2 or 3 days gave up, asking us to fix it in a ridiculous time frame when we could have 3 extra days. I say , we can have less work, let them do the easy stuff, but charging extra for ours. You want a specialized profissional doing your film, you gotta pay. Otherwise go back to your Sony Vegas suite and clean out your mess.

Is it just me or is there any other that feels the same?

Best
olheiros

[pixelmonk]

Where is the link to the podcast?

[tscholton]

This thread was started as part of the podcast called Posting Your Work Online. In the intro John mentioned that he had just returned from IBC and felt the mood was rather depressing. He asked people to come here and post their thoughts on the state of the industry.

Jeff

[maxrehan]

Hey John,
Thanks for this thread. It could be very interesting.
I color/do vfx/finish spot work.
Actual quote from agency client. “Right now I can get anyone to do anything for any price.”
I think this has direct correlation to the “democratization’ of the production process. Prices have come down so far on gear for every segment of the business that, part of that statement is true. You can have an turnkey post facility for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than you could have just 3 years ago. Which, by the way, is the reason most of the big names we have seen go under this year were up a creek. They bought heavy into DI processes, that have been largely bypassed by digital acquisition. So, yes, it is possible for everyone to do everything now without a huge investment. Whether the quality is up to par is a different story.
Which is the most dismal aspect of the whole situation. Clients, for the most part, don’t care as much as they used to. Part of this has to do with shrinking budgets, so they can’t afford to be as picky. But part of it has to do with the malaise on that side as well. Agencies around here have gone down the list of their payroll, and lopped off those at the top, irrespective of talent or production. They can find someone else that can fill the hole for much less.
But at some point, you have to take lemons and make lemonade. Someday, hopefully soon, demand will come back, and budgets will rise again. The trick is figuring out what will be in demand, and positioning yourself for the comeback. There are always opportunities for those who look carefully for them.
B22

[Anonymous]

is anybody really that surprised that we are in this situation?

first, it was 16 and 8mm motion picture film.

then, it was the Betamax.

next up, VHS.

followed by the dot coms.

then, it was 35mm film for still cameras.

then, it was music/iTunes/audio.

picture.

visual effects.

feature films.

In the Golden Era of X, only the pioneers make it. After a while, we figure out how to make it accessible and everybody joins in. Markets saturate. Markets bust. The strong survive and the weak jump ship. The strong evolve and become great at other things.

Are we really that surprised? Or are we just not into changing and evolving?

My first thought was, if you are a post house, and you choose to do anything for every price, you are already in trouble.

randy
mill ny

[Peter Romero]

You are right. We are in a moment of crisis because Market is saturate of intruders (no professional people who has a powerful cheap computer with powerful cheap -or worst, hacked- software) who offers “high level” post services cheaper than a serious post facility. What to do?

But clients knows the advantages of a professional and the risks of non-professional one. Quality Vs. Money. Bad question.

Ok. If they could do cheaper we must do BETTER. For instance, everyone can buy Final Cut Studio, but not all this the people knows the craft of editing, and of course only “a few” are really good Editors. In fine arts, we can buy a canvas, brushes and colors, better tools than Vincent Van Gogh ones at his time… but no one can do his works better than him. Personality, style and artist skills doesn’t buy.

I think we are what we know to do best. In my opinion it is time to invest more on education and be update with hardware/software. We must be more different, being best pros.

It is only a personal opinion.

[Melissa Hickson]

I have seen a big change in the types of jobs we have been doing over the past year, and it has everything to do with the state of the economy. The bulk of our jobs has changed from advertising work to entertainment based work, like network packaging, show opens, and station ID’s.

[Social Mohshi]

@victorperez 28841 wrote:

I think we are what we know to do best. In my opinion it is time to invest more on education and be update with hardware/software. We must be more different, being best pros.

It is only a personal opinion.

You are right Victor. We should invest in education all the time.
The thing is if you want to train at home, most of professional software
gives you a lousy 30 day demo with watermarks or locked features, some don’t even have demo version or PLE like autodesk FFI. thankfully we have fxphd, Thank you JOHN, MIKE AND JEFF.

[Anonymous]

I can agree with this as well. To me, I just dont see myself buying much in the means of new anime because most of it is really not up to par compared to classics.

[Author]

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