THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

[George Butterfield]

If you gave a Canon T2i to Stanley Kubrick or Roger Deakins, they could wipe the floor with your average kid armed with two loaded Epics.

And they both get a cast and crew of One hundred and an 100 million dollar budget? Hmmm, I'll take that action, I'll put my money on the EPIC's. OR, no cast and crew and no budget, Hmmm, then it might be close ... can I pick the "average" kid. Who are the Actors? Kubrick gets Tom Cruise, the kid gets Jeff Bridges?

 

[I Bloom]

Anyone care to chime in? It's been discussed on this forum before, but I thought it might be nice to have it on one thread.
When I started in the film business (20 plus years ago), it was an intriguing combination of craft, art, and business. Sometimes now it seems like a monkeyf**k of hobbyist BS, with budgets and standards setting new lows.
Personally, I'd steer any young people away... my own kids included (I'm actually thinking one should become an electrical contractor, one a plumber, and one a landscape architect) Someday it will surely be a loser "job", like being a "rock musician" with a day job.
I still enjoy what I do, and am fortunate to work far in excess of the number of days it takes to support my family, so I should consider myself lucky. But I often wonder where it's all headed...
I'm speaking of the commercial and corporate business, not episodic or features, since I rarely work in those genres... but if anyone in those worlds would like to chime in, that would be great.
Cheers

Not sure I disagree with you but I'll take a crack at devils advocate.

It's not exactly fair to call it a race to the bottom. That assumes that everyone is racing to drop their prices in order to compete in a market full of competition. There's no evidence that the amount of available skilled labor for film production has actually increased: it still requires rare skills, and the lifestyle requirements will always scare away a lions share of potential entrants. There is also not much evidence that the falling costs of recording mediums and post production are actually effecting budgets, because of the availability of technology. These elements are just a few line items on a budget. The forces lowering budgets are IMHO coming mainly from elsewhere.

It seems to me that the main factor is the quiet fall of television to the internet as our main means of distributing video. There are fewer and fewer places you can put a message now where it's possible to guarantee a certain audience size. So advertisers have to drop lots of little bombs instead of one big bomb. And that means that they can't concentrate their dollars in one place, in the same way that they used to. But on the flip side, demand for skilled labor may be higher today than it has been, because the demand for volume of content is so much greater than it has been.

If you feel like you are seeing more material created by "hobbyists" it's probably because they have a means of distributing it to you, via Vimeo and YouTube, so you are seeing more of it, because you follow links to that material. That same content would have sat on video tapes in someones basement for most of the 90s. This reflects a much larger social shift that has been taking place for the last ten years toward dispersed creation and distribution of content. It's likely to increase. It may mean less work for your lenses, or reduced rates, but it could also mean a more just and equitable society... maybe. My guess is that the same number of kids want to make movies today as did in the 80's or 90's.

As the internet evolves various portholes will try as hard as they can to concentrate attention on an individual space. The way things are going with Facebook, Apple, and Google, and various attempts to build a two tier internet, the day may be coming soon where advertiser have a place to put a video message which merits a huge concentration of dollars on one spot. It's seems to me like both you and I will benefit financially on that day, but I don't think our culture actually will.

In any case, there's always this gem to keep my faith in high budget production alive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM&feature=player_embedded

IBloom

 

[Matt Sibley]

Wait.... the Red would be the Mac, right?

for me personally yeah but that's because im a mac user. My point is it's just personal preferance. Anyway i feel i've kinda led this a bit off topic......

 

[Anson Fogel]

Bloom, you bring out the Edward Grieg again? Damn! Grieg Rolled again!

FWIW, I'm pretty much with Bloom on this one.

 

[Erik Franzén]

Well, every revolution has it's price. This is just the very tiny beginning of what happened to our brothers over at the music industry. Democratization of tools and equipment will equal the playing field on a technical level - talent cannot be bought the same way (well, you can hire someone else to do the job ).
Next up is TV - I doubt we'll ever see TV go away completely (just like I doubt that we'll see cinema go away completely) but it won't be what TV is today. There is simply no market for that in a world where the internet is taking over and free/low-cost entertainment with approximately the same quality can be achieved for a much lower budget. That hasn't happened yet, but it will.
Cinema also need to re-invent itself. People don't want to pay unless they see the experience as seriously rewarding. I think a lot of people don't feel cinema is that rewarding now - not with the high 3D ticket prices and all. Though evidently the number of cinemagoers must still be very high - otherwise there would be no way summer blockbusters could make their money back

Oh, and seconded on everything Bloom said.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

If you feel like you are seeing more material created by "hobbyists" it's probably because they have a means of distributing it to you, via Vimeo and YouTube,

Ian's post is spot on, I will only add my 2 cents, which is, that I've been thinking that filmmaking is the new English major, that thing you do because it's considered a relatively fun and easy way to get a degree.

Increasingly, images --and not words -- are the language of the realm.

So lots and lots of people with easy access to and facility with the means of production. It's a form - if not THE form - of self-expression, for better and worse. So it's not just your imagination, Harry, the hobbyists *are* everywhere. I live in a college town, and it just seems like EVERYONE is making movies these days - contests, shootouts, youtube - it's just everywhere. Everyone wants to make movies. And everyone can.

What used to be fairly specialized, expensive, and inaccessible equipment is now on your phone, in high-definition. And NLEs are free with every computer. And cheap USB mics. The cost of entry has been on an historic deflationary spiral.

 

[Peter Matthes]

In any case, there's always this gem to keep my faith in high budget production alive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM&feature=player_embedded
IBloom

Hey ... I did the sound sync on that. :frown5:

Kidding aside ...

Like Harry, I primarily produce and shoot commercial and corporate work. In fact, Harry and I work with many of the same NYC directors.

IMHO ... For the most part, this type of client does not understand the resolution argument. They do not care if their spots are "future proof". More likely than not, their commercial will air for a year or two and it will not be printed to film. For this reason, a 1080p solution like the Canon 5D or the Sony EX3 sometimes becomes more attractive to them.

I own a Sony EX3 and a Red One package, and I spend a great deal of time trying to convince my clients to shoot Red. Not only do I want to shoot more stuff on Red, but I also want to sell my EX3.

Just last month, I produced a $400,000.00 commercial and in the end they decided to shoot it with three Sony EX3 cameras. :mad2: Some of the consideration was camera weight, but most of it was the ability to easily offline edit (on AVID) with the XDCAM footage and quickly conform.

A MAJOR selling point for the Red One is its RAW image. On top of that, its high resolution and ability to use PL glass provides amazing images. I would just love to see a more universal post workflow that does not scare some clients away.

As the budgets become more challenged, it will become more and more difficult to say, "Hey ... This is an amazing camera, and it will give you unparalleled flexibility in post. However, we will need to get the R3D files transcoded by an on-set $1,000/day DIT ... or send them out and have that job done overnight by the post house, etc." ... * (*Yes ... I understand that just a few years ago this cost and delay was the norm with the film labs.) ... "Then you can offline edit those resulting DNxHD files, and I am fairly sure we will be able to re-link to the R3D files when, or if, you want to color correct."

I just would love to see an immediately available offline editable proxy file that can be easily and equally utilized by Final Cut and AVID**. A proxy file that has perfectly matching timecode, so that either non-linear editing system can then produce an EDL and quickly conform from that.

** Even though Avid MC5 says that it can natively edit R3D files, it really seems that many computers are not up to speed with that type of workflow.

I truly believe that is why there are so many requests for a ProRes module.

 

[Harry Clark]

Hmmm.
I guess, as Paul said, I was just having a bad day. Trying to stir the pot and created a spirited discussion...
I was speaking less about the "level technical playing field" and I really don't watch others' work on youtube or vimeo. It's really more the elastic nature of client's standards from one job to the next that surprises me, coupled with what passes for "good" nowadays.
Interesting times...
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Joseph Hutson]

If you gave a Canon T2i to Stanley Kubrick or Roger Deakins, they could wipe the floor with your average kid armed with two loaded Epics.

Put that on a T shirt and I'll sell em like hotcakes on shoots.

And if you gave Stanley Kubrick or Roger Deakins a couple of EPICS ...

Mark, that goes on the back of the T-shirt... :laugh:

 

[Jeff Coatney]

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jeffcoatney#p/a/u/0/ZIOplufP_WU

 

[Elsie N]

It seems that way now... but I think it will start changing for the better in the next few years.

I can see why people are upset though. It used to take years and years of work and experience to get up to the level of being able to shoot on what is considered "cinematic" or "professional". Now 16-18 year-olds are getting that same quality for their birthdays from Best Buy.

Once producers, businesses, and companies see that pretty much everyone has access to the same "general" quality of video, they're going to start noticing things like camera movement, editing, coloring, pacing, and just general creativity more than they use to. This will be great for the creative types who otherwise lacked the people skills and contacts to "climb the ladder" to the big jobs. It going to be hell for the business types that have the mind frame of "well if I invest X amount of into this camera system, then I can expect Y revenue based on the amount of other people that can provide the same level of quality in the region." It's no longer an arms race to the top in terms of equipment.

It only seems like a clusterf*ck right now because we're on the verge of a MAJOR paradigm shift of how, and by whom, content is created for the masses. Things like the home computer, the internet, youtube, DSLRs, natively running Protools, Reason, Final Cut, ect... have/are really changing where and who quality content is coming from.

It used to be those with the dollars controlled the talent and what/where/when it was produced due to their grasp of a certain "quality" that others would never have access to, unless they spent their lives climbing(slaving) their way up the ladder for those who came before them. This whole industry... from commercials to cinema was basically based on the fact that "I can provide this level of quality... and you can't." Not so much anymore. To barrow a little from Atlas Shrugged... The "mystics" that were once controlling this industry are losing their power. No longer can they keep it to themselves and their friends... it belongs to the individual and the masses now.

+1.

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

I was on a shoot yesterday with my HVX200. So the clients want a "viral" interview look...
What ever that is....so I am shooting and then I see the client and her assistant whip out their iPhones and start shooting as well. In vertical mode? And then they say - oh we thought you could use this in just "edit it in" somewhere??/ WTF??

 

[Michael Hastings]

I was on a shoot yesterday with my HVX200. So the clients want a "viral" interview look...
What ever that is....so I am shooting and then I see the client and her assistant whip out their iPhones and start shooting as well. In vertical mode? And then they say - oh we thought you could use this in just "edit it in" somewhere??/ WTF??

This has been going on since the Video8mm and VHS days...

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I agree with much of what Ian said because I've seen it in VFX as well.

On the 'down side' you are seeing the tools make it more accessible for more and more people to compete with what used to require years of dedication to craft. But you also never used to see VFX in a $5k budget short. You wouldn't have seen a VFX budget in a YouTube viral if it weren't getting so much easier and quicker.

Similarly in production there wouldn't have been a YouTube viral produced 5 years ago so while the margins may have reduced, I don't know that there are any less commercials being produced. But certainly budgets are being reduced and web work doesn't pay nearly as well as TV work.

 

[Paul Lee]

Hmmm.
I guess, as Paul said, I was just having a bad day. Trying to stir the pot and created a spirited discussion...
I was speaking less about the "level technical playing field" and I really don't watch others' work on youtube or vimeo. It's really more the elastic nature of client's standards from one job to the next that surprises me, coupled with what passes for "good" nowadays.
Interesting times...
Cheers,
Harry

Harry,
I was only half kidding and I totally sympathise with your thoughts. It kills me when the client/producer signs off on the picture lock, and we say "great, now we'll do the mix and color grade" and the producer says "oh, do you think we need to?"

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

This has been going on since the Video8mm and VHS days...

And I edited many videos with the client supplying "internal" footage.

In a way the iPhone video almost looks better than the HVX200.....:w00t:

 

[Rob Ruffo]

There has always been a low-end (weddings, used car lot commercials) and a high end. There still is, although the low end is now bigger, and the tools they use are now a bit better.

But "cinematic" is not only about what tools you use. I mean, the tools used by a professional screenwriter cost about $500, to do studio-level work at the highest level. Yet you don't see any rush to hire students in China to replace them.

A big part of what we sell here is knowledge of acting, storytelling, pacing, color theory, and on and on. That guy from wherever posting shallow DOF shots of his backyard on Vimeo is not much of a threat, even if he saved up and bought an Epic. If he were a threat, I would see as a sign that I need to revise my client list.

We use the best gear we can at all times, but beyond briefly mentioning that once, it's not equipment that sells us to our clients, it's our reel.

For a while (now thankfully fading after too many moire misadventures, because it always looks very "5D" (unlike Red which can look like just about anything, depending on how its shot and graded) and that very strong and visually repetitive look is now associated with wedding videos and other super low-end work) clients would ask us to shoot on 5D because it was the fad, however stupid that is. BUT - they were asking for me to shoot on 5D, they weren't running out and hiring some skateboard video or wedding guy because he owned a 5D, and there was no discussion that I should be paid less because of the cheaper camera.

 

[Ben Holmes]

Here's my take on this as an editor and equipment hirer:

Nowadays I charge twice as much for my own time as I do to hire my edit. People pay for ME, not my gear. And they still pay the same for me.

Personally I prefer it.

 

[Joe G.]

I'm afraid "devil's advocate" would go a little more like this. I find it hilarious that people who shoot TV commercials -- those disgusting assaults on our consciousness whose sole purpose is to sell us garbage we don't want -- are whining over making less doing it.

Good. Do something that benefits mankind instead.

TV commercials are the propaganda equivalent of Leni Riefenstahl's work, and not much different than the Triumph of the Corporate Will. They triumph, because they pay. No other reason necessary.

I haven't seen a single qualm about the elephant in the room, the intellectual whoring, using your craft talents to sell whatever the hell the "client" demands. Perhaps a little more waking up in the middle of the night screaming is in order. Sell some more diabetes and heart disease. Push that junk. Great job.

 

[Elsie N]

I'm afraid "devil's advocate" would go a little more like this. I find it hilarious that people who shoot TV commercials -- those disgusting assaults on our consciousness whose sole purpose is to sell us garbage we don't want -- are whining over making less doing it.

Good. Do something that benefits mankind instead.

TV commercials are the propaganda equivalent of Leni Riefenstahl's work, and not much different than the Triumph of the Corporate Will. They triumph, because they pay. No other reason necessary.

I haven't seen a single qualm about the elephant in the room, the intellectual whoring, using your craft talents to sell whatever the hell the "client" demands. Perhaps a little more waking up in the middle of the night screaming is in order. Sell some more diabetes and heart disease. Push that junk. Great job.

But Joe, many commercials are better than the content. When I have coffee with friends, the conversation more often turns to "Did you see such-and-such commercial?" rather than "Did you watch so-and-so TV show?"

Gimme a good commercial over a bad TV show anytime.