Four men walk us through the essentials of video production on the go, whether film, clips or television. Moderator Hank Blumenthal covers what it means to produce content across different platforms and what kind works best in which medium. The second part of the speech is more of the technical aspect of what to do with your content for the widest audience.
Jason Meil from currenttv (Al Gore is chairman) talks about how currenttv has become all things to all people – news junkies, music folk, comedy. He says revenue model of TV is an oddbird – the content is created for both tv and the web but primarily for use on the web – make it more interactive and create a world around the story. However, paying for content is sticky. The business model follows that of television and a portion is paid – that which is broadcast. Most companies still won’t pay for content until the market settles on what to pay. Meil echoes the sentiment that we heard in the film panel earlier this morning – you must have a good story or don’t do it anyway!
Meil – “Now anyone can do anything but 99 percent of it is still shitty.”
David Todd works in many fields of new media, most recently working with bands and getting their tunes noticed. He says piracy is on a worldwide scale and is often an introduction to media for poorer people. In his video work, he tries to get interactivity between professionals and amateurs to exchange ideas and questions.
Todd – “I have to totally agree (with Meil) that 99 percent of it is shitty.” He went on to say you can still find people that may have not have gotten into the online content video industry but now are – and are telling stories in a way that is outside the box.
Jason Nunes, film producer for Evil Dead III: The Necronomicon and consultant for numerous failed and successful online tv ventures, currently runs an online tv soap opera which is driven by audience opinions. The production, therefore, is very guerilla-like. Questions are asked to people of where they want the show to go – which is often the lowest common-denominator, aka pornography. So, asking the right questions becomes important. Turnaround is usually a week for the show and is therefore, partially audience-driven. The outcome is a choose-your-own-adventure style of story.
Nunes – “There’s a sea of crap with diamonds floating in it.” He says digg lets the masses decide and that is a new way of doing things. He offers a long tail description of the people that could be your fans – 1,000 of them, that if able to pay you one day’s worth of their salaries – could allow you to survive and exclusively produce your art.
Hank Blumenthal, the moderator, is a film producer with an anime background who says realplayer was the way to go 10 years ago and now flash is the preferred video player, though not without its own compatibility faults. Working between companies can also cause friction on what gets published on the net, including any legal implications.
Blumenthal – “Maybe 10 percent of it is good but only one percent gets distributed.”
Marc Speir