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The point is the CONTENT, not the production values. Wait, does it sound like I'm switching gears? No, the content is king, but poor production values can get in the way of the message.
Poor production shouldn't stop you from doing your thing, but it's not something to which you should aspire (unspire?). In general, the better your production values, the easier it is for people to get the message -- and that's the most important thing, isn't it?
Yeah, it can always be made better. But, watch this video of Emma and her mom. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-664200... It's horrible. If you look at it that way. But to her family? I'll bet it's precious and I bet they don't really care that it was a shaky camera, with audio that could have been better, with lighting that sucked.
Not everything has to look like a Superbowl commercial. And that's why I love this new medium.
Can you be a podcaster or vlogger (I hate that word) with poor production qualities?
Can you be a blogger who can't spell or punctuate?
Of course. Will you be a better blogger, podcaster, or vlogger when you have a greater command of the medium? All other things equal, yes.
Dave has a ton of people who listen to his podcast... not because of it's poor production values but INSPITE OF IT. There are plenty of people (like me) who do not listen because of the dead air (etc).
Would Dave have more listeners if he did a little editing? I think so. At least one more.
To me it seems like the issue is more that podcasters and vloggers are either too lazy to do some editing (which may be fine, depending on their audience) or they don't know how, so instead of learning they prefer to jump up on a soapbox about how it's unimportant.
Sure, sure, there's a law of diminishing returns... how many more listeners/viewers does that extra hour of production work get you?
But it seems counter-intuitive to suggest that having a more watchable/listenable show is going to hurt you.
What so-called videoblogging is doing is recreating cable access crap on an extremely large scale. Nothing on the 150 professional cable channels? Great. Now you've got 150,000 cable access shows to choose from.
Wheeeeeee!
Unfortunately, "when and where" is most often while driving, on public transport, or walking noisy streets. And if I can't hear it, I exercise my choice: "Next!"
It's not about being "fancy". If I can't hear your podcast, I won't cry over it. There is more quality content out there than I can ever hope to consume. "Next!"
Not always...and usually only with dsyfunctional organizations (not much a surprise at Microsoft).
Production values require TALENT and know-how.
I turn my Events/Weddings/Bar and Bat Mitzvahs/Corporate Marketing Rot shoots into works of Hollywood art, and I am only one person out of two. And I do it fast too, (thanks Ultimate S 2). All Hail Douglas Spotted Eagle (my guru of sorts).
Poor quality only means poor quality. You can blog without knowing how to write. You can vblog without knowing the basics of production, handheld shaky cam with bad audio in tow. Heck, freedom. But the better you write, and the better your production values the more attention you will get. Quite simple, yes?
Channel 9 is niche. Some lower two-thirds, some serious editing, with some DECENT audio, and narrational VO's, with a Steadicam feel...well you might have gotten MORE of an audience. I could have turned that place around, single-handedly, and that's no idle boast.
Your on10 is much better, but then it's headachey MTV jump-cut short attention span, pointless stupid geek tricks bugs me to no end, makes my teeth hurt. But then I am not the target audience, so can't fault them for 'style'.
Nothing WRONG with the smallish Indy's taking on Hollywood if you will, but the first and foremost consideration is always (and will always be) quality.
As for the "production" issue. Well, on the one hand I guess al-Queda is able to get its point across with low-quality videos. (Nick Berg, etc). Is that the level you are aspiring to? I'm not sure "committees" are required for good, high quality production videos. Spielberg was able to turn our some pretty good stuff while he was in film school. I don'think he had a committee for that.
You're fooling yourself if you think quality doesn't matter, particulary if you want to be making money at the end of the day. Your message will get lost in the distraction of the poor quality as people will be focused on how horrible the production is. Now if you want to be a parody of yourself and people watch and listen BECAUSE of how horrible it is, I guess that could be good entertainment value. Sort of like the old SCTV show. That might work. I don't think that is what you are going for, though. How much extra work does it take to make sure you are well editied and well scripted? Sounds like you don't want to put in the effort.
It was awful. Could hardly hear anyone, video was grainy, soundtracking and voiceover constantly drowned out sound. And it brought down the house.
Because we didn't waste our time talking to a bunch of other filmmakers about production values. Instead we made something clever.
I love hearing about these useless arguments at conferences -- they keep the boring people too busy to make movies.
Oh, and getting back to the "production question", did you even happen to read the first paragraphs of that article:
Plan: Think about where you’re shooting from and where the action is.
Edit: Keep the action interesting; only include what’s essential.
Frame: Get closer to what you are filming so that viewers can see detail.
Please don't tell me you are defining vblogging as any video that is put on the internet to be downloaded.
Ohmigosh. Quote of the Week. :)
But a key thing you should be thinking about is the future value of the material you create. If its badly recorded (shaky camera, poor sound quality) it has no value in ten years time for a tv show or xyz medium yet to be invented.
Your pension may be hidden away in some of the material you create today (its just that at this moment you can't know what will pay out in the end).
Its how old school photographers and film-makers worked...
Let me tell you something about 80s skateboarding videos. They absolutely sucked. They were horrendous, shaky handheld camera affairs with grainy pictures and crappy resolution (yes! Just like vidblogs ;)). Proper cameras and editing equipment were expensive and few skateboarding companies really had the people in-house that knew how to use them. We didn't mind, it was simply the best they could provide at the time. So the quality was dodgy, you could hardly recognize the skaters, we paid a ridiculous price for the tapes, but it was still skateboarding. We didn't mind.
Now it's 2006 and guess what? There's still skateboarding videos, but they're different now. The subject hasn't changed, it's still people doing what they love doing. But the quality has improved a 10000-fold. Equipment and software has become readily available, why not use it? And as a consumer, I've changed. If it doesn't look good from the start, I will fast forward it. If it doesn't look good further in, click - it dissapears. Why? With the current products available, noone has to make a shitty skateboarding video anymore. If you do, it's because you're lazy, not because you're the cool underdog who'se rebelling against the man.
What am I trying to say with this whole comment? Crappy production value is okay, as long as you realize it's because you have no other choice due to time constraints/money/work/etc. But when you do have the possibility to make things look better, and you're still using that excuse, you're hiding.
Ime with the quality crowd some of the audio quality in podcasting is dire a couple of basic shures and a decent soudcard and a baby mixer wont break the bank.
Oh and lives notch filter is great for killing nasty mains hum.
also to do serious video you may well be looking at 2-3 cameras if you want to cover an interviewer and the subject plus posibly a wide shot.
The prosumer sonys are only 2-3 k which is the minimum I would consider using for a company doing vloging.
Similar with blogging, I write to see what reaction I can engender from a potential audience. I have read all sorts of advice on increasing traffic to publicise my blog. I write (I hope) with a fairly high standard of production, trying to remain coherent and interesting. I couldn’t afford to be published many other ways. I read many blogs using the “txt” lexicon (which just give me a headache) that I see no point in even returning to. But there is the measure of the standard. There is the measure of the whole movement. It is all self criticising. If you publish anything and no-one visits or comments then you soon become bored and move on to something else or re-asses your style. If you can afford the production values and want to use them, why not use them. It doesn’t mean that the end product is any better than Joe Bloggs vlogging from his bedroom every Thursday night.
The other side of this is that who you are talking to matters. If I put up a video of my kids, I don't expect anyone but my parents to be interested. For them it's a kick ass video even if it's a little shaky or the audio isn't great.
http://www.shiffman.net/category/vlog/
The producer of the vlog is Daniel Shiffman who is a researcher at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at ITP.
If I go out and shoot a video on DV, no way is it going to be as 'good' as say what Ethan Hawke could do on DV (you can check out the film 'Chelsea Walls' if you're interested in the history of DV usage by the industry). I'm not trained in acting, voice work, scoring film or video and even if I've got the latest in DV cameras and editing suites etc plus what I thing is an interesting script, I'm going to have a heck of a time competing with pros who know these less technology dependent skills. Plus I don't have the cred (or should it be old media penetration and saturation) of someone like Ethan so I'm already at a dis advantage in the 'hit-getting' contest.
This is not to say that a 'production-values challenged' vlog doesn't have any value, but that maybe the playing field isn't as level as it should be (especially not once people with name recognition and old media credentials start messing around with the technologies).
Its one of the reasons I'm not as eager to view videos there as I once was.
There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to hear someone because
1 - The microphone , assuming there is one, is no where near them
2 - Someone's shirt is making love to the microphone
3 - There's some god-awful static , hiss, or other noise in the background
4 - Scoble is laughing (at his own joke).
louder than the speaker who is trying to talk and ignore the inane distraction. (sorry :))
I reference this blog and conversation in my blog about the state of podcasts and vlogs here:
http://bradfuller.com/blog/2006/07/11/the-state...
Make films about what you know. But in the end I wished I had done a 90 minute film on this subject and shot it on 35mm. However in documentary , subjects tend to shut down in front of big crews.