The future value of camera ops

[SimonW]

I've been doing a number of jobs shooting in schools recently. This last week I covered both a brand new primary school and also a renovated secondary school. The focus was on the ICT (what was called IT in my day) and how it is used to help educate the kids. The jobs got me thinking about the future of people like us and our value due to both what I saw in these schools and also a comment from one of the teachers.

In the primary school all the kids, aged around 6-7 years old, were doing a lesson on animation. They were being taught about keyframes and other animation terminology. These were kids who were asking their teacher questions about frames per second and interpolation! One of them specifically asked if they needed their project settings to be set to 25fps because this was the standard for the UK! This wasn't a special school for gifted kids or anything. Just a normal primary school.

In the secondary school in one of the interviews one of the teachers said that he sees media being covered a lot more as part of the normal curriculum including specific lessons on using video cameras and equipment.

Now, I realise that not everyone is going to be a gifted natural at making video. But in a world where kids are brought up with the technical knowledge and taught how to use video cameras at the same time they are taught to read and write, surely many of these kids will grow up with a much more innate knowledge of this stuff? And if they do what effect will it have on the value of our work if every Tom, Dick, and Harry is taught at school how to compose, shoot and edit shots to a competent degree?

 

[iHD]

I think the lesson to be learned from you experience is that you have to know much more than just shooting and editing if you want to survive in the newsrooms of the future. A valued photog is no longer one that shoots great video and knows AVID or FCP. The photog of the future is also going to have to know After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, illustrator, file conversions, as well as how to write. In the field, you're not only going to be the photog/live truck op/editor but also producer/engineer/IT specialist.

 

[canuckcam]

Then hopefully it'll have more people appreciate the art of photography and storytelling and that those who truly excel in the craft will be those who succeed.

Just like the lowering cost of DSLRs, everybody's uncle is now a "professional photographer." But just because they have the toys doesn't meant they know how to make a meaningful photograph with it. Those who are truly good photographers have nothing to fear. Those who are hacks... shudder.

And we can finally be recognized not as monkey-pushing button camera OPERATORS. Well, at least it says that on my business card... I am not an OPERATOR! GRR!

 

[Buck]

A valued photog is no longer one that shoots great video and knows AVID or FCP. The photog of the future is also going to have to know After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, illustrator, file conversions, .

I agree, but what bothers me (at least at our place), we are never taught how do use anything. We have several FCP bays along with our others and not once has our station brought in a professional to answer questions or teach us tricks and tips. A lot of it is up to us to figure it out on our own (which I have done somewhat).

 

[SimonW]

Just like the lowering cost of DSLRs, everybody's uncle is now a "professional photographer." But just because they have the toys doesn't meant they know how to make a meaningful photograph with it.

I agree, but I don't think that fully equates with what I was saying. Everybody's uncle might have a DSLR, but the difference here is that it would be like everybody's uncle owning a DSLR having been taught from an early age at school how to use it. That's the thing. The schools are now recognising the number of people who want to work in the media industries, and they see how important video has become. Many of these schools are bringing in pro's to teach different subjects.

Only the other day I covered a big meeting at a school (more like a conference really). The guy providing me with the audio feed and sound mixing was one of the teachers, an ex broadcast soundman and mixer who had worked on a number of big shows over here over a good number of years. With people like him teaching, and the way kids are naturally gravitating towards this type of field, there is certainly going to be a lot more competition out there.

A valued photog is no longer one that shoots great video and knows AVID or FCP. The photog of the future is also going to have to know After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, illustrator, file conversions,

Yep. And again these kids, even now are being taught how to use Photoshop, FCP etc. One school I went to they even make their own promo videos. They had a full FCP suite, a music studio, the works. A university I went to in Aberdeen a few weeks ago not only had full Avid suites, but they had a whole bank of XDCAM's, both disc based and EX's.

Any doubts about whether the students knew how to operate this stuff was quelled when I was told that the BBC actually let the students set up, light, and shoot any interviews with prominent politicians they require in the area. This is totally different from when I was at college and we had some crappy Panasonic thing that was held together with gaffer tape and most of the students had difficulty finding the record button.

 

[iHD]

A high school that I consult for has a full studio with news set, FCP suits, full control room, and they shoot on Panny 615 DVCPro cameras. This is not a big rich district either. This is a small rural school. Another school hired me to set up all their equippment and they had the same gear except they shot on XL2's. Both schools teach After Effects & Photoshop in their journalism classes.

Buck,

Newsrooms are not going to pay to teach you anything. You're going to be expected to take the initiative and learn it yourself. I paid $800 and took a certified AVID class when I first started out and wrote it off on my taxes. If you wait for your station to provide training, you're going to get left behind. There are also some great FREE tutorials on YouTube that teach photoshop and after effects.

 

[Brock Samson]

A camera operator is the kid on the studio floor with the camera pointed at the blow-dryer target. I am not a camera operator.

 

[Lensmith]

Newsrooms are not going to pay to teach you anything. You're going to be expected to take the initiative and learn it yourself. I paid $800 and took a certified AVID class when I first started out and wrote it off on my taxes. If you wait for your station to provide training, you're going to get left behind.

True words.

A couple of places I've worked I saw photogs lose out, employment wise, over the long term because they were waiting to be trained. It would be nice if the station offered training but they don't have to. This is not something new. Do what you have to learn. Otherwise you will be left behind and that is not really anyone's fault but your own. It's up to you to make yourself the best employee available to your employer. Just because they hired you years ago, doesn't mean they are now responsible for your continuing education to remain a valuable employee.

 

[krazycamera]

Do I smell the beginnings of a revolution?

A camera operator is the kid on the studio floor with the camera pointed at the blow-dryer target. I am not a camera operator.

And we can finally be recognized not as monkey-pushing button camera OPERATORS. Well, at least it says that on my business card... I am not an OPERATOR! GRR!

I also hold a special contempt for that term.

Sorry to divert the thread Simon - to respond to your initial post, I too wonder what the future holds for these budding creative nine year olds!!
I recently covered the opening of a new 'academy school' (UK term for school that was going down the plug hole, was closed and combined with another local school, re-opened with new toys and larger classes).

These kids had loads of cool stuff. Radio station, tv studio, HD frikkin projectors in every classroom!!! So are they spoilt by the tech, or are they simply modern kids, learning the basics of what we as a society has set for them.
I suspect the generation that couldn't program a VCR is fast disappearing, and these savvy kids are the norm, not anything special.

Will they all become VJ's or ENG pros like us? Unlikely.
Like many, I went through the exciting classes of story writing at school, thinking I might one day become a novelist. Kids are fickle, and just because they can white balance, doesn't mean they won't still join the army.

 

[AlexLucas]

Most. Depressing. Thread. Ever.

 

[SimonW]

I recently covered the opening of a new 'academy school' (UK term for school that was going down the plug hole, was closed and combined with another local school, re-opened with new toys and larger classes).

Yep, done a lot of them. Some of the are very impressive. I do wonder why kids don't like going to school these days!

Like many, I went through the exciting classes of story writing at school, thinking I might one day become a novelist. Kids are fickle, and just because they can white balance, doesn't mean they won't still join the army.

That's true. But really where I'm coming from is that if everybody knows how to do a competent shot with a camera and is taught how to do so alongside maths and their country's language, will they value our skills more, or less?

(Note to self, never say "camera operator" again! )

 

[cameragod]

I think it makes our skills more valuable. I shot an X games event were every second kid in the audience had a camera. On my way back to my motel unit I could see their pictures playing from their cameras on the motel TV’s, soon to be on youtube but still all day we were asked “Where can we see the proper pictures?” and “I can’t wait to see it properly.”
As long as there is a perceived difference between professional and amateur we will be in demand. What hurts us is the so called ‘professionals’ that are lazy or don’t give a damn, who charge for work that the kids could have done.
There must be a point of difference and quality is a good place to start.

 

[Fearless Leader]

'god, I agree. There is something to be said for "getting it right" versus "just getting it". The people who know how to properly light, shoot, capture sound and edit are always going to play a valuable roll. Some aspects of that may be expanding, but that's no reason to fear obsolescence.

 

[AKinDC]

Buck,

Newsrooms are not going to pay to teach you anything. You're going to be expected to take the initiative and learn it yourself. I paid $800 and took a certified AVID class when I first started out and wrote it off on my taxes. If you wait for your station to provide training, you're going to get left behind. There are also some great FREE tutorials on YouTube that teach photoshop and after effects.

I was going to say the same thing, except steer you to lynda.com instead of expensive classes.
Learn practically any program you'll need for for $25 a month or $250 a year. I learned FCP and Motion using them...great value. Sorry if I sound like a commercial...

 

[Kevin Alexander]

I left the news business about two years ago, and since then I've been taking the time to learn programs like After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I might get back in the business someday soon, and if so I want to be prepared for the future. And I agree, the ability to use these types of programs will be essential. I was in the same position a few years ago where the station didn't pay for us to learn the new Avid's. I had to learn on my own, and draw from my experience from other NLE's from school. I saw a lot of the other photogs struggle since some of them weren't even used to using a computer.

That being said, a great resource for learning software is Lynda.com. The basic subscription is $25/month, and it has tutorials on ALL the software you would need for video... Avid, FCP, Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, etc... It's truly helped me out...

 

[justFRED.ca]

...snip....

Now, I realise that not everyone is going to be a gifted natural at making video. But in a world where kids are brought up with the technical knowledge and taught how to use video cameras at the same time they are taught to read and write, surely many of these kids will grow up with a much more innate knowledge of this stuff? And if they do what effect will it have on the value of our work if every Tom, Dick, and Harry is taught at school how to compose, shoot and edit shots to a competent degree?

I suspect much the same argument was made about the introduction of the pencil: everybody could have one.

I say let them fill their boots with this stuff.

Will that mean change? Of course it will. It's coming anyway.

Some of the methods and processes we use today - just like most of the equipment - could very well become extinct. But some of them will last. And not everybody wants the lowest price. (Yes, traditional media are in pain. But the commercial Internet isn't even two decades old. Google's only 12 years old. YouTube.com was registered on Valentine's Day in 2005! That's change for you.)

Family Polaroids in a box in the closet may not be much better than most of what's on YouTube, but the Polaroids are forever out of the box and that's just how it is.

Besides competition - which will surely come - this broad exposure to ICT in school is, in fact, an indication of the broader acceptance of the importance of media production. To me, that's a sign of growing opportunity. These modern tools don't just come in the mail. Somebody has to say yes to the expenditure, and no to something else.

Some of the demand will be for higher quality work - meaning it will have a higher value - and can therefore command a premium. And some will be just good enough - like MP3 quality audio and the FlipCam and Tweets and YouTube videos. But it'll be cheap, and easy, and if the customer is ok with that, there's no point arguing. And some will be pure, unadulterated crap and 8.5 million people will share it with their friends in the first 24 hours and it'll vanish into yesterday as just another meme, and the pros will go back to doing what they were doing.


Cheers,
George

 

[Michaelrosenblum]

The average American spends 8.2 hours a day staring at screens - between TV, computers and phones. That is an astonishing number.
More and more of that screen time is going to be occupied by video.
This is not about these kids taking your jobs, it is about video becoming as ubiquitous (and as free and easy to make) as text is now.
Much of what will be on those screens will be video, but it won't be news or TV shows. It will just be the way we communicate with each other for a whole range of things from selling your car to selling yourself or just saying hi (v-mail).
That's what happens when a whole generation adapts a technology and starts to use it every day.

 

[FTOJRLST]

The average American spends 8.2 hours a day staring at screens - between TV, computers and phones. That is an astonishing number.
More and more of that screen time is going to be occupied by video.
This is not about these kids taking your jobs, it is about video becoming as ubiquitous (and as free and easy to make) as text is now.
Much of what will be on those screens will be video, but it won't be news or TV shows. It will just be the way we communicate with each other for a whole range of things from selling your car to selling yourself or just saying hi (v-mail).
That's what happens when a whole generation adapts a technology and starts to use it every day.

Just having a pen in hand does not make one a best selling author or nobel prize winning physicist.

And even though society at large has been practicing reading, writing and arithmetic for hundreds of years now that still hasn't kept the authors, accountants and librarians of the world from finding gainful employment.

Video is certainly emerging as a crossover tool of art and technology put to common use for our increasingly busy lives.

That doesn't mean great visual artists who make great pictures using whatever sized cameras won't be as valuable in the future.

Among every profession where people have to read and write(almost all of them), the visual element will become as commonly used as pen and paper and calculators.

There will always be people who specialize and excel in using the fancier words or crunching the bigger numbers just the same as there will be camera toting types who prefer the fancy cameras over the pocket rockets.

 

[SimonW]

This is not about these kids taking your jobs, it is about video becoming as ubiquitous (and as free and easy to make) as text is now.

Okay, this is becoming interesting. Clearly having a pen doesn't make somebody into Shakespeare. But there is something else here. In the writing world you *really* have to stand out to make a living. While there are people who write copy for adverts etc, it isn't so straightforward to make a living in the written world.

Journalists, for a large part, actually have pretty rubbish writing skills. The newspapers are full of bad writing. However contained within the writing are strong opinions and access to sources that give them the story. So could this be the case for video? The YouTube crap being the equivalent of the average written journalist, while only the absolute best of the best being able to make a living out of quality visuals?

 

[Chicago Dog]

This is not about these kids taking your jobs,

This is, of course, coming from the man who used a nine-year-old in an analogy to describe how he was going to run us all out of the business.

... it is about video becoming as ubiquitous (and as free and easy to make) as text is now.

Text is "easy to make," but "making" it well is a completely different story. Of the 150 friends I've got on Facebook, only a handful use the "status update" blank properly. The rest of them flip-flop between third-person and first-person in the same damn sentence without knowing they're doing anything wrong.

They're my friends and God bless 'em, but first-person and third-person is something I learned about in third grade. Not understanding such a simple rule makes some of these people look like dumbasses.

Once again: it all comes down to quality.

I was going to say the same thing, except steer you to lynda.com instead of expensive classes. Learn practically any program you'll need for for $25 a month or $250 a year.

I agree with the lynda.com site. It's a great resource, and you actually learn from people who are using the program they teach.

Don't fall prey to the sexy sound of "certification."