HERE'S SOMETHING YOU WON'T LIKE
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Ken
Well-known member
Micheal, welcome back...
I don't have answers for the ills of our poor industry. But I am curious that you feel that part of our problems stem from the lack of participation by anyone who feels the urge to pick up a camera and start taping. I may disagree with you on that because I think they do. But first, how interesting that you state that
Now back to participation. Maybe you should explain what you mean by "democratization of television". I do know that pretty much every town in America has access for its citizens to actually make TV in their local public access stations, you know, the ones that carry the really poorly covered town meetings and the Thanksgiving Day parade. That is democratic television. Anyone can get access and make TV and pretty much say and do what they want outside of hard porn and bomb making instructions (and KKK meetings). However, I don’t see too many people clamoring to do it and exercise their democratic right to make it. And those who do are pretty bad at it (look at all the Saturday Night Live sketches that are based on local access TV)…though I give them credit for having the balls to at least try.
I think that the difference in making good TV and print comes down to the individuals who become the professionals in these fields. Those who want to make a good quality product will find a way to do it, whether low budget or high budget. I’ve seen some incredibly excellent very low budget TV as well as some amazingly putrid high end TV. I do my best to try to make the best product I can and to attempt to work on projects that may inform and make a difference in peoples lives. Using the best equipment I can get my hands on will make a difference in how the product looks. I’ve been lucky to be able to do that. I also have to shovel some sh*t as well to pay the bills. It’s great that you are trying to implement changes in this industry. We need people like you. But it would be so much better if instead of trying to implement a change that creates lots of crappy quasi-vjournalists (occasionally there will be a few that shine), you worked instead at making your clients understand that quality (both in production and information) is better than quantity. I truly believe that is the case but as I said, I don't have answers for the ills of our poor industry.
I don't have answers for the ills of our poor industry. But I am curious that you feel that part of our problems stem from the lack of participation by anyone who feels the urge to pick up a camera and start taping. I may disagree with you on that because I think they do. But first, how interesting that you state that
When I see much of what is published by the print media, I see many camps, just as in TV, ranging from liberal to right wing and from intellectual to the lowest common denominator to just inane. The world of print media is no better or worse than television as far as I can see. It has the same stratification. Look in the magazine section at your local newsstand. They are even some of the same players in both print and TV like your friends at NYTimes TV and the folks we liberals love to hate…Fox and their sister newsstand rags. Television will never be democratic…nor will print or radio. It is business. Democracy doesn’t work in business. The editor decides what stories will run in the newspaper. The EP will make that decision on the TV show, no matter how many times the staff may "vote" that story be done differently.
Now back to participation. Maybe you should explain what you mean by "democratization of television". I do know that pretty much every town in America has access for its citizens to actually make TV in their local public access stations, you know, the ones that carry the really poorly covered town meetings and the Thanksgiving Day parade. That is democratic television. Anyone can get access and make TV and pretty much say and do what they want outside of hard porn and bomb making instructions (and KKK meetings). However, I don’t see too many people clamoring to do it and exercise their democratic right to make it. And those who do are pretty bad at it (look at all the Saturday Night Live sketches that are based on local access TV)…though I give them credit for having the balls to at least try.
I think that the difference in making good TV and print comes down to the individuals who become the professionals in these fields. Those who want to make a good quality product will find a way to do it, whether low budget or high budget. I’ve seen some incredibly excellent very low budget TV as well as some amazingly putrid high end TV. I do my best to try to make the best product I can and to attempt to work on projects that may inform and make a difference in peoples lives. Using the best equipment I can get my hands on will make a difference in how the product looks. I’ve been lucky to be able to do that. I also have to shovel some sh*t as well to pay the bills. It’s great that you are trying to implement changes in this industry. We need people like you. But it would be so much better if instead of trying to implement a change that creates lots of crappy quasi-vjournalists (occasionally there will be a few that shine), you worked instead at making your clients understand that quality (both in production and information) is better than quantity. I truly believe that is the case but as I said, I don't have answers for the ills of our poor industry.
dhart
Well-known member
I'm old enough to remember the other "end of the world as we know it" discussion and that was the transition from 16mm film to video produdction. To be honest I predicted that any chucklehead that could zoom and focus a video camera would enter our business and they did. Many in our business decried the newbies inability to figure out "exposure","color temperature" and how to light a scene. And after a while most of those newcommers discovered there was a little more to it than met the eye and the good ones figured it out. Things like lighting, composition and really trying to tell a story rather than rearrange magnetic partials on the tape. The price of "entry" into this business has been dropping since I entered it some 30 years ago. The price of staying in this business has not. You gotta get good and stay that way.
HMM. Many Monkeys. Ever hear of a woman named JK Rowling? 38 year old single mother, on welfare, unemployed, never wrote a thing in her life. She wakes up one day and has a passion to write a book. Harry Potter. She does it more as a way to try and feed her kids than anything else. She starts in pubs and writes on the back of cocktail napkins. Pretty soon she's home on an old typewriter in the kitchen. She's no 'professional' writer. Never did it before. The technology to write is cheap and easy to use. Are there lots of other people who sit down at typewriters and crank out junk? You bet. Can you predict who the next JK Rowling will be? probably not.
If we ran the world of print the way we currently run the world of TV, JK Rowling would wake up and feel the urge to write Harry Potter. In order to do that, or course, she would have to get a job at a big publishing house, cause that's where they make books. She would go down and interview with the head of HR and they might say, "I don't know JK, you never wrote a book before, you're 38 years old, a single mom, unemployed. you're not the kind of person we generally hire here at Random House". But JK is persuasive. She has an idea. So finally they relent. They give her a job as a receptionist. "You'll answer the phone and file things and make coffee, and if you're good, in a few years you can become a researcher. If you're good at that, in a few more years you can become an assistant writer. You help the real writers out. In a few more years, you'll become a writer, but of course, you can only write what the marketing department feels will sell. And really, you'll get to work with some of our big name writers like Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and Diane Sawyer. You'll write. They'll put their pictures on the cover. What do you think?"
And so JK Rowling says, screw it,, and goes back on welfare instead.
Great literature does not come from corporate decisions, and it is generally not written by 'professionals'. It is written by people have a passion to tell a story. Yeah, there are a million monkeys out there with typewriters. Most of them will never write Harry Potter. But one of them did. That's what makes literature so rich and powerful. Everyone gets to try.
If typewriters cost $80,000 and had to be operated by professionals, JK Rowling would never have been able to afford to hire the crew to carry out her vision. But they don't. They cost very little. And the skill of running one is not so complex. Can anyone write Harry Potter? No, of course not. But would it have gotten written without the mess of a 'million monkeys'? Odds are totally against it.
A free press is messy. Up until now, TV has not been a free press. This technology has the potential to allow that. But yeah, they're messy....but you know what? That's generally a good thing.
If we ran the world of print the way we currently run the world of TV, JK Rowling would wake up and feel the urge to write Harry Potter. In order to do that, or course, she would have to get a job at a big publishing house, cause that's where they make books. She would go down and interview with the head of HR and they might say, "I don't know JK, you never wrote a book before, you're 38 years old, a single mom, unemployed. you're not the kind of person we generally hire here at Random House". But JK is persuasive. She has an idea. So finally they relent. They give her a job as a receptionist. "You'll answer the phone and file things and make coffee, and if you're good, in a few years you can become a researcher. If you're good at that, in a few more years you can become an assistant writer. You help the real writers out. In a few more years, you'll become a writer, but of course, you can only write what the marketing department feels will sell. And really, you'll get to work with some of our big name writers like Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and Diane Sawyer. You'll write. They'll put their pictures on the cover. What do you think?"
And so JK Rowling says, screw it,, and goes back on welfare instead.
Great literature does not come from corporate decisions, and it is generally not written by 'professionals'. It is written by people have a passion to tell a story. Yeah, there are a million monkeys out there with typewriters. Most of them will never write Harry Potter. But one of them did. That's what makes literature so rich and powerful. Everyone gets to try.
If typewriters cost $80,000 and had to be operated by professionals, JK Rowling would never have been able to afford to hire the crew to carry out her vision. But they don't. They cost very little. And the skill of running one is not so complex. Can anyone write Harry Potter? No, of course not. But would it have gotten written without the mess of a 'million monkeys'? Odds are totally against it.
A free press is messy. Up until now, TV has not been a free press. This technology has the potential to allow that. But yeah, they're messy....but you know what? That's generally a good thing.
Geez, Mike, do you really buy that analogy? I mean, JK Rowling DID have to find a publisher for her book, afterall, and it took time for the book to come out where the possibility that the public might not have buy it loomed awfully large. Someone INVESTED in her in a different way that one invests in television productions.
I agree that the price of making video is vastly greater than that of writing a novel. But that's because the intial equipment costs are higher. I understand that what you are attempting to reduce is that introductory cost. However, if you look at both processes more closely (and more honestly) you have to admit that there are traditionally a lot more people and cost upfront in a television production (even a cheap one) than there are in writing a book. In the end, though, both endeavors are very expensive.
It's probably true that one person can conceive, produce, shoot and edit a video production much in the same way that one person authors a book. Yet you are asking the television auteur to be competent in at least three disciplines while the writer need only focus on one. Once the video production is made, one still has to peddle it, just like the book. But, ultimately, the TV program is FAR more temporal. It lasts in our consciousness for a nanosecond unlike the lifespan of a "Harry Potter" which sits there week after week on the best seller list, mocking parents for elevating its creator far beyond the means those middle class fools enjoy alone, outside the pyramid built for her on their collective wealth.
I disagree (if it can be called that) with you on one issue: You say you are working to democratize access to the television medium. But the television medium is falling apart. The advertising pie is getting sliced too thin and the corporations that control the larger television networks are trying to maintain profits. We (photographers) see the coupling of market weakness and the shift to the video journalist as a threat to overall quality in television production -- not just from a photographic standpoint, but from an editorial position as well. It doesn't add up that things will get better in your paradigm. We see them degrading even more.
I know you have proven that one person can do all of the tasks of making a television production. But, damn, who would want that? It sounds so lonely to me. I enjoy the collaboration which, even now is really only three people: the producer, me and the audio guy. Also, after your legion of production loners is developed, how long can they sustain themselves and what kind of "vision" of the world will they serve us? Here they are, basically alone, in far flung lands, following different cultures, burrowing into peoples' lives with no real lives of their own, no colleagues, no friends, no competitors, no lovers, just the PD-150 and a laptop and a lot of pressure to make something relevant and worthy of remuneration. I know it's working for you. But you are the tip of the spear. At the middle, I'll bet things aren't as rosy.
And, finally, JK Rowling is an abberration. For every JK Rowling there are ten thousand hopeful authors with overburdened hard drives. The cost of writing a novel is INCREDIBLY high. One has to devote so much time, effort and emotion, it's barely worth the effort when the rate of success is honestly appraised. Maybe a laptop is cheap, but a year, two years of your time is extremely valuable. Also few are able to finish what they start, so the time can be a complete waste. Even if they do cross the goal line and get the book sold, first runs are notoriously low and there are many phenoms who have written that great novel first time out of the blocks only to sink into obscurity: professor of English at a state college in a remote part of the intellectual wilderness.
Maybe it's a good thing that we don't make this stuff all that easy to do.
I agree that the price of making video is vastly greater than that of writing a novel. But that's because the intial equipment costs are higher. I understand that what you are attempting to reduce is that introductory cost. However, if you look at both processes more closely (and more honestly) you have to admit that there are traditionally a lot more people and cost upfront in a television production (even a cheap one) than there are in writing a book. In the end, though, both endeavors are very expensive.
It's probably true that one person can conceive, produce, shoot and edit a video production much in the same way that one person authors a book. Yet you are asking the television auteur to be competent in at least three disciplines while the writer need only focus on one. Once the video production is made, one still has to peddle it, just like the book. But, ultimately, the TV program is FAR more temporal. It lasts in our consciousness for a nanosecond unlike the lifespan of a "Harry Potter" which sits there week after week on the best seller list, mocking parents for elevating its creator far beyond the means those middle class fools enjoy alone, outside the pyramid built for her on their collective wealth.
I disagree (if it can be called that) with you on one issue: You say you are working to democratize access to the television medium. But the television medium is falling apart. The advertising pie is getting sliced too thin and the corporations that control the larger television networks are trying to maintain profits. We (photographers) see the coupling of market weakness and the shift to the video journalist as a threat to overall quality in television production -- not just from a photographic standpoint, but from an editorial position as well. It doesn't add up that things will get better in your paradigm. We see them degrading even more.
I know you have proven that one person can do all of the tasks of making a television production. But, damn, who would want that? It sounds so lonely to me. I enjoy the collaboration which, even now is really only three people: the producer, me and the audio guy. Also, after your legion of production loners is developed, how long can they sustain themselves and what kind of "vision" of the world will they serve us? Here they are, basically alone, in far flung lands, following different cultures, burrowing into peoples' lives with no real lives of their own, no colleagues, no friends, no competitors, no lovers, just the PD-150 and a laptop and a lot of pressure to make something relevant and worthy of remuneration. I know it's working for you. But you are the tip of the spear. At the middle, I'll bet things aren't as rosy.
And, finally, JK Rowling is an abberration. For every JK Rowling there are ten thousand hopeful authors with overburdened hard drives. The cost of writing a novel is INCREDIBLY high. One has to devote so much time, effort and emotion, it's barely worth the effort when the rate of success is honestly appraised. Maybe a laptop is cheap, but a year, two years of your time is extremely valuable. Also few are able to finish what they start, so the time can be a complete waste. Even if they do cross the goal line and get the book sold, first runs are notoriously low and there are many phenoms who have written that great novel first time out of the blocks only to sink into obscurity: professor of English at a state college in a remote part of the intellectual wilderness.
Maybe it's a good thing that we don't make this stuff all that easy to do.
cameragod
Well-known member
Nicely said Thomas and you didn’t even have to bring up the issue of weather JK was a plagiarist or not.
The thing I see here is that already anyone can write TV (and seems to) it’s getting a “publisher†to back you that sets up barriers. Making the method of delivery to lower unviewable standards is not going to change anything except send more people to the DVD store.
The thing I see here is that already anyone can write TV (and seems to) it’s getting a “publisher†to back you that sets up barriers. Making the method of delivery to lower unviewable standards is not going to change anything except send more people to the DVD store.
I
imported_blank
Guest
Very good point Ken. For over 20 years now, I have been telling people who want a start in TV to get involved in public access television. I also tell them not to expect to get a job at the CBC as a producer/editor/shooter/sound tech/live truck op/correspondent after only three weeks training on a handycam -laptop combination.
I'm not sure how public access works in the US but here in Canada every cable company that has a certain amount of subscribers (this includes all mid and large markets) must provide public access to all community citizens, subscribers or otherwise. In fact, some Canadian community programming rivals or even exceeds some regular TV programming - they have experienced staff members as well as newbies. Many have BETACAMS and good support gear. But that is not the important point. The important point is that out of those community newbies, a few will take all the "long term" training to heart and they will move on to bigger and better things, some all the way to network level. (in the real sense)
You see Mr. Rosenblum, most of us are NOT against newbies getting into TV production, on the contrary, many of us including myself see a need to bring new blood into television. The problem with your way Michael, you just want to put people through some fast three week assembly line - collect your check and tell them that they are prepared to make quality television. To make sure you keep getting new clients -- you consult the programmers, telling them that using quality crews with real gear is an archaic waste of money. PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DIG UP SOME OF YOUR ACTUAL CONSULTING WORDS. (words you preach when the cameramen & other techs aren't around)
A few bean counters only see $$$$ signs through your smooth talk and will hire one or two of your VJs. Then you claim this is the future and the proof is in "a network hiring one of your three week trained monkey wonders". What you DON'T want people to know is that in some cases, many cases, your VJs are actually costing the bean counters MORE MONEY & TIME. Due to the fact that they have to resend a REAL CREW to clean up the mess. I have seen this on the BBC, I have seen this on NBC. Unfortunately, in television sometimes you can't re-send a crew cause the story is long gone and the network is stuck with some God-Awful footage. I have seen this too. You also refuse to tell anyone that 99% of your VJs will never ever see any gig, some may get a gig but will ruin their REP cause they jumped-in improperly trained or prepared!!!
The real cameramen and other techs? You throw us some BS line, telling us that you are doing this to democratize television, to make it better. Don't know about the others here, but I ain't buying your smooth talkin' *.* You are NOT democratizing television. You are cheapening television to the point that there won't be any distinction left between HOME VIDEO and PROFESSIONAL VIDEO.
If you really wanted to make television better then you would offer proper training, you would offer proper gear and proper amount of people per crew. Of course that wouldn't be in your own financial interest.... If you really cared about the quality of television --you would NOT throw newbie VJ monkeys all by themselves to do everything.... No industry I know of does this.
I would have no beef with you - if you just fessed up to the truth and quit givin' everyone your excuses and made up stories.
Michael,
You don't see me writing much about "content" here. The reason is that it's not really my job, for the most part I take the CONTENT the producer(s) throw at me and I do with it visually the best that I can. Sure there are many occasions were I may have to find the content (editorial, visual & sound wise) there are times when I may have to EDIT the CONTENT, even do a bit of researching myself - but for the most part I just concentrate on my part of the job. I know, in your mind this is very archaic...
I'm still trying to figure out how my 50 VJ's are going to get to their stories (we only have 8 cars).
Also trying to figure out who produces my newscasts since all my producers are now out shooting stories.
And just who answers the phones?
The newsroom secretary has a hot lead on a 6-year old's birthday party.
Everyone may have a story...but it takes someone special to tell it.
Also trying to figure out who produces my newscasts since all my producers are now out shooting stories.
And just who answers the phones?
The newsroom secretary has a hot lead on a 6-year old's birthday party.
Everyone may have a story...but it takes someone special to tell it.
With reference to Mr. Rosenblum's JK Rowling analogy. No doubt there are "diamonds in the rough" out there. However what you fail to state in your analogy is that for every JK Rowling out there, there are thousands of "monkeys" producing absolutely horrible novels that either
1 - never make to print or
2 - if they do..... end up on the 99 cent discount table almost as soon as they hit the book store.
The same goes for your Television production "monkeys" One in every thousand you crank out may be that diamond in the rough... but that sir... does not make the ideology a success.
1 - never make to print or
2 - if they do..... end up on the 99 cent discount table almost as soon as they hit the book store.
The same goes for your Television production "monkeys" One in every thousand you crank out may be that diamond in the rough... but that sir... does not make the ideology a success.
Well, it certainly is a pleasure to be back! Always enjoy this particular forum. So much to respond to. But let me say this: First, I think we have to make a distinction between 'news' and general TV production. The greatest difference, of course, is that news, at least for now, will be produced in-house. This is to that news sources can defend and protect their content as their own. They can not trust their brand and integrity to outsiders with cameras. (I should say outside VJs or journalists), Of course, as in the world of print, there will grow to be corps of trusted freelancers with whom the stations have a long term and trusted relationship (just as your clients have with you now), but the 'democratization' of television is a far broader subject.
Let me deal with the news issue first. Ivan is right, in that, cost cutting pressure will inevitably drive news organizations to find ways to..cut costs. This is going to happen. It is a natural consequence of the 600+ cable environment. Every new cable channel fractionalizes the existing advertiser base, generating less dollars per hour, because there are overall less viewers per hour per channel. This is true with news as with everything else. For you guys, this is a problem and an opportunity. The problem is the natural pressure to cut costs in diminishing revenue environment. The opportunity is hundreds of new potential clients ready to purchase your services.
Again, back to news. I find comments like 'how am I going to have 50 VJs with only 8 cars really really funny. It reminds me of when computers first came into offices in the 1980s, and replaced typewriters..and incidentally, typists. How am i going to have 100 computers in my office when I only have 8 plugs! Answer that one, huh! Jeez. OK, lets say for lack of creativity, your station can not figure out how to handle 50 cameras on the street every day. You decide to sit with 6..or 8,. But your competitor figures this one out (like paying miles for use of private cars. (how do you think newspapers handle 50 reporters? Do you think the paper has 50 newspaper cars?). but enough of this. OK. your station sits with 8 cameras on the street, The competition goes to 50. Really...who do you think gets more breaking news stories? Who gets more enterprise stories. Who has more coverage? You tell me. (I LOVE this. What about the cars? Great! Gotta work that one into a speech next time).
OK. Now, you guys all smell trouble. And for good reason. Yes, this is going to happen. This business is going to change. But there is also OPPORTUNITY for those of you who can manage to see where this change is headed. All of those 600 channels are going to need...in fact DO need programming..and LOTS of it. Where do you think the content for most cable channels comes from? It comes from independent small production companies. And what is a production company. It is you! You already have the gear. you know how to make TV. You DONT have to do it alone. Team up with other people. Get together. Channels like TLC pay $200,000 and hour, plus for programs. Isn't that better than what you are making now? This is the future...and you will find, if you let yourself go there, that it is a far brighter future than the present.
You know the story of the American railroads? They were the economic powerhouse of the 19th century and the people who owned them thought the party would never end. In the 1950s, when the Eisenhower interstate highway system was built, the railroads went into steep decline. It was just cheaper to move things on trucks than on trains..and vastly more flexible. Most of the railroad people went broke. But they went broke because they forgot what business they were in. They were so busy defending railroad transport rates....that they forgot they were in the business of moving things from one place to another. You are in the business of making content for TV. Look at the marketplace. Look at the realities of what is happening. Adapt and prosper. (This, by the way, is what I get paid for...not degrading the quality of TV. It is for looking at the interface between the marketplace and technology and making an assessment of what I think it will mean). You can take it or leave it.
Let me deal with the news issue first. Ivan is right, in that, cost cutting pressure will inevitably drive news organizations to find ways to..cut costs. This is going to happen. It is a natural consequence of the 600+ cable environment. Every new cable channel fractionalizes the existing advertiser base, generating less dollars per hour, because there are overall less viewers per hour per channel. This is true with news as with everything else. For you guys, this is a problem and an opportunity. The problem is the natural pressure to cut costs in diminishing revenue environment. The opportunity is hundreds of new potential clients ready to purchase your services.
Again, back to news. I find comments like 'how am I going to have 50 VJs with only 8 cars really really funny. It reminds me of when computers first came into offices in the 1980s, and replaced typewriters..and incidentally, typists. How am i going to have 100 computers in my office when I only have 8 plugs! Answer that one, huh! Jeez. OK, lets say for lack of creativity, your station can not figure out how to handle 50 cameras on the street every day. You decide to sit with 6..or 8,. But your competitor figures this one out (like paying miles for use of private cars. (how do you think newspapers handle 50 reporters? Do you think the paper has 50 newspaper cars?). but enough of this. OK. your station sits with 8 cameras on the street, The competition goes to 50. Really...who do you think gets more breaking news stories? Who gets more enterprise stories. Who has more coverage? You tell me. (I LOVE this. What about the cars? Great! Gotta work that one into a speech next time).
OK. Now, you guys all smell trouble. And for good reason. Yes, this is going to happen. This business is going to change. But there is also OPPORTUNITY for those of you who can manage to see where this change is headed. All of those 600 channels are going to need...in fact DO need programming..and LOTS of it. Where do you think the content for most cable channels comes from? It comes from independent small production companies. And what is a production company. It is you! You already have the gear. you know how to make TV. You DONT have to do it alone. Team up with other people. Get together. Channels like TLC pay $200,000 and hour, plus for programs. Isn't that better than what you are making now? This is the future...and you will find, if you let yourself go there, that it is a far brighter future than the present.
You know the story of the American railroads? They were the economic powerhouse of the 19th century and the people who owned them thought the party would never end. In the 1950s, when the Eisenhower interstate highway system was built, the railroads went into steep decline. It was just cheaper to move things on trucks than on trains..and vastly more flexible. Most of the railroad people went broke. But they went broke because they forgot what business they were in. They were so busy defending railroad transport rates....that they forgot they were in the business of moving things from one place to another. You are in the business of making content for TV. Look at the marketplace. Look at the realities of what is happening. Adapt and prosper. (This, by the way, is what I get paid for...not degrading the quality of TV. It is for looking at the interface between the marketplace and technology and making an assessment of what I think it will mean). You can take it or leave it.
cameragod
Well-known member
So realizing he lost the first argument Michael moves swiftly to the next, except we already had this one and he had lost that too. I just can’t wait till next year and Michael has moved to selling the exciting new quality, speed model to management, “Less means more!†including the 6 week get the VJ’s up to speed on big cameras dojo.
Lensmith
Member
I wrote a smart mouthed reply to Michael yesterday, read it, then deleated it since I sounded too much like an ass.
I agree with Michael on a few points. We should be more involved in producing product. I've got several irons in the fire here in Central America doing just that.
Still...the newspaper/tv newsroom comparison doesn't work. Newspaper people don't haul a bunch of camera gear around. Even if it is smaller and lighter. They also don't have the never ending deadlines television does. Web sites don't count since none of those generate revenue.
Even with smaller cameras the support gear, takes space, has value, and doesn't get covered by most personal insurance policies. Paying for milage instead of supplying vehicles doesn't balance the costs.
Mr. Rosenmblum has his agenda. It's not about creating a new and better way of television. It's about getting people to pay to take his classes at his school.
Take a look at the success stories he promotes on his web site and you'll find people who did one or two projects...then nothing. No more work.
Those are the success stories! Imagine the majority who never get any job!!!
NY-1 continues to be an example of how the Rosenblum theories fall apart when put into the real world economic formula for survival. Michael was there in the beginning. Selling the same theories. They failed.
I give Mr. Rosenblum credit for not giving up but...over and over again, the results are the same. He points to programs on the BBC 24 hour channel and other off market cable shows as proof his way is the future. I feel it's an indication his way is second best and can't cut it wth the big boys where the real profit is ;o)
I agree with Michael on a few points. We should be more involved in producing product. I've got several irons in the fire here in Central America doing just that.
Still...the newspaper/tv newsroom comparison doesn't work. Newspaper people don't haul a bunch of camera gear around. Even if it is smaller and lighter. They also don't have the never ending deadlines television does. Web sites don't count since none of those generate revenue.
Even with smaller cameras the support gear, takes space, has value, and doesn't get covered by most personal insurance policies. Paying for milage instead of supplying vehicles doesn't balance the costs.
Mr. Rosenmblum has his agenda. It's not about creating a new and better way of television. It's about getting people to pay to take his classes at his school.
Take a look at the success stories he promotes on his web site and you'll find people who did one or two projects...then nothing. No more work.
Those are the success stories! Imagine the majority who never get any job!!!
NY-1 continues to be an example of how the Rosenblum theories fall apart when put into the real world economic formula for survival. Michael was there in the beginning. Selling the same theories. They failed.
I give Mr. Rosenblum credit for not giving up but...over and over again, the results are the same. He points to programs on the BBC 24 hour channel and other off market cable shows as proof his way is the future. I feel it's an indication his way is second best and can't cut it wth the big boys where the real profit is ;o)
I appreciate the civilized debate, but I just want to make sure we get the facts right. First of all, it is not the BBC's 24hour news service that i am converting, but rather their national domestic network. All of it. I am also working with ARD in Germany, RTL in Germany, TV4 in Sweden and TVL in Belgium. More, I am sure, will follow. I also did Voice of America TV and Oxygen Media in this country, NY1 was a long long time ago and a very different technology was in place.
As for the programs that have been shot and produced by my VJs perhaps you have seen some fo them:
TLC: Trauma, Life in the ER (Emmy Award Winner)
Paramedics
Police Force
Code Blue
Maternity Ward
Labor and Delivery
Breaking News
Baby Story (Emmy Award winner)
110 Stories (Emmy nominee)
Killer Virus (Emmy Award winner)
Discovery: Surfers
Las Vegas
Cheerleaders
National Geo: Doctors Without Borders
Worlds Apart
enough? There are more, but I can't think of them at the moment.
As for the programs that have been shot and produced by my VJs perhaps you have seen some fo them:
TLC: Trauma, Life in the ER (Emmy Award Winner)
Paramedics
Police Force
Code Blue
Maternity Ward
Labor and Delivery
Breaking News
Baby Story (Emmy Award winner)
110 Stories (Emmy nominee)
Killer Virus (Emmy Award winner)
Discovery: Surfers
Las Vegas
Cheerleaders
National Geo: Doctors Without Borders
Worlds Apart
enough? There are more, but I can't think of them at the moment.
No no no. We developed and produced the shows for TLC etc... The VJs shoot and edit the shows. The point is that when we started, my wife and I shot and edited the first shows ourselves out of our living room. You can do this too. You've got the gear and you've got the know how. Cable channels pay anywhere from 50K to 300K per hour.
Michael:
Please fell free to quote the car issue in future speeches. Any thinking individual who is listening will immediately see that your VJ method has holes in it big enough to, well...drive a car through.
I still can't stop laughing at your comparing a car to an electrical outlet. The operating expenses of putting massive numbers of people in the field, no matter how "creatively" you do it (short of screwing over your employees), will quickly eat up the capital savings of buying low cost equipment.
As far as producing programming for cable nets, I totally agree that we should all be doing that...I just don't agree that VJ's & PD-150's are necessary to do it.
Please fell free to quote the car issue in future speeches. Any thinking individual who is listening will immediately see that your VJ method has holes in it big enough to, well...drive a car through.
I still can't stop laughing at your comparing a car to an electrical outlet. The operating expenses of putting massive numbers of people in the field, no matter how "creatively" you do it (short of screwing over your employees), will quickly eat up the capital savings of buying low cost equipment.
As far as producing programming for cable nets, I totally agree that we should all be doing that...I just don't agree that VJ's & PD-150's are necessary to do it.
- Status