I guess I'm a little confused.

[1911A1]

Why do any of you care what he does if you are still doing well ?

If you had a rattlesnake in your tent, wouldn't you try to get rid of it, even though you haven't been bitten (yet)?

His special brand of stupidity should be stomped out at every opportunity and Nino and others here excel in doing that.

 

[Go Daddy]

If you had a rattlesnake in your tent, wouldn't you try to get rid of it, even though you haven't been bitten (yet)?

His special brand of stupidity should be stomped out at every opportunity and Nino and others here excel in doing that.

The analogy doesn't quite make sense unless you think MR is going to bite your bottom line. I just fail to see the connection between what he is doing and what most of the rest of us do. I don't fear anyone else's success, nor do I ridicule their efforts in defeat.

 

[1911A1]

The analogy doesn't quite make sense unless you think MR is going to bite your bottom line. I just fail to see the connection between what he is doing and what most of the rest of us do. I don't fear anyone else's success, nor do I ridicule their efforts in defeat.

"What he is doing" costs photographers their jobs. That's the ultimate "bite" to a person's "bottom line".

Anyone who threatens my livelihood (even in the abstract) deserves scorn and ridicule.

 

[Go Daddy]

and whose fault is it..

"What he is doing" costs photographers their jobs. That's the ultimate "bite" to a person's "bottom line".

Anyone who threatens my livelihood (even in the abstract) deserves scorn and ridicule.

You blame someone else because you have failed to see that the industry and market is changing in ways you haven't come to terms with ? Whose fault is that ? Hate to see anyone lose what they have worked so hard for, but if you sit back and use your time whining and complaining about someone else's success, perhaps your time would be better spent changing your method of operation.

 

[1911A1]

You blame someone else because you have failed to see that the industry and market is changing in ways you haven't come to terms with ? Whose fault is that ? Hate to see anyone lose what they have worked so hard for, but if you sit back and use your time whining and complaining about someone else's success, perhaps your time would be better spent changing your method of operation.

My "method of operation" is just fine, thanks.

Please point to any US news operation that has "succeeded" after they gave MR a lot of their money.

 

[AlexLucas]

Pardon me, while I bring about a few years of my business school minor to bear in on this discussion:

You've just committed several basic fallacies in business, and I understand if you've missed them. You say:

A high school kid with 3 months experience holding a camera and a thought in his head that he can do this, can put together a piece that isn't polished, isn't cut perfectly, might have a SLIGHT white balance issue, a few jump cuts in it, can put something on the tee vee news if the story is compelling enough and the camera movement is steady enough not to give viewers motion heaves. The days when it was common to spend $3 grand a day for stories to put on a newscast that is being shunned by the public in increasing numbers, is for the most part dead.

Basic Business Statement you should know #1:
Skilled labor is the difference in all businesses.
You think that technology is going to destroy the margins on television.
If you hedge your business on a discounted future, because things are changing, and everything is getting cheaper, and you'll die. The 'discounted future' (micro term) make sense from a business perspective if you were dealing in technology, commodities, or anything that is traded... PHYSICAL GOODS.
Photography, past the camera choice, is CONCEPTUAL LABOR. Labor that has a 'discounted future' premium always loses in a marketplace. Cheap labor that destroys profits when quality is the point of sale. And quality in photography is apparent, and obvious to a public that watches, on average, at least three hours a day. This works in any industry, from coal mining to high fashion, and including photography.

The days when it was common to spend $3 grand a day for stories to put on a newscast that is being shunned by the public in increasing numbers, is for the most part dead. Yes some of us are still working in that arena, and yes it's the only way to do things a one man band CANNOT do, but publicly traded media companies who have to answer to share holders who are seeing viewers and thus ad revenues fall through the floor, no longer can justify the expense and need "another way," to produce content while they are still alive.

Explain to me, through your market data, how tastes have changed from competent, yet expensive, to cheap and visually crappy.
If you want to, I have a 600 page, annotated doctoral thesis that is sitting right on my computer desk to refute your claims.

Basic Business Statement you should understand #2:
Stagnation and regression are death in a marketplace.
You think you understand this one as well.
You're doing it wrong.
You say that television can no longer justify the expense of current television. Because billions are just not enough.

Cutting does not produce a win. Not now. Not ever. And not in any business model. A basic model of any commercial entity is to maximize profits. By removing the quality of a perceived quality good is, in essence, financial suicide.
You're in essence saying that cutting salaries, and removing skilled employees is, in essence, a good thing.

That has to be the most patently stupid comment I have heard all month.
But hey, don't trust me.
Sink all of your money into stocks of any company that is talking about cutbacks. Do it. Show me your astute business acumen.

Also, in all aspects of television production, from creation to outside satellite transmission, photography is a small, tiny percentage of the overall costs of running a business such as a television station.
Explain to me how removing competent content creators from a creative endeavour creates a winning business model.


Simply put, you're an idiot who I wouldn't leave alone to run a slurpy machine.

Read a ****ing book.

 

[Chicago Dog]

Thanks for the new addition to my signature line, Alex.

By the way, Young Broadcasting -- a business that's made slashes from budgets to employees to newscasts -- closed at eight cents a share on Friday.

McGraw-Hill, another company that tried cutting corners with KGTV, did so when their stock prices plummeted from a $70 high. Around the time of the OMB/VJ switch, their stock prices were bouncing around $45 per share.

Not surprisingly, their stock has yet to rebound. In fact, it closed at $38.15 per share this past Friday.

 

[Nino Giannotti]

Trying to explain quality to Rosenblum's supporters is as wasteful as serving expensive gourmet food to a pig. Some people just don't have it.

 

[Baltimore Shooter]

By the way, Young Broadcasting -- a business that's made slashes from budgets to employees to newscasts -- closed at eight cents a share on Friday.

Shouldn't they have been de-listed by now?

Warren

 

[Go Daddy]

The value of a 600 page thesis.

Pardon me, while I bring about a few years of my business school minor to bear in on this discussion:

You've just committed several basic fallacies in business, and I understand if you've missed them. You say:

A high school kid with 3 months experience holding a camera and a thought in his head that he can do this, can put together a piece that isn't polished, isn't cut perfectly, might have a SLIGHT white balance issue, a few jump cuts in it, can put something on the tee vee news if the story is compelling enough and the camera movement is steady enough not to give viewers motion heaves. The days when it was common to spend $3 grand a day for stories to put on a newscast that is being shunned by the public in increasing numbers, is for the most part dead.

Basic Business Statement you should know #1:
Skilled labor is the difference in all businesses.
You think that technology is going to destroy the margins on television.
If you hedge your business on a discounted future, because things are changing, and everything is getting cheaper, and you'll die. The 'discounted future' (micro term) make sense from a business perspective if you were dealing in technology, commodities, or anything that is traded... PHYSICAL GOODS.
Photography, past the camera choice, is CONCEPTUAL LABOR. Labor that has a 'discounted future' premium always loses in a marketplace. Cheap labor that destroys profits when quality is the point of sale. And quality in photography is apparent, and obvious to a public that watches, on average, at least three hours a day. This works in any industry, from coal mining to high fashion, and including photography.

The days when it was common to spend $3 grand a day for stories to put on a newscast that is being shunned by the public in increasing numbers, is for the most part dead. Yes some of us are still working in that arena, and yes it's the only way to do things a one man band CANNOT do, but publicly traded media companies who have to answer to share holders who are seeing viewers and thus ad revenues fall through the floor, no longer can justify the expense and need "another way," to produce content while they are still alive.

Explain to me, through your market data, how tastes have changed from competent, yet expensive, to cheap and visually crappy.
If you want to, I have a 600 page, annotated doctoral thesis that is sitting right on my computer desk to refute your claims.

Basic Business Statement you should understand #2:
Stagnation and regression are death in a marketplace.
You think you understand this one as well.
You're doing it wrong.
You say that television can no longer justify the expense of current television. Because billions are just not enough.

Cutting does not produce a win. Not now. Not ever. And not in any business model. A basic model of any commercial entity is to maximize profits. By removing the quality of a perceived quality good is, in essence, financial suicide.
You're in essence saying that cutting salaries, and removing skilled employees is, in essence, a good thing.

That has to be the most patently stupid comment I have heard all month.
But hey, don't trust me.
Sink all of your money into stocks of any company that is talking about cutbacks. Do it. Show me your astute business acumen.

Also, in all aspects of television production, from creation to outside satellite transmission, photography is a small, tiny percentage of the overall costs of running a business such as a television station.
Explain to me how removing competent content creators from a creative endeavour creates a winning business model.


Simply put, you're an idiot who I wouldn't leave alone to run a slurpy machine.

Read a ****ing book.

Alex your business experience and your business school minor have the equivalent value of a 2nd place ribbon in a special olympics relay. Might make you feel good to see it hanging on the wall but when it comes to basic economics in 2008, it won't get you anything but an atta boy on a message board. I won't get in to whether your experience has done anything for you or why it might not be as valuable to me as it is to your mom as she gushes at her little college graduate, but the terms in which you go at the news business in 2008 do not include book jargon, business thesis, and quality assesment based on your conceptual dreams. "It's the budget stupid.." You want an explanation on how changes in todays business climate have affected quality yet added to a corporations bottom line ? Take a look at any network, or local television station's balance sheet. Cutbacks, layoffs, diversifying assets, hiring kids out of college at 1/3rd the money of the previous "talent," M.R. types, no overtime, no coverage this year, teaming up with other media outlets to "share," content, THE WEB, and on and on and on. That is where it is going. Deny it as long as you want to and gaze at that diploma on the wall, and type on a message board how the expense of quality is "worth it," and going to propel share holder value in the long run till you are 5600 in the face. But in the end, when all is said and done, that diploma and your 600 page thesis isn't worth the recycled paper it's printed on.

The only way some local television stations stay on the air today is to remove the expense associated with "quality," and the proof is on your television set in any market in America. To call me, or anyone else foolish to see the future and react accordingly to retain a piece of it's profit, makes you, not M.R. look like an uneducated walnut.

Before the loons accuse me of being anti-quality, rest well knowing there isn't anyone in this business as long as I have been, that doesn't respect it, give it, expect, and demand it. I'm saying in 2008, when push comes to corporate budget, they WILL find another way. That is why people like M.R. exist, and why people who don't find a way to be included in the changes before them, won't.

 

[Chicago Dog]

I don't understand. Why are some of you still reacting to Lake4/Go Daddy as if he's worth your thoughts?

The Special Olympics comment is par for his course.

 

[Go Daddy]

Pigs are people too.

Nino's comment about pigs not deserving gourmet food was also offensive.

(you just can't make this sh!t up!!!)

I haven't seen ANYONE support M.R. or his quality or lack thereof. I support ANYONE's legitimate business model that makes money! THATS how the world goes around. Slamming his business because you fear it might cut nto YOURS, is ridiculous, petty, and apparently NOT beneath you. He seems to be a guy who instead of fearing the future and sleeping with denial, has found a way to profit from the changes. Some of you act like you still refuse to shoot with anything but your 3/4 rig. If you can't stand the idea that the market and this business is changing, you are really going to hate becoming irrelevant...

 

[AlexLucas]

Alex your business experience and your business school minor have the equivalent value of a 2nd place ribbon in a special olympics relay. Might make you feel good to see it hanging on the wall but when it comes to basic economics in 2008, it won't get you anything but an atta boy on a message board. I won't get in to whether your experience has done anything for you or why it might not be as valuable to me as it is to your mom as she gushes at her little college graduate, but the terms in which you go at the news business in 2008 do not include book jargon, business thesis, and quality assesment based on your conceptual dreams. "It's the budget stupid.." You want an explanation on how changes in todays business climate have affected quality yet added to a corporations bottom line ? Take a look at any network, or local television station's balance sheet. Cutbacks, layoffs, diversifying assets, hiring kids out of college at 1/3rd the money of the previous "talent," M.R. types, no overtime, no coverage this year, teaming up with other media outlets to "share," content, THE WEB, and on and on and on. That is where it is going. Deny it as long as you want to and gaze at that diploma on the wall, and type on a message board how the expense of quality is "worth it," and going to propel share holder value in the long run till you are 5600 in the face. But in the end, when all is said and done, that diploma and your 600 page thesis isn't worth the recycled paper it's printed on.

Well. Then show me the places where this is successful.
I place your personal attacks back in the realm of what I said.
I gave you concrete examples of economic theory that are PROVEN to work, and you just insulted me as a response.
It's also not my thesis. And it is worth the paper that it is printed on, because it has practical opinions of others embedded in it.
Still, I am waiting for the PROOF that what you say is true.

And there will be no response from here on out but, show me the proof.

Guess what, I'll even go YOUR BEST vs. MY LAST WEEK in a showdown.
In essence, I am waiting to see you, or the BEST any of your hotshot college buddies work that is willing to put me out of a job, and I'll in turn, post last week's crap story work, where I didn't decide what to shoot, but only followed orders, all the VOSOTs and PKGS, all the city council meetings, and we'll let others decide. See who is better.

The only way some local television stations stay on the air today is to remove the expense associated with "quality," and the proof is on your television set in any market in America. To call me, or anyone else foolish to see the future and react accordingly to retain a piece of it's profit, makes you, not M.R. look like an uneducated walnut.

You haven't been watching my station recently. Redcoat just got a job here, and fought to get it... because there are good shooters where I work, and sometimes, I feel mighty, mighty mediocre in their presence. The tapes comes out of the cameras ON FIRE at my shop sometimes. Sometimes it's so good, it's stanky good.
Sorry that you feel that if you're not shooting with a full crew and an ARRIFLEX 35 you're doing **** work.

Before the loons accuse me of being anti-quality, rest well knowing there isn't anyone in this business as long as I have been, that doesn't respect it, give it, expect, and demand it.

That would be Nino. Thanks for playing. I can name some others if you would like....
Also, you state that you've been in this business so amazingly long, then who are you? I bet the community would know you.
Show yourself.
Everyone knows who I am. Who MR and Nino is. WHO ARE YOU?
It's odd that you would be an elder of the community, and so knowledgeable, yet a coward about your identity. Usually young people mask their identities. Kinda odd.

I'm saying in 2008, when push comes to corporate budget, they WILL find another way. That is why people like M.R. exist, and why people who don't find a way to be included in the changes before them, won't.

And they will find failure if they're hinging their budgets on cutbacks through VJ, and I GUARANTEE THEY ARE. If I get fired tomorrow, so what? It's TV, and there are more TV jobs out there, no matter what they say.

Adapt or die, hunh? We've heard that before in a million reiterations.
Pretty sad statement. Poor management and greed are killing television, and we should be helping it along or we should be eaten up for caring about standards.

So, talk to me like a man that has a pair in your life, who has principles and can stand up for them, or just be another shark in the dirty water making personal attacks.
The choice is yours.

I am waiting for some video clips, BTW.

Also, I casually expect you to make the ignore list the second I log back on B-roll again.

 

[AlexLucas]

If you can't stand the idea that the market and this business is changing, you are really going to hate becoming irrelevant...

Hilarious.
Like we're just not keeping up with camera tech, and that is the only metric of success, not quality video, it's all shifting production paradigms, and itty bitty cameras.

"OH, MY GOD, I DON'T OWN A SMALL AVCHD CAMERA!
I can't encrypt a blu-ray into anything but data format!
I'M DOOOMEEED! DOOOOOOMED!"

Seriously, that comment is laughable.
It's content, and quality content creation, numbnuts. You're working in television. In television, which is made up of two latin roots, TELE meaning over distance, and VISION, meaning using your frickin' eyes. Quality imagery is innate to quality workmanship in this business, and is a part of quality content creation.

If you truly understood success in this biz, you'd just shut up now.

 

[Go Daddy]

You don't really want a discussion on personal insults do you ? You begin and end your rants with them. As for the subject at hand, you claim our business is progressing well under current expenses ? You have to be kidding! Perhaps you need to watch the news you might well be producing. The "news business," as we have all known it is in it's terminal stage, or already dead. Is this news to you ? Apparently it isn't because you ended your rant, then your insults, with you understand that television news is being "killed," with this and that. I have never said quality doesn't matter. I will repeat that when corporate bottom line gets weighed against the current expense of what you describe as quality, the M.R. types are going to get the business. JoeBob and MissyMae sitting at home watching the tee vee with their feet up on their rent a center coffee table aren't going to give a rats a$$ that some kid making 30 cents on your dollar shot it and put a dissolve where you think it shouldn't have gone.

No one is going to convince you like some wet behind the ears bright eyed kid getting the work you used to do at one third your salary and loving every minute of it when you don't get the call. It's going to happen and probably already is. Adapt or die is a perfect way to put it. The future will not affect me like it will you because I will adapt when that time comes while you continue to stamp your feet and point at your wall decoration.

 

[Go Daddy]

Insutling bantor is not your style. I can see that now.

Hilarious.
Like we're just not keeping up with camera tech, and that is the only metric of success, not quality video, it's all shifting production paradigms, and itty bitty cameras.

"OH, MY GOD, I DON'T OWN A SMALL AVCHD CAMERA!
I can't encrypt a blu-ray into anything but data format!
I'M DOOOMEEED! DOOOOOOMED!"

Seriously, that comment is laughable.
It's content, and quality content creation, numbnuts. You're working in television. In television, which is made up of two latin roots, TELE meaning over distance, and VISION, meaning using your frickin' eyes. Quality imagery is innate to quality workmanship in this business, and is a part of quality content creation.

If you truly understood success in this biz, you'd just shut up now.

I can see you stomping your little feet and pointing at your paperwork saying you know what you're talking about while you type!

 

[Grip]

Drink up Go Daddy, the cool aid is all yours......

Janet is nothing more than a snake oil salesman, and you are the proof that there will always be a sucker willing to buy.

 

[cameragod]

Why we should care?

After the success of LOTR there were a plethora of ‘film schools’ that started up in New Zealand. So many in fact they were turning out over 3,000 ‘graduates’ a year. That’s into an industry that had a stable total of 6,000 people working in it.
One ‘film school’ was charging $20,000 for a 6 month course that included learning on M2 equipment and being ‘trained’ by people who didn’t work in the industry. After 5 years of operation the school closed, having had exactly not one graduate entering paid employment in the film industry during all that time.
They said they had been a success because everyone who left the course had a grater appreciation of movies and had made valuable contacts… interestingly that’s one of the same lines MR runs about the Travel Acadamy.
They blamed their closure on the negative responses and publicity they had received from the film industry. “How we train students is none of their (the film industry) business.” Was a memorable quote.
I’d argue that how the next gen of shooters are trained is exactly our business.



I posted this about one of the courses steller graduates in 2001

A friend of a client of mine asked if I could take his nephew out on a shoot with me. Like a fool I said ok.
The nephew, lets call him Gavin (name changed) was in his mid twenties and interested in a TV/film career. He had completed not one but three TV/Film courses at a cost of over $15,000 and was a self-proclaimed expert on everything but apparently unable to tell the time, arriving 20 min late.
Gavin was currently unemployed, living at home with his mum and just filling in time at the moment waiting for a call from Peter Jackson or PJ as he called him.
PJ, I was assured should be phoning any day now as Gavin had sent him, along with a killer CV a short essay detailing where PJ went wrong with LOTR. The essay was a work of genius he told me modestly and offered to send me a copy. Apparently among many other things, PJ could have saved a fortune by shooting the whole thing on mini DV 24 frames and it would have looked just like or even better than film.
Gavin wasn’t expecting too much from PJ to start with, he was prepared to start work at the bottom, some menial easy job like DOP for the seconded unit.

I don’t know what they taught on Gavin’s courses but apparently carrying stuff from the car and how to put up a tripod was not in it. Neither was putting lights on stands, rolling out cables and setting up a Chimera was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time.
The laughter stopped when left to gaffer the extension cords down he pulled two redheads over, blew both bulbs and set fire to the carpet. I sent him out to get some more sandbags from the car and wasn’t too upset not to see him again for over an hour.

The First AD told me latter that Gavin had turned up demanding coffee then asked for a script as he was the creative director and proceeded to pencil in a few ‘improvements’ before strolling of to make some performance suggestions to the ‘Meat Puppets.’
I never went to film school myself but I do know that some actors might take objection to being told that as none of them had done the three-day workshop Gavin had, they weren’t real actors yet. Fortunately the makeup ladies took umbrage to being called the ‘fluffers’ and kicked him out. Unfortunately he turned up back on set.
I was operating the Seadi Cam at this stage and had no time to baby-sit him so he strolled about leaving his coffee cup on the set ruining the continuity of three takes before we caught it.

Finally the director had a total meltdown after Gavin kept sitting in front of the field monitor calling out helpful tips. I was told clients guest or not, get rid of him.
Now!

So I got a couple of traffic cones and a reflector jacket and sent Gavin to slow down passing traffic. It’s seems after half an hour he got board and caught a bus home.
I just heard back from the client that Gavin is very concerned with the declining standards in the industry and has offered to do the clients next shoot with some of his school buddies.

 

[Go Daddy]

6000 at $20,000 a pop ?

Why we should care?

After the success of LOTR there were a plethora of ‘film schools’ that started up in New Zealand. So many in fact they were turning out over 3,000 ‘graduates’ a year. That’s into an industry that had a stable total of 6,000 people working in it.
One ‘film school’ was charging $20,000 for a 6 month course that included learning on M2 equipment and being ‘trained’ by people who didn’t work in the industry. After 5 years of operation the school closed, having had exactly not one graduate entering paid employment in the film industry during all that time.
They said they had been a success because everyone who left the course had a grater appreciation of movies and had made valuable contacts… interestingly that’s one of the same lines MR runs about the Travel Acadamy.
They blamed their closure on the negative responses and publicity they had received from the film industry. “How we train students is none of their (the film industry) business.” Was a memorable quote.
I’d argue that how the next gen of shooters are trained is exactly our business.



I posted this about one of the courses steller graduates in 2001

and you don't call that a successful venture ??? LOL

No wonder you people are afraid of folks like M.R. Hell NOW I'm pi$$ed I didn't get a piece of that! Left wing fruitballs have been selling snake oil to the poor for decades and that doesn't bother you, but a film school sells a program to people who WANT IT, and you're all up in arms ???

The blind leading the blind. This is too funny to believe!

 

[cameragod]

Thankyou for that look into your morals. Based on that I bet you are really sorry you missed out on selling poisoned baby formula to the Chinese, 60,000 sick kids and 4 dead but I bet they made a profit… if that’s your definition of success you can keep it.