In addition to the usual "get taxes done earlier" and "exercise more" resolutions we all set at the beginning of each year, let me suggest a few video-specific goals for 2006. The first few apply to individual video professionals, but I also have a few suggestions for the industry as a whole.
Resolutions for Each of Us
Learn a new craft. The age of the mono-skilled video specialist is over. Each year I have fewer colleagues who are just camera operators, just editors or just animators. Even if you already work in multiple disciplines and are fully booked for 2006, it still makes sense to expand your bag of skills. Studying a related craft provides not just job security, but also lets you view production from a new angle and add that new perspective to your main work.
Some of the best camera people I know also work, at least a little, as editors. They know exactly what coverage post will need to make a story work. Becoming a competent 3D artist takes years, but a 3D application makes a great sandbox for experimenting with lighting, framing and camera movement. There’s a reason Pixar credits three people for cinematography in The Incredibles. A 3D set on your computer is just like a real set, but without craft services, annoying producers and staggering overtime costs.
Pay and work for a fare rate. I know I blathered about this just a couple of columns ago (Studio/monthly Nov.’05), but it’s worth repeating. Pay the pros who work for you enough to live on and don’t work for less than you need to live on. Ten bucks an hour won’t help anyone.
Do some pro-bono work. Since you’re charging enough to make a living, dedicate a little free time to help a student with his or her film, shoot a PSA for a worthy-but-needy charity or edit a small non-profit’s video. The tricky part is to avoid turning paying work for someone else into unpaid work for you. With some discernment, we can use our skills to do some good.
Work on an HD project. Even if there’s not a lot of high-definition production in your market now, there will be soon. The cost of HD production is decreasing, the means of distribution are increasing and both viewers and clients want more than 4:3 SD images. But framing, pacing, post and everything else is different in the widescreen high-definition world. Not extremely different, but enough that working on a small HD project (or a small role in a larger project) now will let you approach the coming storm of HD work without getting blown over. Make 2006 the year you say to clients, "Yes, I’ve worked in HD before."
Deliver video to handheld players. HD’s paradoxical partner going into 2006 is video podcasting. Who knows where handheld video playback will go, but if nothing else it makes Internet video hot again. And like HD, framing, pacing, post and more are different when producing or repurposing for the very small screen. Brush up on your compression skills and figure out how you’re going to design lower thirds on those tiny screens. If nothing else, you may be able to write off your new Apple video iPod.
Resolutions for the Industry
Settle the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle. This is more urgent to me than the DTV transition. One of these days, the FCC or the market will decree that the time is right for digital broadcasts. But I’m ready to watch high-definition DVDs now. All I need is the damn discs and a player. At the moment, the Sony-led Blu-ray group appears to be leading the Toshiba-led HD DVD group. But really, I don’t care if one or both groups win so long as I only need to buy one player. If the two groups don’t resolve their conflict this year, I may just hold out for Internet HD delivery. Then the Sony and Toshiba camps both lose.
Promote products honestly. Panasonic’s AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD camcorder is astoundingly cool. But one marketing effort for the camera was astoundingly uncool. In early October Keith Zivalich posted to an online forum, "For me, DVCPRO HD is a proven professional format. HDV isn’t. Regarding P2, check out this blog: www.defperception.com. Apparently this guy used to work at [Panasonic] and has inside information on the [HVX]." The blog, purportedly run by one Pratosh "Tosh" Biloski, extols the virtues of DVCPRO HD and P2 cards, and slags HDV and disc recording.
Biloski’s bio says he graduated from USC Film School and owned a video repair shop. So the guy must know something, right? Well maybe, but he, or someone, was lying. No one with Biloski’s name ever graduated from USC Film, the school says. As for Zivalich, he works for The Phelps Group, a marketing company that lists Panasonic as a client. No wonder Zivalich and Biloski like DVCRO HD so much. Well, Zivalich does. Biloski is apparently a figment of a marketing person’s imagination. Not that his blog originally made that clear.
After some online furor, the words "brought to you by Panasonic" and a note saying "Tosh Biloski is a fictional character" were added to the top of the blog. So now the blog is edgy, occasionally fun and not deceptive. Too bad that information wasn’t included before the blog was launched and promoted.
Reveal conflicts of interest. Writers need to be at least as transparent as vendors. More so, actually, since one should assume less bias from an independent voice. The problem is not all writers in video magazines are as independent and transparent as they appear. Many are, but let me provide just two examples of writers who aren’t. One guy told me about the video he was hired to produce for a major vendor’s NAB booth. Later he reviewed some of that company’s gear for another magazine but didn’t acknowledge that he was evaluating gear from that same company, which was one of his major clients.
Another writer was being obliquely accused in an online forum of receiving compensation from a vendor of products he was strongly favoring. So I asked, in a straightforward but not aggressive way, if he had ever received any sort of compensation from the company in question. I wasn’t trying to nail the guy; I wanted to give the guy a chance to clear/defend his statements. He, however, freaked out that my question had personally offended him. Alas, his thin skin is still opaque. He never answered the question. I no longer trust his evaluative statements.
Writers in our industry should resolve to tell readers about their conflicts. I’ll go first. I’ve recently done some contract work for a major software company. I might do some more in the future. Consequently, I don’t publish opinions or reviews of products from that company or its competitors. Not that the editors at Studio/monthly would let me even if I wanted to (and I don’t). That would be unethical.
Well, that’s enough New Year’s resolutions. Now let’s get back to discussing video resolution.