HPA Tech Retreat - Day 0

This 3M film is used in the diffuser of a 23” LCD panel

“Day 0” of the 2008 HPA Tech Retreat in Palm Springs offered four sessions; I attended three: Euredjian on LCDs, Poynton on Radiosity, and AMPAS on the Image Interchange Format.

Web Video Viewership Revelations

I’ve been mulling over the “VideoCensus” released last month by Nielsen Online (you can view the PDF here). Among its goals was to compare the way video was watched over the web from network-backed sites to “consumer generated media” (CGM) sites such as YouTube. Here are some of the results, along with some speculation about what’s behind them, and how it may impact the work we do:

Financial Advice for Small Businesses

Although you may aspire to be a motion graphics artist - with emphasis on the word “artist” - in reality, you also have to be a businessperson. Many overlook (or knowingly avoid) this little detail when they enter the field.

Today there was an excellent article in the Business section of the Los Angeles Times providing important cash flow tips for small businesses, including topics such as getting money up front, billing, and extending credit to your clients. You can read it here; you may need to register with the site to gain access.

Opening IPTV to Independents

As a consumer device, Apple TV is a typical first generation technology endeavor. Basically Apple took the iPod formula and applied it to IPTV—create a basic, no frills piece of hardware in an elegant wrapper, but give it a best in class UI.

This approach worked for the iPod because an easy to use MP3 player had an easily understandable value proposition to consumers. People wanted these devices, but the market was doing a terrible job meeting those needs. The iPod swooped in and took control of the market.

There’s not a lot of pent up demand for an IPTV device because

1. No one knows what IPTV is.
2. Very few people want another set top box (STB) clutter their living rooms.
3. Video on demand (VOD) and pay per view (PPV) are doing a solid job of filling Apple TV’s niche.
4. There’s always NetFlix.

Mike Curtis did a nice review  on the latest Apple TV update, and linked to some interesting information on Apple TV as a consumer device. No need to recap that. Instead, let’s look at what Apple TV’s success or failure means to independent content creators.

IPTV can be the great equalizer for independents. It has the potential to distribution affordable for even the smallest players. Unfortunately the iTunes store is not independent-friendly. Apple’s been unwilling to adopt the Amazon and Yahoo! models of renting space to retailers. If you’re not big media, you’re not welcome in iTunes—unless you’re willing to give your content away. That means adopting an ad-based model, and that means more work for the independent producer.

Enter the Open Television Network

The recently launched Open Television Network takes care of all the e-commerce infrastructure, so independents can sell content for download. Once an Open Television account has been created, to the user, it’s just like buying through iTunes. Very elegant.

The content owner supplies his or her own storage, gets a listing in the Open Television index, and is free to market independently. To date it’s the most open, elegant, and affordable means of delivering IPTV content available to content owners. Open Television takes a very reasonable 15% cut of sales. Try getting a deal like that with a traditional distributor.

Whether Open Television becomes the dominant platform or not, it has opened up IPTV to the independent.

Welcome to Creating Motion Graphics

Welcome to the Creating Motion Graphics blog on ProVideo Coalition! We’re very happy to be here, and look forward to using this new forum to share with our fellow motion graphics artists tips and trends that we think might be useful or intriguing. We will also be posting an archive of many of our past articles and columns which contain a wealth of advice and techniques. And on occasion, we will be posting our musings on the state of the industry (such as in the rest of this entry, past the “more” jump).

10 Tips for Videopreneurs

It seems appropriate to begin my tenure at a startup with a little advice to others embarking on a startup.

Employment in the video industry has always been a little more fluid than in the economy at large. Many of us have been freelancers, solopreneurs, permalancers, or whatever you like to call it for so long that we forget what it was like to take the leap (or get pushed). For very few has the journey gone as planned. For most of us that’s exactly what makes it impossible to imagine going back to the 9 to 5, or, more accurately, the 9 to 9 grind.

This blog will focus on the business of video. Since I’ve spent most of my career in post production there will be a lot emphasis on editing, motion graphics, delivery, and distribution. I am an entrepreneur at heart, and that bias will show. Sometimes the horizon will be more distant - pondering things like mobile video, IPTV, and participatory media. Most of the time, though, I’ll be writing in the present tense.

For those just starting out on their own, the first few months can be an emotional rollercoaster spanning the peaks of exhilaration over unbounded opportunities to the troughs of concerns over the bottom line.

To ease the period of transition I give you these bits of advice.

1. Have a business plan. Don’t even think of starting a business without one. Business Plan Pro is a great piece of software that will walk you through the process. Treat your business plan as a living document. The media industry moves fast. Even the best business plans can be outdated in a few months.

2. Don’t entertain the fantasy that you work for yourself. You work for your clients, and with luck you will have a lot of them. When you punched the clock for the man, you had one boss. Now you have many, and they don’t care about each other’s needs. Learn to manage your time and client expectations. In the long run it’s worse to overbook your business than to underbook it.

3. Control costs. You’ve heard the adage: A dollar saved is a dollar earned. It’s not. Income is taxed. In the US, a dollar saved is roughly equivalent to a $1.35 earned.

4. Cash flow is king. Until you absolutely know your equipment needs, you’re better off renting. It also frees you from the responsibility of maintenance. It’s the rare videopreneur who has a stable of clients all needing the acquisition and delivery formats. If you do need to buy, finance your purchase. Interest rates are creeping down again, and I’m starting to see business credit cards with 12 months/no interest offers again. If you can’t pay for it in 12 months, as a startup you probably have no business buying it.

5. You don’t need a fancy website. You need a simple, clean website. No splash screens. If a client wants to see your creativity, he or she will go to the portfolio page or request a reel. Everyone hates splash screens. You hate them. So why will anyone like yours? The most important thing is to have your phone number on the homepage.

6. Don’t spend a lot of time on a reel. Spend time on many reels. Get all your best work together. Compress it for the web and DVD. Create template web pages and DVD menus. When a client requests a reel, grab the three or four clips most pertinent to their needs, and build a custom web page or DVD.

7. Don’t spend a lot on fancy business structures. Sure, LLC looks really cool on a business card, but in most cases a simple subchapter-S corporation will meet your needs � shielding you from liability while passing profits and, more importantly, losses through to your taxes.

8. The first thing you’ll miss about punching the clock (aside from punching out at 5 PM) is that steady paycheck. It’s getting harder to collect net 30 invoices. Most large companies are paying invoices net 45 these days. Gauge your cash flow needs. When you need cash sooner, offer discounts to clients who pay early. A 2% discount for paying within 10 days often works.

9. Never, ever stop selling. Set aside time each week for sales calls. Existing customers are your best leads. Stay in contact. Earlier in the week is better for sales calls. Never sell on Fridays. Do you want to be called by a vendor as you’re trying to wrap up your week?

10. Stay fresh. Set aside a couple of hours of creative playtime every week. Learn new tricks. Research new technologies. We work in the coolest industry in the planet. Enjoy it. You’ll be surprised how much of what you tinker with during your mandated downtime ends up in client work.

And of course - hang out here at PVC. Chris and Trish Meyer, Adam Wilt, Mike Curtis, Mark Christiansen - all under one umbrella. How much more do you need to keep abreast and amused?

Free 7-day Passes for lynda.com

Sorry for the blatant plug, but there’s a payoff: A free week of as much online video training as you can watch!

We’ve been getting into creating online video training, focusing on specific topics and techniques rather than creating long-form courses (that’s what our books are for). Our current titles are available either pay-as-you-go through Toolfarm or to subscribers of the lynda.com Online Training Library.

If you’re not currently a lynda.com subscriber, and are curious to check them out before signing up, you can try them out for free for seven days by clicking here. Feel free to pass this link around. In addition to After Effects, they offer training on a variety of 3D, DVD authoring, NLE, and business applications - even tutorials on operating systems.

For those who are considering creating their own tutorials that they’d like to make money off of, we’ve been testing the waters for the past year trying out a couple pay-as-you-go services in addition to lynda.com’s subscription model, and - with all due respect to the excellent folks at Toolfarm and other places - lynda.com has been the hands-down winner from the content creator side. We’ve found them to be a great company to work with, and we plan to be doing a lot more with them in the future. We’ll keep you apprised as we release more titles, or if our opinion changes.

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