Creating Motion Graphics

There are many variations on this common trap, but the general outline goes like this: Someone hears a report about how much money there is being made in a market segment, such as podcasts or movie trailers or renting out RED One cameras. They then theorize that if they could capture just some small percentage of that market - say, 1% - that they would be rich. And thus, a business plan is born! After all, who can’t capture at least 1% of a given market?!?

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:

The video industry has saddled us users with some truly ugly numbers to deal with (such as 720x480, 29.97, and so forth) when working with digital video. Making matters worse, these numbers are often misquoted or misunderstood.

Thankfully, there are a few web sites out there with some truly valuable, correct information on digital video standards. Here are the sites we refer to most often when we need to know the inside scoop:

If you’re reading this blog hoping to learn - with post-humus apologies to Douglas Adams - The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything (view on Amazon), I’m afraid we may disappoint you from time to time: We don’t know all of the answers. But sometimes just asking questions is important, because it starts the discussions which eventually lead to the answers.

One question that’s floating around these days is “How the heck do I make money creating video content for the web, such as podcasts?” Indeed, it seems there is more money in teaching podcasting than in podcasting itself!