The hipster/nerd techs from Redhook/Los Feliz and their Manhattan dwelling masters can smell the fear in the sweat of stills guys as they see a Red and all those towers. "Its just so complicated! How do I handle, manage, learn all this new crap?"
TMark
As you know, this biz has always been kind of sideways when it comes to reality. The fact that great first assistants make 1/3 of a prop stylist when an assistant brings $120,000 worth of education, works 12 hour days like a pack mule and the prop stylist knows where to shop, never made any sense. That doesn't mean that some prop stylists aren't worth much more than their rate, but when the props are shoes and a few chairs, probably not and we all know few productions can get shot without a great first assistant, but anybody can go to Century 21 and buy a box of brown shoes.
Then again, the advertising biz is centered around New York, the celebrity biz around LA and living in both those cities I know they are 180 degrees out of touch with the real world. We just spoke with the woman who owns a small shop in the village, where we store our grip and lighting.
Even in todays economy, the landlord went up from 5 to 11 to $13,000 a month. No one in the out of NY/LA world can make sense that 1,200 sq. ft. of old dusty retail space goes for that kind of money and no property owner outside of those cities would dare raise rents right now, but in the world of AIG, Briese Lights and Orange juice package design that costs 35 million (and fails), $13,000 is just a drop in the bucket.
Right now the ad biz is in a world of hurt and as you say, the lavishness has been cut. (probably because the landlord went up on the rent).
Hell I could probably shoot the next two gigs in my living room if it would save $500 and I doubt if a client would say a word.
But that's right now, once the economy turns it will probably go back to where it was, with $2,500 worth of catering a day, special cup cake runs and a crew of 10 just to shoot boring imagery on white seamless. I hope not, because if all of the NY/LA "creatives" and their respective "creative" groups moved to Kansas City, Des Moines, or San Antonio, they would actually have some idea how the consumer lives, works and plays. In those markets photographers could actually afford to have a studio, own a camera and still have enough left over for dinner.
Uh, oops, hold that thought. I don't think it's a good idea if all those New York, El Lay folks moved to Kansas City, cause that's a nice town and they'd just mess it up.
What will not return is the only for print ad campaign. Sure there will be exceptions, (there are always exceptions), but no advertiser has a lot of faith in any traditional media, print or broadcast as they think that their target markets spends about 75% of their waking moments staring into some kind of lcd screen.
I laugh when I walk down Houston and look into the bars and kids are nursing their one beer sitting in groups of 8, all with an Iphone or black berry twittering each other and as absurd as that type of socializing is, it is the new way to party. Now I know that in the real world, plumbers, ranchers, electricians and police don't sit around in bars after work and google, looking for their next pair of $200 jeans, but since the decisions on what we see, when we see it comes from two cities, the people making those decisions think that's how all the world has fun, so the media dollars are moving to interactive.
Zipcodeitius. It's like herpes. You can calm it down but you just can't get rid of it.
I think what your doing with the RED is smart, actually brilliant and when the dust clears, the large tech companies with overblown, overpriced, overworked methods will be either discounting below costs or go into some other business, probably diet pills, or "interactive" I phone apps.
The rule for the next few years will be to keep it lean and mean. It actually makes for better imagery, it actually makes a job more fun to shoot not hooked to 300 lbs of computer, or stepping around a crew large enough to build a condo.
Now what cameras we use, I don't know, nor do I really care if it's Panasonic, Nikon, Canon or the RED. I kind of hope it's the RED "if" and I should underscore the world "if", RED really does come out with something that doesn't take an upgrade a month and gets past build 21, then maybe they will be the standard of real usability, not hype.
If you shot digital video prior to today you know that the traditional video camera makers have milked the hell out of video equipment. 1/3, 1/2, 2/3's inch chips, 30i, 30p, 24p standard def and then the cycle repeats with high def to the point, you never really got he camera you needed and you always knew that whatever you bought was going to be a doorstop in 9 months.
What turned most still photographers away from video wasn't the cameras or shooting something moving, it was the way the imagery looked. Those tiny 3 ccd machines pulled focus from the lens hood to the horizon and the color looked like a BBC special of Prince Charles' rare book collection.
RED has the chance of a lifetime but they have to deliver and not get greedy. Greed is out, imagery that sells is in and one of the very good things about digital motion imagery (is that a term?) nobody has the budget to over clone, over retouch and over effect a series of images unless it's 30 second spot and even big media buy Tee Vee commercials are starting to get the design look of websites or they are turning to illustration.
I'm sure once everyone shoots motion, we will be back to retouching every pimple, every pore to Barbie Doll perfect, with male models that have hair that would embarress Dame Edna, but until then now is a good time to have some fun and shoot something that actually looks human.
Probably shoot it in Kansas City, but don't tell your friends that live in NoHo, SoHo, SoFe, SoMa or NoBu. They'll probably stay.
BC
