Twenty years ago I formed a production company with two filmmakers interested in taking a shot at "video," as distinguished from "television." My partners were talented at shooting and editing, and they did a good job in making the bumpy transition to electronic production. My background, however, was in electronics, and included being project engineer for the TV camera that rode on the Apollo moon buggy. I gravitated toward marketing, producing, and creating graphics for our new company, and together we succeeded in bringing a fresh, documentary style to many corporate and institutional productions.
By 1995, however, things had changed. Our business relationship was strained, and I was in deep personal debt. Discouraged, but not to be counted out, I left the company. I resolved to begin anew--but wasn't sure exactly what to do. I had no start-up work and a gentleman's agreement not to chase old clients. I needed to get cash flowing, and soon.
Believing that face-to-face marketing works best in this business, I joined several organizations, including the Princeton ITVA chapter, known as the Moving Image Professionals. I also rejoined the local Rotary club, and gave a luncheon talk as part of my re-initiation. The following week at Rotary, an acquaintance and president of the U.S. operations of an international company said he'd like to have me stop by to talk about a technical video project. It was a beginning, the beginning, in fact, of a solid business relationship with a flow of projects that continues to this day. My luncheon talk had made the difference, emphasizing to me once again the value in getting out there and telling your story. The budgets proposed to me, however, were another story; they were tight and everything was negotiated. Doing things in the accustomed ways brought back old nightmares of overwork and marginal profits.
Fortunately, this was also right around the time that computer technology had more than begun to invade virtually every aspect of video production. The new miniDV format, a Sony revolutionary three-chip prosumer DV camera, and nonlinear computer editing all promised quality at low cost. But I was convinced that DV made no business sense and was not my thing. After all, I'd be writing and producing in Betacam, hiring crews and services. Or so I thought at the time.
Three months after I went out on my own, a real estate broker called. He had a multi-million-dollar estate to sell and wanted to extend his ability to show the property across the country. He wanted a video. We talked. His budget would not support a Betacam shoot. I thought of borrowing a Handycam to shoot it, but--ugh!--what about the quality? Maybe I should just go buy one of those new DV cameras.... No! My resources were tight and a DV purchase was not in the plan.
I had started working with Betacam when it came out in the mid-80s. I trusted the format. But the DV idea did not die. Wouldn't it allow me to price lower for simple jobs--without sacrificing quality? Oh, but the thought of showing up on a job with a "consumer" camera! It bothered me. Finally, after three days of agony, I was out shooting the job with my new Sony DCR-VX1000 camera. And the images were surprisingly good. There were "oohs" and "ahhs" from folks at the post house when they realized where the images came from.
I began thinking about how DV could become an everyday tool, yet I still persisted in thinking of it as a lesser-tier format. But this changed after I did minor re-shoots in DV for two Betacam productions. With care I was able to meld the changes in seamlessly. Currently, on simple jobs that I can shoot solo, I shoot in DV. For more complex jobs, where I need the support of a crew, I go Betacam and direct the shoot.
The DV portion of my work is increasing. Of course, it was the ideal solution for that first steady client I had found through Rotary. For the work I shoot solo--much of which is hand-held, with minimal lighting--DV works out well all around. I give them quality that few other producers can touch for the price I charge--and I profit.
Then I took the next step: I set up a DV edit studio using Fast's DV Master Pro and in:sync's Speed Razor software, which works in the native DV format and avoids re-encoding. This means zero loss in quality for cuts-only jobs, and minimal loss in rendered transitions and effects. The initial idea was to do simple offline editing and assembling of sequences, without the usual quality sacrifice. Now I finish projects with it. My duplication house accepts miniDV masters, so imagery goes from camera to dubber with no generation loss.
For anyone choosing this editing route, I would suggest buying through a reputable reseller. I did, and it paid off in getting one elusive problem solved. I have caveats, too. A DV deck for the editor is essential; that deck can even be another low-cost DV camera with an IEEE-1394 (a.k.a. "FireWire" or "i.LINK") interface. By having the edit deck, I run tape through the camera only for recording. This minimizes wear on its deck, which is now over three years old and working perfectly.
I use professional tape stock exclusively, keeping dropouts and wear in check. For most audio, I use the Beachtek adapter for quiet, reliable, dual-XLR input. I also use the Beachtek VUIT, which gives a readable bar display of levels on both audio channels. The image stabilizer is great for hand-held work and I give my Century wide-angle adapter a lot of use.
Along with caveats I have peeves, such as a comment by some old pro that dismisses the DV format summarily with something like, "The highlights are harsh!" Although it's true that development refinements could be made on certain hardware, one shouldn't trash this great format.
So, where am I now? Well, in three years I've pulled a business together that's turning profitable, and I'm enjoying it. It's hard work, but I've embraced new technology and it's paying off. I do work solo more often than I'd like and have to look elsewhere for professional camaraderie. Yet I have found a market in the corporate/industrial arena that, although a bit less lucrative than what I was formerly accustomed to, gives me as much work as I can handle.
I don't, however, do events. Instead I prefer working on technical subjects. It's a challenge to make them accessible and interesting to a non-technical audience. What appeals to me is not having some special knowledge of technical subjects but rather the ease I find in understanding technical people and things. My approach is direct and I love to get the details clear. Once, while on two different projects--training pieces for different clients--it occurred to me that the video process, with its focus on detail, was raising issues about the very subjects of the videos. Indeed, I was editing one piece and thought I could see that a machine might run better if two components were swapped. I called up the engineer about it, and he said, "Yeah, I've been thinking that, too." Who would have thought that making a video might influence a product's development or usage?
As for rewards, a lot of what I produce might not win prizes, but I find this work fulfilling. Recently, I asked the head of manufacturing at a particular company how the latest video I had done for him worked out. He said, "Well, I'm not real good at judging how good a video is but, you know, we were having a lot of trouble with product installations in the field and were getting a lot of problem phone calls. A couple of weeks after the video went into the field, the calls stopped."
That made my day!
Flying solo can be a scary experience, especially when it comes to professional video. But as thousands of others have learned, a combination of confidence, the right technology, and networking via the ITVA can make all the difference between success and failure.