With the recent news that Youtube now has TV shows on it, and the ever converging broadcast and online media, the next step surely is Google’s move into television broadcasting. Surely it is only a matter of time before you can switch on your TV and the first thing you see will be a Google search screen, where you simply type in the show you want, and up pops 1,436,000 shows that meet your search criteria.
This is all very well, and it is certainly progress, but with the several hundred digital channels already available, will the transition to potentially millions of channels spell the end for high-quality programming? Experts have been saying for years that with so many more channels, the quality has to go down, but it could be argued that we haven’t seen any dramatic drop in programme quality over the last few years, it’s just that we’ve had to sift through a lot more rubbish on the way to finding what we want to watch. It seems almost inevitable that this amount of poor programming will just continue to increase exponentially, as we have more and more choice available.
The concept of Youtube since the very beginning was that everyone with access to a video camera (which let’s face it means everyone with access to a phone) would be able to broadcast themselves. How long before that freedom to broadcast is extended to our TV screens? Within the next year or two I suspect.
For brands in particular this is an exciting time. Television advertising space is cheaper than ever, and there are so many more options to advertise to specific markets on specific channels at specific times of the day. With Search TV as I like to call it, brands will be able to have their ad displayed before a programme which has been searched for on Google seconds before. The viewer wants to watch a show about cooking their favourite food for example, so types ‘thai cookery show’ into their Google TV (using their Google Remote of course), and seconds later, they have found thousands of shows that they might want to watch, and each one is sponsored by a different food or drink brand specific to their search term.
The potential for revenue for whoever controls the search part of this process is massive, and whatever you think will happen in this mass convergence of television, internet, advertising, phones and video, you have to admit that Google, yet again, seems to be the one holding all the cards.
Filed under: Video Production | Tags: budgets, opinion, Video Production
I read this article the other day and thought it was spot on, so here are my thoughts on it.
So here I am again, being asked to come up with a cost for a video where the variables are so wide, the parameters of production so great that the cost could literally fluctuate by 500% in either direction. The reason this is a dilemma? Because the new client has said that they “don’t have a budget in mind, so just quote whatever you think it will cost”.
Now this presents us with a problem. Do we quote low in the hope that we will be the cheapest and get the job based on that? Umm…doesn’t sound like we’d be offering the best work. Do we go in high with the aim of throwing everything under the sun at the project to produce the most amazing video ever seen? Hmm…but they definitely won’t have the budget for that… So what are we to do I hear you cry?
Well, the ideal situation when being asked to quote for a job is for the client to disclose their budget straight away so that we can all avoid these mind games. It is in everyone’s interest to approach a job in this way, because then the client gets a solution to their video production problem that will be the best they can get for the budget they have…and believe me, they WILL have a budget, of course they will. How else do you explain the answer that all too commonly comes back in the face of a quote; “oh, that is over our budget I’m afraid” …oh, so you DID have a budget all along.
These difficulties with budgeting never seem to crop up with timescales. They always know when they want the video finished by. Very rarely do they say “we don’t have a deadline, just tell us how long you think it will take”.
Now, unlikely at it may seem, I can see this from the clients point of view. If they don’t give you their budget up front, then in their eyes, they will get a load of completely different quotes from production companies, and can therefore simply go with the one that is the cheapest, thereby saving them money. Ah, but that is the problem, if something as creative and individual as video production was to be decided on cost alone, then we would all disappear down a spiraling mire of diminishing returns, with every company bidding to be the cheapest and the quality going down at the same rate. Now, clients very rarely decide on a production company on price alone. Creativity, experience, skill, friendliness…these all play a significant part as well.
So…. now we will requote based on the budget that we now know they have, which means producing a video to a level that will suit them. We will develop a video that works hard for their budget and one that will be the very best it could be for the money they have to spend. Problem is, we have all just wasted a week going round in circles to get to the point where we are quoting at the right level for the client’s budget.
What then, is our conclusion. That ultimately we could all have saved ourselves a great deal of time if we were all open about budgets cost and time from the start.
The proof that this is the best way forward is that in our experience, and from all the work we do, the best work and the work which gets done in the most efficient and creative manner, is for clients who have come to us with a budget, a timescale, and a rough idea of what they want. Everyone knows where they are, and the client gets the video they want, for not a penny more than they wanted to spend.
Video Production Blog from Scorch London 