Anyone who knows me has heard me say time and time again, “If content is king, we are the kingmakers.” As production professionals it is our job to execute the creative vision of the producers, directors and actors. We work on everything from the corporate training video to the “A” list feature films. Although the venues change, our basic values don’t. It is our job to give the production its highest value, given the time and budget allowed.
It is human nature to want to repeat what has been successful in the past, such as the way we light a scene or an interview, or the type and amount of tools we use, or maybe it’s the type of productions we work on. Just one word of warning to my fellow production people … don’t get too comfortable!
Most of us in the industry have grown up with the network TV model. Television shows were 30 minutes or an hour. A special was two hours. Networks fought for a single night a week… a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday. It had a narrow demographic, 18- to 34-year-old males. Ditto for females. For the great majority of its model life, there were only three venues: NBC, ABC and CBS. I delve into ancient history to set the stage of a mindset, which is the old network TV model.
We are in the first breath of the new video model. I have come to believe that with this new model, the work for production professionals will increase a hundred fold, yes a hundred fold, but I also predict that 75% of the people in the industry will not make the transition.
Let’s go back even further, when the main source of entertainment changed from radio to television in the mid twentieth century. Some venues made the change. “Gunsmoke,” a simple story line that used the western and its marshal in a small town as its storytelling device was originally a radio show. It was an easy transition to TV. Just film the story already being told. Change the actors to more attractive people, tweak the pacing and … POOF… a TV show.
The same is true for Milton Berle or Sid Ceaser, talented comics doing a vaudeville variety show. That went on for a few years, but the man who defined the new network TV model was a Cuban bandleader. The situation comedy was an unknown medium until a man named Desi Arnez figured it out. I won’t go into the history of “I Love Lucy,” but this vision was empire-building.
“Lucy” was entering an unknown medium. However, as it turns out, it was the lack of knowledge that became the show’s biggest asset. Desi had performed in movies and on radio, but only as a Cuban bandleader. It was his good fortune to have one of the best comedic actresses who ever lived fall in love with him. The new TV network model was in its infancy, and no one had figured out the dynamics, but Lucille got a chance at a show. She refused to move forward unless her husband, Desi, could produce and be in the show. She won her battle; the rest is history that we continue to watch to this day.
In a situation that probably couldn’t get sold now that featured an Irish housewife married to a Cuban bandleader, it was up to Desi to learn to appreciate his Lucy’s talents. The show’s success depended on Lucille’s abilities with the pacing and timing of her comedic talent. This was captured dead on.
The couple didn’t have any production experience; they just had to make it work. The solution was the three-camera shoot that was carefully blocked and that moved around the comedic action. This was Desi’s brainchild. The birth of the sitcom, the birth of an empire, the birth of a model was defined.
Our new video model has not taken its first real step yet, and just as a baby takes its first step, there is an intrinsic joy in that fact that it will be followed by thousands more. As it moves on, it will run and win its own races.
We are blessed to be present at the birth of our new model. We haven’t seen the new model yet but we know the name of the family. We call in “Online.” We’ve picked out some names, including “YouTube,” with its 2.5 billion viewers, “Yahoo” with 390 million, and “MySpace” with 298 million. Our Desi or Lucy have not delivered it to us yet, but I can tell you that he or she has probably never shot, edited or lit a video before.
Be ready to execute their creative vision and you won’t end up being in the 75% left behind in the old model. To my associates in the industry and the lay video producers yet to come, I leave you with this message: Stay professional, be creative and use your knowledge. If you do, you’ll be a kingmaker!
Craig “Burnie” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. Send him your questions.
December 6, 2007
The Future of Branding
One of the biggest clichés of entertainment production is showing someone placing a grocery bag on the counter with a baguette sticking out of it. This is done for obvious reasons. It shows that the bag is full and that there’s food in the bag, but more important, the baguette doesn’t have a label on it. I have spent hours on sets hiding labels or stickers so that brands would not be seen. Not any longer. It’s a new model now.
We are entering the world of branded entertainment. In financing entertainment online, two things became evident very quickly. One is that we the paying public wouldn’t be wiling to pay for downloads. Google stopped its pay-for-download site in 2006 due to of lack of demand and because they could see we weren’t going to pay. Google only made $29 million on the downloads. That same year, the company made $402 million selling banner ads on YouTube. Google knew that using the old TV model of having viewers watch a 30-second spot in the middle of a show would last about five seconds; it wouldn’t work. They were right. No one wants the interruption.
The future of most Web advertising is in branding. This can be great freedom, or a yoke around the neck of creativity. If a program is designed around only one brand it is a yoke. However, we live in a branded culture. If creative people are allowed to interpret our branded society correctly, it could be very interesting. People like THEIR THINGS. They like their shampoo, they like their shirts, they like their toothpaste. I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to people go on about how they like what they’ve bought and how smart they were for buying it. It’s funny! Depending on the diversity of brands a creative could play with, you could get a much better, more realistic view of our world.
One the seemingly useless pieces of information that I have gleaned over the years is that President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Saddam Hussein have all used Colgate toothpaste. I believe that in the right hands this information could be very powerful creatively.
The branding sponsorship is becoming more evident. Product placement has been a part of motion pictures for a long time. However, it just recently started in network TV. Nissan vehicles are now included in the plot line of NBC’s “HEROES.” And any regular viewer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” knows what type of car Larry David drives.
The real exciting stuff will happen when the branding becomes more seamless. Imagine a scene on set with the actors all costumed in different clothing lines, and the kitchen is full of real products. Or seeing the actors interact with and use different manufacturers’ products, like cell phones, gum, hairspray, etc.
Let’s say you have the freedom to download the show. You can watch the show on your timeline. Now imagine that everything in that show is tagged with embedded information. The blouse, the bottle on the table, the gum. If you like it, or want to know about it, click on it to learn what it is. Click again to learn where to get it and what it costs. Click again and it will be delivered to you tomorrow by noon. We’re not that far away. In fact, TIVO viewers can attest to that! They have plenty of viewer options to learn more about products they see in commercials just by clicking the up thumb.
This is the arena where creativity and branding can coexist. The creative can show the world as it is without brand paranoia. Brands could endlessly sell directly to consumers for as long as the program exists on consumers’ hard drives. Not only the items that you see on the show, but if your online while your watching it you could click through to the suppliers catalog site and order online anything they have to offer. If the producers got paid a small piece for every item sold they could become guzillionaires. Branding will be liberating for the creatives and the producers.
Oh, yeah, and about that baguette. You’ll be able to click on it to find out where it is baked fresh twice daily, and get GPS directions to the store nearest you. Click!
Craig “Burnie” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. His understanding of branding positions him as a leader in the industry. Send him your questions.
We are entering the world of branded entertainment. In financing entertainment online, two things became evident very quickly. One is that we the paying public wouldn’t be wiling to pay for downloads. Google stopped its pay-for-download site in 2006 due to of lack of demand and because they could see we weren’t going to pay. Google only made $29 million on the downloads. That same year, the company made $402 million selling banner ads on YouTube. Google knew that using the old TV model of having viewers watch a 30-second spot in the middle of a show would last about five seconds; it wouldn’t work. They were right. No one wants the interruption.
The future of most Web advertising is in branding. This can be great freedom, or a yoke around the neck of creativity. If a program is designed around only one brand it is a yoke. However, we live in a branded culture. If creative people are allowed to interpret our branded society correctly, it could be very interesting. People like THEIR THINGS. They like their shampoo, they like their shirts, they like their toothpaste. I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to people go on about how they like what they’ve bought and how smart they were for buying it. It’s funny! Depending on the diversity of brands a creative could play with, you could get a much better, more realistic view of our world.
One the seemingly useless pieces of information that I have gleaned over the years is that President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Saddam Hussein have all used Colgate toothpaste. I believe that in the right hands this information could be very powerful creatively.
The branding sponsorship is becoming more evident. Product placement has been a part of motion pictures for a long time. However, it just recently started in network TV. Nissan vehicles are now included in the plot line of NBC’s “HEROES.” And any regular viewer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” knows what type of car Larry David drives.
The real exciting stuff will happen when the branding becomes more seamless. Imagine a scene on set with the actors all costumed in different clothing lines, and the kitchen is full of real products. Or seeing the actors interact with and use different manufacturers’ products, like cell phones, gum, hairspray, etc.
Let’s say you have the freedom to download the show. You can watch the show on your timeline. Now imagine that everything in that show is tagged with embedded information. The blouse, the bottle on the table, the gum. If you like it, or want to know about it, click on it to learn what it is. Click again to learn where to get it and what it costs. Click again and it will be delivered to you tomorrow by noon. We’re not that far away. In fact, TIVO viewers can attest to that! They have plenty of viewer options to learn more about products they see in commercials just by clicking the up thumb.
This is the arena where creativity and branding can coexist. The creative can show the world as it is without brand paranoia. Brands could endlessly sell directly to consumers for as long as the program exists on consumers’ hard drives. Not only the items that you see on the show, but if your online while your watching it you could click through to the suppliers catalog site and order online anything they have to offer. If the producers got paid a small piece for every item sold they could become guzillionaires. Branding will be liberating for the creatives and the producers.
Oh, yeah, and about that baguette. You’ll be able to click on it to find out where it is baked fresh twice daily, and get GPS directions to the store nearest you. Click!
Craig “Burnie” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. His understanding of branding positions him as a leader in the industry. Send him your questions.
The Artistic Vision: Past, Present and Future…
Since the dawn of man and their first cave drawings, the artistic vision has been carved in stone. As an audience, with a critical eye, throughout time it has been our job to accept that vision and either love it or throw tomatoes at it.
I hear creative people, all the time, talking about their visions of online entertainment. The one thing that everybody understands is that a lot more people will see their artistic offerings online. As I write this the new eight-minute Web show “Quarterlife” is premiering. The show plays to the obvious demographic; the story follows a group of twenty-something’s as they go through the growing pains of life.
Its creators Marshall Horskovitz and Edward Zwick are both talented craftsmen with two successful shows to their credit, “Thirty Something” and “My So Called Life.” So it is with great interest that people are watching their internet debut. These eight-minute shows will be great; these two producers know what they are doing when it comes to making shows with good storylines. However, for all of their knowledge they are still lost.
In an exchange, reported by David Sarno for an article he wrote on the press preview of the show in the L.A. Times, an audience member said to Mr. Horskovitz, “To me it looked exactly like an hour of TV with six commercial breaks in it. Did you do that on purpose?”
To his great credit, and with unabashed honesty, he said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I don’t know how to create real emotion in less than an hour. I know how to do it in two hours. I know how to do it in one hour. I don’t know how to do it in a half an hour, and I really don’t know how to do it in eight minutes, so we decided to stick with what we know.” (The old model of the television series.) Thank you, Mr. Horskovitz. If only we had that kind of candor in all facets of our society we would be so much further down the line.
He speaks the truth. The fact is that the current wave of entertainment providers only know the artistic vision that worked in the old TV network model. But someone out there knows how to make that eight minutes work, and we’re all waiting for him or her. They may be closer than we think. There has been a fundamental shift in the artistic vision power structure.
The old model says that you take my artistic vision and you live with it. The new model says show me your vision and I’ll interact with it and interpret it. The problem with the old model is the audiences’ emotions were dictated in predictable and proven methods. The audience rented those emotions at the price of watching a commercial. The emotion changed as the channel changed.
With the new model we have the chance to win the emotion for ourselves, but that won’t happen until the new model is completed.
When we have the palette of the artist’s original vision and it is the starting point for our emotional journey into the work not to be finished until we interact with it, to be able to re-edit it, to highlight scenes and add material to it if we want. We need to be able to put our emotional stamp on it and then send it back to the artist. Then and only then will the new model will be complete.
This interaction and interpretation has never happened before, because it couldn’t. Now it MUST. The new model will bring the emotional bond between artist and audience full circle, thus allowing that vision, carved in stone, to come to life.
Craig “Burine” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. Send him your questions.
I hear creative people, all the time, talking about their visions of online entertainment. The one thing that everybody understands is that a lot more people will see their artistic offerings online. As I write this the new eight-minute Web show “Quarterlife” is premiering. The show plays to the obvious demographic; the story follows a group of twenty-something’s as they go through the growing pains of life.
Its creators Marshall Horskovitz and Edward Zwick are both talented craftsmen with two successful shows to their credit, “Thirty Something” and “My So Called Life.” So it is with great interest that people are watching their internet debut. These eight-minute shows will be great; these two producers know what they are doing when it comes to making shows with good storylines. However, for all of their knowledge they are still lost.
In an exchange, reported by David Sarno for an article he wrote on the press preview of the show in the L.A. Times, an audience member said to Mr. Horskovitz, “To me it looked exactly like an hour of TV with six commercial breaks in it. Did you do that on purpose?”
To his great credit, and with unabashed honesty, he said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I don’t know how to create real emotion in less than an hour. I know how to do it in two hours. I know how to do it in one hour. I don’t know how to do it in a half an hour, and I really don’t know how to do it in eight minutes, so we decided to stick with what we know.” (The old model of the television series.) Thank you, Mr. Horskovitz. If only we had that kind of candor in all facets of our society we would be so much further down the line.
He speaks the truth. The fact is that the current wave of entertainment providers only know the artistic vision that worked in the old TV network model. But someone out there knows how to make that eight minutes work, and we’re all waiting for him or her. They may be closer than we think. There has been a fundamental shift in the artistic vision power structure.
The old model says that you take my artistic vision and you live with it. The new model says show me your vision and I’ll interact with it and interpret it. The problem with the old model is the audiences’ emotions were dictated in predictable and proven methods. The audience rented those emotions at the price of watching a commercial. The emotion changed as the channel changed.
With the new model we have the chance to win the emotion for ourselves, but that won’t happen until the new model is completed.
When we have the palette of the artist’s original vision and it is the starting point for our emotional journey into the work not to be finished until we interact with it, to be able to re-edit it, to highlight scenes and add material to it if we want. We need to be able to put our emotional stamp on it and then send it back to the artist. Then and only then will the new model will be complete.
This interaction and interpretation has never happened before, because it couldn’t. Now it MUST. The new model will bring the emotional bond between artist and audience full circle, thus allowing that vision, carved in stone, to come to life.
Craig “Burine” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. Send him your questions.
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