[videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
I agree with Dan, entirely. That was the point of my previous post on this topic. In case people watched that and thought it was something that was done in a bootstrapped fashion, please refer to the dual-camera shoot, complete with boom operator (read: a third crew member that's getting paid to be on-set to record the sound). According to http://forums.creativecow.net/archivepost/30/479679 from 2004, Non union sound mixers are getting $350 in most areas of the country, including flyover. Union adds about $100 to the cost. Boom operators get less, aproximately $250 for non union and $100 more for union. Most of the extra $100 goes to pension and hospital benefits. So just for the sound RECORDING part of that show, they were spending $350/day by *2004* union standards. Then you add the two camera operators, the two actors and whatever extras were in the different episodes, post production editing, sweetening and sound mixing. There's nothing to hate on about this situation. It's business as usual. I'm just saying that a lot of people read this group for basically DiY information. It's completely disingenuous to allow people to think that a couple of actors took a camera on their own, shot something on their own, with no lighting, no sound recording help, directed it themselves for the different angles, scripted it themselves, edited it themselves, sound mixed it themselves, compressed it themselves, built their own website and embedded the video themselves. ANYBODY with a budget could do the exact same thing. Dan's point, which I agree with, is that it would be just as interesting to watch *YOU* take your little telephone-camera and document your move to Canada... or your attempts to get rich making industrial videos... or your attempt to put together your YouTube game/video using annotations. The point of interest is the characters involved, NOT the fact that it's a multi-camera shoot with at least three crew members being paid by the hour to create it. For instance, now that I'm thinking about it... Go watch Mike's Project Pedal: http://blog.projectpedal.com/archives/2004_09_01_projectpedal_archive.html . He gets out his hand-held camera and tells people what's been going on with his film, like the drives failed, or they're almost finished loading, or his relationship broke up or whatever. It's real. It's way more interesting, and it's way less expensive. Having said that... You bring up interesting points about budget inflation. Unfortunately, some of that inflation is necessary, as I'm sure you understand. If you don't have a boom operator or at least a sound recorder, your audio's liable to be uneven, which means you have to fix it in the mix if you can, which means you pay more on the post end and less on the production end. If you don't have two cameras shooting simultaneously, you have to get the actors to act AT LEAST twice as long to do their lines AGAIN after you set up the camera and lights for the other angle. If you don't have someone scripting/directing the production, you have to hire someone like me to make SOMETHING out of your NOTHING when you film a bunch of random stuff with no storyline or character development to it. So, yeah... COULD this show have been done with one camera, by a couple of actors documenting something? Sure. Was it? No. So I think it's valid and relevant for Dan to point out that there are shows and stories going on right here, such as http://projectpedal.com and http://epicfu.com and http://somethingtobedesired.com/ that are ACTUALLY about people bootstrapping and trying to make it which AREN'T being faked and ARE way more interesting. Bill Cammack http://billcammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, that's how you make money. These people aren't doing it for the thrill or the art. They don't care about making something 'interesting' if they don't get paid. Supposedly most Hollywood movies lose money... but the hundreds of people who work on them get paid a lot of money. And the bigger the budget, the bigger the fee that the producer and principals get paid. In this case, why on earth would the producer set up a low budget videoblog for clarkandmichael.com, with a total cost per episode of just a few hundred dollars, when he can artificially inflate the budget by hiring lots of people and get CBS to pay 10 or 20 times as much, especially if he's getting 20 per cent of the production cost as a fee? I've made low budget corporate videos and web videos professionally for years now, and somehow didn't realise that it would never make me rich. If you want to make money out of media, you don't make low budget videos. You set up a big operation with a big impressive budget and get somebody to pay and a bunch of people to actually make it. Then, if nobody watches when it's broadcast, your bank account still has tens of thousands of dollars
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
Yeah - sorry if I wasn't clear. That seemed like a rebuttal of my point, but I assumed it'd be clear from the context of everything I've written here and from my videoblog that I wasn't disagreeing with Dan's comment that It looks like it took a team of people being paid a lot of money to fake something that is much more interestingwhat I've witnessed from this group here. I agree with that. Nor was I passing judgement about the content of the clarkandmichael and the way it's been made, and what it represents, though perhaps I should have done to make myself clearer. I was just saying that it's no surprise to me that people with lots of money fake a cheap look while still spending lots of money instead of just shooting it the same way people with no money do. Because that's how they make more money. As far as clarkandmichael is concerned, they lost me the moment it opened when they switched from one camera behind the counter to show him signing the papers, then to another camera behind him, then back to the camera behind the counter to show his face. for a scene of him doing nothing. and then they repeated that trick throughout. if you're going to fake something, at least fake it well. this kind of bullshit totally disrupts your emotional engagement with it and ability to suspend disbelief. and theirs, too, by the look of it - their 'natural' acting is way off and their timing is lousy. t. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv On 24-Aug-08, at 4:08 AM, Bill Cammack wrote: I agree with Dan, entirely. That was the point of my previous post on this topic. In case people watched that and thought it was something that was done in a bootstrapped fashion, please refer to the dual-camera shoot, complete with boom operator (read: a third crew member that's getting paid to be on-set to record the sound). According to http://forums.creativecow.net/archivepost/30/479679 from 2004, Non union sound mixers are getting $350 in most areas of the country, including flyover. Union adds about $100 to the cost. Boom operators get less, aproximately $250 for non union and $100 more for union. Most of the extra $100 goes to pension and hospital benefits. So just for the sound RECORDING part of that show, they were spending $350/day by *2004* union standards. Then you add the two camera operators, the two actors and whatever extras were in the different episodes, post production editing, sweetening and sound mixing. There's nothing to hate on about this situation. It's business as usual. I'm just saying that a lot of people read this group for basically DiY information. It's completely disingenuous to allow people to think that a couple of actors took a camera on their own, shot something on their own, with no lighting, no sound recording help, directed it themselves for the different angles, scripted it themselves, edited it themselves, sound mixed it themselves, compressed it themselves, built their own website and embedded the video themselves. ANYBODY with a budget could do the exact same thing. Dan's point, which I agree with, is that it would be just as interesting to watch *YOU* take your little telephone-camera and document your move to Canada... or your attempts to get rich making industrial videos... or your attempt to put together your YouTube game/video using annotations. The point of interest is the characters involved, NOT the fact that it's a multi-camera shoot with at least three crew members being paid by the hour to create it. For instance, now that I'm thinking about it... Go watch Mike's Project Pedal: http://blog.projectpedal.com/archives/ 2004_09_01_projectpedal_archive.html . He gets out his hand-held camera and tells people what's been going on with his film, like the drives failed, or they're almost finished loading, or his relationship broke up or whatever. It's real. It's way more interesting, and it's way less expensive. Having said that... You bring up interesting points about budget inflation. Unfortunately, some of that inflation is necessary, as I'm sure you understand. If you don't have a boom operator or at least a sound recorder, your audio's liable to be uneven, which means you have to fix it in the mix if you can, which means you pay more on the post end and less on the production end. If you don't have two cameras shooting simultaneously, you have to get the actors to act AT LEAST twice as long to do their lines AGAIN after you set up the camera and lights for the other angle. If you don't have someone scripting/directing the production, you have to hire someone like me to make SOMETHING out of your NOTHING when you film a bunch of random stuff with no storyline or character development to it. So, yeah... COULD this show have been done with one camera, by a couple of actors documenting something? Sure. Was it? No. So I think it's valid and relevant for Dan to point out that there are shows and stories going on right here, such as
[videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah - sorry if I wasn't clear. That seemed like a rebuttal of my point, but I assumed it'd be clear from the context of everything I've written here and from my videoblog that I wasn't disagreeing with Dan's comment that It looks like it took a team of people being paid a lot of money to fake something that is much more interestingwhat I've witnessed from this group here. I agree with that. Nor was I passing judgement about the content of the clarkandmichael and the way it's been made, and what it represents, though perhaps I should have done to make myself clearer. I was just saying that it's no surprise to me that people with lots of money fake a cheap look while still spending lots of money instead of just shooting it the same way people with no money do. Because that's how they make more money. Yes. That's the part of your post that I found very interesting. It's like when someone wastes thousands of dollars per episode paying for a studio to live-stream their show when they could have done it for *FREE* on Ustream, BlogTV, Kyte, etc etc etc etc etc. Now, thanks to what you said... This finally makes sense to me. Pay the thousands of dollars for the studio because you can turn around and tell someone else to pay you even MORE money, plus your percentage for doing the live episodes of your boring-ass show. If you used ustream, for instance, it would be free TO YOU, but you also couldn't turn around and charge clients lots of money for what they know damned well you're doing for absolutely free. It's really an important concept to consider when you're making budgets pitches. As far as clarkandmichael is concerned, they lost me the moment it opened when they switched from one camera behind the counter to show him signing the papers, then to another camera behind him, then back to the camera behind the counter to show his face. for a scene of him doing nothing. and then they repeated that trick throughout. if you're going to fake something, at least fake it well. this kind of bullshit totally disrupts your emotional engagement with it and ability to suspend disbelief. I agree, as far as disruption of emotional engagement. When I first went to the page, I thought ok... This is quasi-interesting. The guy from the movie Superbad is doing a video blog about what he's trying to do next in the industry. Let's see what this is about Once I saw that his roommate was trying to deliver comedy lines, I understood that what I was watching was a scripted show. There's nothing wrong with that, but it becomes a lame version of Curb Your Enthusiasm instead of something where you can believe in and root for the characters. and theirs, too, by the look of it - their 'natural' acting is way off and their timing is lousy. t. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv hahaha I assumed that what I was going to see was an established actor trying to help his homeboy out and do a show with him so his friend could get visibility. I don't watch enough recent television/film to know if the other guy's an actual actor, and if I hadn't seen Superbad on cable ONE TIME, I wouldn't have ever seen the main guy either. Once I saw that it was a two-camera shoot and that they were doing scenes with video cameras across the street from the action, etc, I was aware that this was a funded production. I certainly wasn't aware of that from the acting. If I want to watch a scripted series about being in the industry, I'll go watch Can We Do That http://www.veoh.com/channels/canwedothat. Bill Cammack http://billcammack.com On 24-Aug-08, at 4:08 AM, Bill Cammack wrote: I agree with Dan, entirely. That was the point of my previous post on this topic. In case people watched that and thought it was something that was done in a bootstrapped fashion, please refer to the dual-camera shoot, complete with boom operator (read: a third crew member that's getting paid to be on-set to record the sound). According to http://forums.creativecow.net/archivepost/30/479679 from 2004, Non union sound mixers are getting $350 in most areas of the country, including flyover. Union adds about $100 to the cost. Boom operators get less, aproximately $250 for non union and $100 more for union. Most of the extra $100 goes to pension and hospital benefits. So just for the sound RECORDING part of that show, they were spending $350/day by *2004* union standards. Then you add the two camera operators, the two actors and whatever extras were in the different episodes, post production editing, sweetening and sound mixing. There's nothing to hate on about this situation. It's business as usual. I'm just saying that a lot of people read this group for basically DiY information. It's completely disingenuous to allow people to think that a couple of actors took a camera on their own, shot
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
On 24-Aug-08, at 5:56 AM, Bill Cammack wrote: Now, thanks to what you said... This finally makes sense to me. Pay the thousands of dollars for the studio because you can turn around and tell someone else to pay you even MORE money, plus your percentage for doing the live episodes of your boring-ass show. If you used ustream, for instance, it would be free TO YOU, but you also couldn't turn around and charge clients lots of money for what they know damned well you're doing for absolutely free. BINGO. For years, I've been ranting about producers unnecessarily escalating movie budgets and crews so that they can justify ever bigger fees for themselves, but somehow I failed to apply the same reasoning to my own business. And when I did, it was like a light going on. I was always trying to show off how cheaply I could do things for my clients. Telling them that the digital revolution meant that they could get tens of thousands of dollars worth of video for a fraction of that by paying me an hourly rate as a one-man band. But if someone has the money and they're willing to pay top dollar for production costs plus a proportion of that as a fee for you as producer, then all you've got to do is come up with good reasons to justify your top dollar production costs. And then you have to have the brass balls to ask them to pay a lot of money for something that you know you could do for almost nothing if you were doing it for yourself. The 'revolution' means we can make our own personal films for almost nothing and get them watched. It shouldn't mean we can't charge clients every last dollar they're willing to pay for *their* films. Corporate dollars and personal dollars have different values, after all. If you think this sounds sleazy, it's not - it's just redistribution of wealth. Corporations don't charge people what products are worth. They charge whatever people perceive is the value of their product. $1.50 for a small plastic bottle of water. All we're doing is using our l33t skillz to maximize the profit margin between what something actually costs to make and what the client thinks it's worth. Vive la révolution! It's really an important concept to consider when you're making budgets pitches. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In this case, why on earth would the producer set up a low budget videoblog for clarkandmichael.com, with a total cost per episode of just a few hundred dollars, when he can artificially inflate the budget by hiring lots of people and get CBS to pay 10 or 20 times as much, especially if he's getting 20 per cent of the production cost as a fee? Why are we calling this a videoblog? It's an online show, a rung or two below cable on the supposed ladder to Hollywood. At best, it's like an Off-Off Broadway tryout. Where's the blog? Stan Hirson http://LifeWithHorses.com
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
What is a videoblog? It's fair to say that past discussions on this list have shown that opinions differ somewhat violently on this issue... but there is a school of thought that says that 'videoblogging' has become associated with a personal documentary style of videomaking distributed online, and that there doesn't have to be a blog structure involved to use the term. Others would disagree. I think we were shortcutting the language to discuss this as a web show that fictionalises a personal to-camera video diary/documentary. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv On 24-Aug-08, at 8:55 AM, Stan Hirson, Sarah Jones wrote: --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In this case, why on earth would the producer set up a low budget videoblog for clarkandmichael.com, with a total cost per episode of just a few hundred dollars, when he can artificially inflate the budget by hiring lots of people and get CBS to pay 10 or 20 times as much, especially if he's getting 20 per cent of the production cost as a fee? Why are we calling this a videoblog? It's an online show, a rung or two below cable on the supposed ladder to Hollywood. At best, it's like an Off-Off Broadway tryout. Where's the blog? Stan Hirson http://LifeWithHorses.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
I have a very different take on CM. Nowhere in it is there any pretense that it is personal, that even within its fictional context it is created by the two stars, or that it is produced without a camera and sound crew. Note the intro to episode one: They hired a film crew. Then the hyper meta opening lines. And of course The Internet presents. The whole thing is setup as an absurd take on clueless people hiring crews to document their misunderstood genius. It features an actual big star (Michael Cera, teen heartthrob and star of Arrested Development and Juno). It's a blatantly commercial endeavor and doesn't hide that. It's a satire of actorly pretension, vanity documentary (but not, by any stretch, personal film or video), the media business, and primarily a showcase for Cera and a chance for some creative folks who perhaps wish TV and commercial net video could all be a little more like Arrested Development to indulge in some subtle minor weirdness ad and silliness. We all know what happened to Arrested Development, the last US show that made it seem worthwhile to keep my TV. (OK, some of the American version of The Office is good, and I like the Daily Show monologue, but I can get these on the net). It is filmed in a dogma-95 derived style that has, since Festen, been aped by any number of faux-doc productions, from the groundbreaking Newsroom on Canadian TV (if you haven't seen it, find it, it is basically the pre-Ricky Gervais Office), to, well The Office. It doesn't seem remotely cheap. The camerawork both effectively spoofs reality TV and manages some genuinely cinematic humor and elegance. The style is exactly the right choice. That they have enough money to hire their own camera crew is part of the joke. I haven't watched all of it but so far a) I don't see it as imitating videoblogging or personal filmmaking at all, b) it's very funny and c) it's certainly better than, say, Entourage, though it's obviously not at the level of Altman or Christopher Guest or (to name a brilliant online comedy that WAS a near-zero-resource no budget personal work, though it did use a small crew and was on a commercial site) The Maria Bamford Show. That it's on the net - well, it adds another layer to the satirical possiblities, and something like this would have very little chance of being a TV hit anyway, even with Cera in it. I don't mean it's art, or groundbreaking - but it's certainly 900% better than anything I would have expected a major network to put online. And that's coming from one of your resident pretentious-experimenal-artiste network-and-studio-hating anti-advertising neo-anarchist tv-less list members. Brook [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
OK. I told myself I wasn't going to say anything more about this because I have too much to do. But. You're kind of right. But. I don't know. I just... It's *not* The Office. maybe that's the problem for me. I just think they do it badly. And worse, I think they do it in a way that's very TV and very 90s. If you're going to broadcast a show like this on the internet in 2008, at least have some fun with satirizing internet video. Instead of reality TV, which other people have been doing better for ever. It feels like Spinal Tap, only less funny and 25 years later, on the web. Maybe I'm missing some kind of in-joke that you're getting about the idea of them hiring a film crew and doing it this way, but ultimately it *is* a version of the kind of thing people are doing for real, having making-of 'personal' videoblogs, and to do it this way just feels a bit weak and lazy and old, and misses too many opportunities to push boundaries and have some fun with it. But maybe that's just because I've run out of tea. Or maybe it's that Quirk said I was too positive. Or both. Grrr. Going back to my hole now. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv On 24-Aug-08, at 10:28 AM, Brook Hinton wrote: I have a very different take on CM. Nowhere in it is there any pretense that it is personal, that even within its fictional context it is created by the two stars, or that it is produced without a camera and sound crew. Note the intro to episode one: They hired a film crew. Then the hyper meta opening lines. And of course The Internet presents. The whole thing is setup as an absurd take on clueless people hiring crews to document their misunderstood genius. It features an actual big star (Michael Cera, teen heartthrob and star of Arrested Development and Juno). It's a blatantly commercial endeavor and doesn't hide that. It's a satire of actorly pretension, vanity documentary (but not, by any stretch, personal film or video), the media business, and primarily a showcase for Cera and a chance for some creative folks who perhaps wish TV and commercial net video could all be a little more like Arrested Development to indulge in some subtle minor weirdness ad and silliness. We all know what happened to Arrested Development, the last US show that made it seem worthwhile to keep my TV. (OK, some of the American version of The Office is good, and I like the Daily Show monologue, but I can get these on the net). It is filmed in a dogma-95 derived style that has, since Festen, been aped by any number of faux-doc productions, from the groundbreaking Newsroom on Canadian TV (if you haven't seen it, find it, it is basically the pre- Ricky Gervais Office), to, well The Office. It doesn't seem remotely cheap. The camerawork both effectively spoofs reality TV and manages some genuinely cinematic humor and elegance. The style is exactly the right choice. That they have enough money to hire their own camera crew is part of the joke. I haven't watched all of it but so far a) I don't see it as imitating videoblogging or personal filmmaking at all, b) it's very funny and c) it's certainly better than, say, Entourage, though it's obviously not at the level of Altman or Christopher Guest or (to name a brilliant online comedy that WAS a near-zero-resource no budget personal work, though it did use a small crew and was on a commercial site) The Maria Bamford Show. That it's on the net - well, it adds another layer to the satirical possiblities, and something like this would have very little chance of being a TV hit anyway, even with Cera in it. I don't mean it's art, or groundbreaking - but it's certainly 900% better than anything I would have expected a major network to put online. And that's coming from one of your resident pretentious-experimenal- artiste network-and-studio-hating anti-advertising neo-anarchist tv-less list members. Brook [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
Almost nothing reaches the heights of the Gervais version of The Office. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
I know. But I didn't really mean that I don't like it because it's not as funny as The Office. I meant that it's too much like The Office to avoid direct comparison. If it was doing something revolutionary with the form that The Office set down, I'd be more forgiving that it's comedy/quality didn't match up. Gervais is pretty open about how much he was inspired by Spinal Tap, but he did something totally new with it *and* was funnier. --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Brook Hinton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Almost nothing reaches the heights of the Gervais version of The Office. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
I'm a little confused by the confusion over Clark and Michael. This was a CBS-funded scripted comedy web series that debuted in May of 2007. It was created, written by, and stars real-life friends Michael Cera and Clark Duke. They play fictionalized versions of themselves. I don't think it was ever marketed as a videoblog any more than The Office webisodes are marketed to be videoblogs. I don't see Clark and Michael being much different from the scads of other comedy series being produced these days, except, of course, it has a post-Arrested Development but pre-movie stardom Michael Cera. -- Kary Rogers http://karyhead.com On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 4:43 PM, Brook Hinton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Almost nothing reaches the heights of the Gervais version of The Office. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -- Kary Rogers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [videoblogging] Re: CBS videoblogs
That said, I don't think CBS threw a lot of money at this project. It was being developed in 2006 and made in 2007, so that was kinda early in the game for a studio to put something out there. I saw an interview with Clark and Michael in which they said there wasn't a lot of money involved and they hired their friends to do camera and lighting work. So if it has a low-budget look, that's because compared to other major studio funded projects, it is low budget. They also said they took less money to retain greater control over the comic sensibility of the show. -- Kary Rogers http://karyhead.com On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Kary Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a little confused by the confusion over Clark and Michael. This was a CBS-funded scripted comedy web series that debuted in May of 2007. It was created, written by, and stars real-life friends Michael Cera and Clark Duke. They play fictionalized versions of themselves. I don't think it was ever marketed as a videoblog any more than The Office webisodes are marketed to be videoblogs. I don't see Clark and Michael being much different from the scads of other comedy series being produced these days, except, of course, it has a post-Arrested Development but pre-movie stardom Michael Cera. -- Kary Rogers http://karyhead.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
