as said in the video, it really depends on with who you work with and what kind of person you are.

Sometimes you're lucky enough to find people who are on the same creative wavelength, or even better, stimulate en inspire you too thing greater than when you'd do it alone. If that is the case, you can make a film without being a dictator like director. But you have to be willing to entrust people to temper with your creation. If you can't do that, than by all means, dictate.

The second major factor is size. Disussion is fine among a small crew. But if you have a crew of 50, everything will be total chaos when everybody is allowed to bring in ideas. But that still doesn't mean it's not possible to have discussion in a large production. you just have to contain it in a small core of people you trust. Than it can work.

There way works too. I just saw Joe Swanbergs latest film last night called Alexander the Last, and it was great. Who knows, maybe I'll try it his way sometime, these kids definitely have something cooking.

Dustin,
It's not instant but you build and audience, slow and sure. It's much like TV these days. There are 1000's of show throughout cable, so how do they develop an audience. The web is much better then this because you can develop a very very specific audience, like this show. Only Filmmakers watch this show, that means you don't need as big an audience, since everyone is essentially your target market.

I don't buy that Phil,
Everyone here is willing to go into their pockets to make their movies.
You can certainly talk a retailer or a business into making a video with little or no budget. Or do one for free to show them it's value.

When I first got started in 1982, I had a crazy idea of doing fashion videos (which had never been done before) We told various manufacturers we would play these video on the department store floor (to create an enthusiasm) to which we were told department stores don't even have televisions or these new video recorders. So we rented the TV's and VCR's, put them in the department stores and we made it happen. We were the first people to display videos at the Point of Purchase. Now, it's in every single store.

Innovation is never easy. You need to get creative and don't take no for an answer. When they say no, you find a way to do it and prove your concept to them. One day every business will have a video program of one kind of another on their website.

Who's going to be the first to do this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve

I'm with you Jacob Flores, my entire career for over 20 years was to find the happy medium between suits and my vision of the art that we were creating. After twenty years I was burnt out and tired of arguing. So that's when I went into the equipment design end of the business.

I'm not telling filmmakers to go through all that. But a certain balance of that and filmmaking (which was not available to us at the time) would make a nice combo so your day job is not at a Starbucks and you actually imporve your filmmaking technique with your day job. Also, you improve you skills at budgeting and producing projects within budgets.

Just another path. And I think if these webisodic shows were pitched correctly and they could see the value of it, you could almost get your way most of the time. Always own the characters and put in an option to pickup and take your show with you. Protections that give you control could be built in.
Steve

I'm not a fan of advertising. What I mean is to make a webisodic program that is passionate and gets people talking, (like FilmFellas) and use it as the advertising to get people to a certain site on a regular basis (this is what business owners strive for).

So one example would be to make a show about Harley's and have harley specialist or famous harley riders, enthusiasts, talking about stories or road trips they've taken. This will drive viewers to watch this. Have the show on a Harley website that has an aution site for Harley parts, has an on-line store that sells Harley accessories & has info about taking Harley road trip packages. The show is what drives people to the site on a regualar basis. Some will buy and some won't. The cost of production is realitvely cheap compared to advertising, you'll see the ROI is infinitely less than Google PPC ads or print ads that the Harley company may currently be doing.

On the Gaps website should be a 20-30 something drama show that starts to garner an audience like television. It has nothing to do with the Gap or their chothes. But if 1M people a year come to see the show a certain percentage will buy. If you have people returning to the Gap's website every two weeks to watch a webisode and the Gap is not selling them product, then the Gap is not doing there job. We can only bring people to the Gap site (a goal of any business), the onus is on the Gap to sell to them, and if they are not they either need to improve there products or pricing.
Steve

Excellent point Phil,
Production companies usually have one fatal flaw. Typically, it’s two good friends, who partner together, that are interested in film/video and they get together and say let’s start a production company. Neither of them are really businessman, so they both go out and pitch some deals. They get a gig, but the minute you start that project no one is looking for the next and you then have to be unemployed whilst you are looking for the next job. The key to a successful production company is finding one partner who is interested in film/Video and one who is interested in sales/business. The sales/business partner can’t be interested in production, he needs to be always focused on business. I had this scenario and it worked great. The business partner was constantly looking for business, especially while we were working on jobs and were constantly working on multiple jobs at one time and it never stopped. Rick, my business partner in the 1980’s & 90’s was very successful at getting business, eventually we sold the production company to a large design firm looking to getting into meetings and events and adding video capabilities to their operations.

Mac,
I'd say you are right on both accounts. Reconsitution makes for all kinds of opportunities for creative people who have innovative ideas and I probably am a pompus prick.

Hey Mac,

You gotta move with the cheese, man.

Gregory,
Wow, am I going to give the entire store away on you, I do have a few secrets that I’m keeping that is my style.

I don’t know a lot of what you are asking, I’m a director not the DP or in the lighting crew.
I think we had about a 6 man crew, 1 chef to prepare the food and make the table. A PA to clean and support us. Each person’s audio went to his or her CU camera. One of the camera operators was in charge of sound and each cameraman monitored his own sound.

Personally, I don’t think 5D is going to be great choice for this. They don’t record sound easily and they tend to drift a bit when recoded off camera. You are going to have very shallow DOF which means you are going to need incredible camera operators to pull focus or assistants to help. But prove me wrong and make it work. Would be cool to see.

Hey Steve!

I wanted to thank you for all the info. It was really helpful.

Since my first message I've been doing a lot of shooting. We haven't done round table but we have put together a 3-camera shoot of an art class.

We've now shot about half a terabyte of footage and it looks nice. Everyone is real happy with it.

The 5D Mark II is working out like a champ. It's a little bit harder to operate but the payoff in color and picture quality more than makes up for the camera work arounds and 4GB file limitation.

In the class scenario, we only need one people on mic, so we went with the G2 system into a Zoom H4N.

Great Gregory, check out our H4N video vimeo.com/4782593

A webisodic show is an artform like any other. They can be awesome or suck. It's up to the filmmaker to make it amazing. Your content is so exciting to begin with you should be able to make incredible content and or a series about extreme sports that should garner a return audience. You just need to make sure that you have stuff for them to buy, auction, trade, whatever when they arrive each week. Or place the show on a manufacturers site and get paid for it.

You are damn right it's time to get in touch with the Gap. Before someone else does. Sell them on an edgy webisodic show. Another one to call is Abercrombie, they are not afraid of a little nudity and I bet you could make a very sexy drama series for them. This is an incredibly exciting time, it's like we are all TV execs. picking shows to make. Have fun with it.

GAP here we come!!

Now this will seem like a crazy thing to say, so bare with me.... but the adult entertainment industry probably makes the most money on the web as far as video content goes. Subscriptions to online site that provide regular updates. Its just the same as pay per view - this business model, must be adaptable to regular videos online. Paying for consistent quality content that you get everyday for your $30 a month.

'The Zacuto Shooting course - Showing you how to use your gear like the professionals' haha

Show people how the pro's approach shoots with an HVX or EX range camera. I'd pay to learn it :)

It's in the works. The title of the series is "Zacuto basic training" Jens and I in our military garb and tent SKYPE filmmakers around with orders from command.

Here are the first webisodes coming in June/July
Mission 1: Cinematographer 101 - Spend a day on a shoot with Philip Bloom DoP and see what he does.
Mission 2: Car Chase - Edi Schneider from Romania runs us through how to shoot a car chase.
Mission 3: The Inverview - TBD - How to shoot an amazing interview.
Mission 4: Multi-camera shooting - TBD

The webisodic series like all is free of charge and we encourage everyone to watch it and see how these pro's do what they do. Should be a fun series and I'm looking forward to it. Please let us know if you have other ideas for missions that would interest you.
Steve

How about the use of moving shots?

Dollys, Steadicams, Sliders etc etc - how and also (more importantly) when to use them? Thats just a personal request i guess.

I've also never seen a 'tutorial' on the use of natural light when shooting outdoors.

Apart from that, can't wait to see these!!!!

Let me know if you want a working with water housings and being in/on the water - haha

Oh, I'm such and idiot. Hello :0)
Of course we want one on how to shoot extreme sports and using underwater houseings. Would you consider doing that one with us. We are going to get started right after NAB.

I'll do it.... :)