Letters from isolation  -

Motion pictures
on my TV screen,
A home away from home,
livin' in between
But I hear some people
have got their dream.
I've got mine.

Neil young -

I have been involved in image making since the tender age of 16 - with the odd break to either just faff around or work in hospitality. When I completed my photographic apprenticeship digital technology was just becoming realistic cost wise for both agencies and photographers - This was tremendously exiting, but within a few years devastated the bread and butter work our industry survived on. Why pay a professional to shoot 100 cricket bats in a studio on a Hasselblad, scan the slides, clear cut them etc etc when an intern can do it with a digital camera in the corner of your agency ? Of course there is always room at the top - but that is also fickle, as any Director of Commercials will tell you, a talented person can have a great run, but maintaining that over a lifetime career is a whole different game. 

With the benefit of that hindsight, I would like to speculate in this letter on how the media and content production industry which has been such a success in NZ, may change both due to broader trends, and due of course to the current crisis.

It’s a broad church, but I tend to meet 3 types of people in our industry. Those involved in TV and light commercial production -  those involved in Drama and larger budget commercials, and people who work in the event industry. First the part I have the most direct experience of - TV…

It’s been a phenomenal time over the last 10 years for TV and general content production. While we have seen the slow death of traditional scheduled broadcast TV ( still hanging on just…) , there has generally been an insatiable appetite for fresh content, consumed everywhere. 

Corporate comms have been taken over by video of varying quality - and even though I like to see it done well, most of the time a simple camera phone is more than adequate for this. Livestreaming is now commonplace - and the technology improves all the time. BMD just announced what is essentially a tv studio in a box, complete with streaming encoder ( just plug in a monitor, cameras , laptop and a network cable and you are up on youtube with your own station ) , for US $600 ! - Of course having the gear is different from getting an audience, but I could quite easily build my own turnkey TV studio for under 20k, and hit a quality point that TVNZ could not 10 years ago for several hundred thousand dollars.

The trend towards micro production facilities , and teams based around specific productions rather than having a “ job “ at a production company will finally dominate in the next 5 years - this has been a longtime trend but the current crisis will surely hasten it as people look to minimise overheads and maximise creative output.

But what about companies like Warners or Banerjee you say ? Yes a few very big vertically integrated companies may still operate for a while, but the kind of advertising driven model they currently run I cannot see a future for. Aesthetic reasons aside - I’m not convinced a show like The Block will be able to retain enough audience as advertisers increasingly target consumers through other channels, and younger eyeballs may never have even seen broadcast TV.

Like the mid 90’s with Professional Photography, there will still be room at the top, but bread and butter work will continue to be eroded, ( as it has been over the last few years ) and the trend of work going to those who can multitask - Shoot and Direct, or Edit and Produce will accelerate. 

My observation has been that great work can result from this - as long as you don’t do it all - Collaboration still makes the best content…So if you had always meant to learn to edit, or shoot, or write as well as your speciality - now is a great time to do it. So in summary -

The current crisis is likely to hasten the demise of traditional media outlets. There will be a huge increase in micro news and content production, but only the really talented people who are prepared to multitask will survive the transition. Following the “ democratisation “ of means of production like motion graphics, colour grading, cheaper cameras etc - the last bastion of expensive, exclusive hardware - the TV studio, is now being disrupted by cheap gear and streaming services.

We can only survive as professionals by stepping up creatively and taking on multiple roles - as a camera professional I need to be prepared to Produce and Direct if needed - Producers and directors will certainly be picking up cameras.  

Interestingly I think the most protected role may end up being soundies - maybe revenge for all those jokes about them ! The moment content moves beyond 2 voices simultaneously being recorded - the role is pretty much indispensable .

I see much hope here- as we can sell our niche content anywhere, and there will continue to be huge demand. It will just require a flexible workforce willing to throw aside old models for good.

Next Drama, Features and TVC’s. 

In a global market we have, corny as it is to say, punched well above our weight - However the current crisis will have a devastating effect on this sector, which is built on an international workforce. Until global travel becomes a reality again the majority of productions will retrench to the country of origin of their producers. National economic interest, hassle factor and safety will override our competitive advantage and undoubted technical skill. I would like to hope if we exit lockdown first then some productions may choose to shoot here as a safe haven, flying in and quarantining key personnel, but in a slammed industry globally - closed cinemas etc - a return to home base is more likely. Many people will exit the industry - as of course a set builder is a builder, and a gaffer a sparkie ( usually ). Rental houses will be slammed as there will be a massive oversupply of cameras and other production gear- there was even before the crisis, now it will be dire.

For everyone else my hope is that we can expand our local productions to soak up the talent. We need more Peter Jacksons - not more James Camerons at the moment. 

So producers - shelve those parochial local stories, and step up like Sir Peter did, embrace commercial Hollywood style content, find the money, make it and sell it to the world.  We may be in for an extended drought of the overseas produced work that the industry has relied on . We have the gear and talent ! Let’s get some scripts and money...

Advertising may me a bright light in this - There should be a substantial consumer rebound when the world does exit lockdown - so hopefully more ad’s being made - once I would have said TVC’s - but that terminology seems rather quaint now.

And finally Events - 

I see a bright future, as once the lockdown is raised, people will desperately want to party and socialise ! 

However like during the GFC, corporate belts will tighten, so the proliferation of conferences, awards ceremonies and general corporate shindigs will pull back. This will likely drive consolidation in the industry, as even before this crisis it was very competitive, with tight margins. Cheap tech has also eaten away the bread and butter here - Jaycar PA systems are disturbingly OK - So overall glimmers of hope as soon as people are allowed out - but in a slimmer industry where easy work or anything achievable with off the shelf gear is likely to finally disappear.

So overall, we are all in for wild but very different rides over the next couple of years. Lets hope there is a great upswell of creative talent that comes out of this terrible destruction in our industry.