Back to School: Students Look for Work Online
Film schools, and more importantly film students, have definitely begun to embrace online video. Thanks to a combination of small, eager departments like the one at San Francisco State; the tradition of spec work; and sharing sites willingly confronting the reality of having to develop content talent in order to stay competitive, a nascent understanding of the new market has taken root in academe.
A few weeks ago, NYU alumnus Brett “Billion Dollar” Ratner showed up in class before heading out to catch the school’s junket to a new film program in Singapore. Charming and humble, he told the class, “I didn’t have YouTube.” He continued, optimistically, “You can post your videos to YouTube and score a three-picture deal.”
So you can imagine how hard it might be not to see one’s own prospects in such rose-colored tones. The reality is that the unemployment rate in the entertainment industry is traditionally an order of magnitude higher than the general unemployment level (and the two pretty much rise and fall in inverse proportion to one another). As unrealistic as his perspective may be, Ratner is right to say that there are real opportunities online.
The two major benefits to publishing online are the ability to save money and the ability to find an audience. As far as saving money goes, hosting your reel in HD quality on the Internet Archive just makes sense. Why pay for the storage and bandwidth required to host on your own site? The shoestring budget doesn’t have to affect quality; even this introductory project, above, is as compelling as anything you’ll find on TV.
Finding an audience is as simple as posting to YouTube and MySpace. Finding a big audience, however, is something else entirely — the content needs to be compelling, and a deft promotional touch helps. Though once you unleash your work web-wide, you lose a certain a degree of control, and may suddenly find yourself telling an agent something along the lines of: “My hilarious spec spot for a Heinz commercial got picked up by eBaumsworld, so I don’t know the exact stats.”
And therein lies the ultimate difficulty — turning online success into paying, creative work. One look at the quality and quantity of work on the Daily Reel, much of it from students, makes it clear just how competitive the field is. Ratner’s first gig, a music video for Public Enemy, happened to debut the same week MTV added a director credit to the title bug, prompting calls to come in from other artists looking to hire him. Which is just the kind of dumb luck that can’t be taught, but happens all the time online.
Jackson West is currently attending film school at New York University.
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Hey Jackson,
Sorry, but you’re wrong about Brett Ratner’s perspective about the film industry, he was absolutely correct. The truth is the truth my man. You can’t sit there in Silicon Valley and pretend that online ‘video’ is something new. The quality of video entertainment/production hasn’t been improved by recent improvements in online video distribution. It’s simply allowed a greater number of creative people to enter the format. You’re also wrong about the lack of employment opportunities for these new filmmakers. There has never been a better time to make money in film production, sorry ‘video’. I run a online video business that allows internet filmmakers (approx 1,100) to produce low budget high quality web video content for income. The fact is these basic storytelling videogrphy skills are in record demand in business, brand, online local, local TV and national online directory listing sites. I also happen to work in Hollywood and have worked with Rattner on a few jobs, he certianly doesn’t owe his career to a fortuitous chyron credit, that’s for sure. These are two different worlds. One is highly resourced and highly funded production the other is micro-production, essentially ‘videography’. I’m sure your previous work has to be better but this post was a poorly researched and lacks accurate information. Your opinions seem to imply you have little hands on inexperience in the area that you’ve chosen to report.
I’m glad you see a rosier picture, Simon, but I still think that going from YouTube to a three picture deal has certainly yet to happen and seems pretty unlikely. As for the story about the director credit, it’s the one Ratner told my class and another later in the week, and has been documented elsewhere.
I have argued for some time that online video distribution doesn’t significantly change the craft of creating stories in motion pictures. What I’ve seen is that, like any other creative profession, competition is fierce and there are more hopefuls in school trying to pursue a creative career than there are jobs for them when they graduate.
Found your blog on yahoo – thanks for the article but i still don’t get it.