When will we hit 200,000 clips?

Bryan,
I think you and Jake are both correct in a way. I will not carry expensive and heavy equitment to shoot footage either. This has no fun!! I believe in content, subject matter which will sell. When the content is in High quality, it is even more sale. But good clip will sell, for sure.

I agree Jake, but you all are saying the same things other people said when pond5 came out. You are saying that the market is flooded. I joined pond5 when there were only 500 clips on the whole site, and no sales.

Think about it in terms of music..... How many people have a band? How many of them actually sell music (very few.) There are tons of wannabe rock stars. The market is flooded.... However rockstars still exist. Why? Becuase they produce a DISTINCTIVE style that is high quality. Rockstars don't have to "suck up" to buyers to get them to buy music. The fans are obsessed with the music and you become an idol in their eyes. Quality and Distinctiveness are the only things that buyers Want.

Dont think like an accountant, think like a rockstar ;-)

I really did not respond to your particular post Jake but you know I like your view of it. Like I said unless the quality makes it unusable and that's just what your saying it's doing. I can appreciate that, no quality is no quality. I don't think you need a RED ONE to do stock (my dog has a red one) but none of you feel like that.. Or maybe some do I don't know. It's a different world from your stuff to mine, mine starts on the computer and ends on the computer. Quality to me means using very light compression and multipass renders when needed. For you guys it's the same end goal but different needs to get it.

Have I diluted the topic at hand enough? I'm lost now are we talking about quality work or if a new stock company can make it? I don't even know any more. I guess main point of the last bit I was talking about that Jake responded to is that some of you are all about this whole thing and do amazing work, don't worry about the market saturation your stuff will continue to sell well.

An the thing your talking about with not doing any research and trying to jump in with what ever, that's pretty funny stuff. I had no idea that goes on allot. Maybe a few that do an amazing job will last. I want to get into footage, but more as a way to combine what I do now with footage. I can't make some things that are not real look real, it's to time consuming. It's kind of like fast computers though, now days you have people with quad cores that use them just to surf the net. I have no doubt that cameras will go a similar route eventually the consumer grade will be quality enough to do HD quality clips.
Just sort of seems bound to happen eventually, especially with HD being about all you can buy when you go to get a TV. You can see it with the mega pixel jump on consumer grade still cameras, remember what used to be AMAZING in the cheep camera segment, it's gone way above that now.

I also think that new company's doing stock still have a great shot, they just need to be different then the ones that are failing now. I mean hell we can tell them the reasons we think they are failing we could tell them what to do differently and all agree on allot of points that would help them.
This particular way of selling stock is not all that old and there must be gold in them there hills because of the amount of new pop up companies. I think allot of people are still finding out about buying stock this way, the month after month growth is coming from some place. It's not brand new editors every time. Only time will tell though, I could be 100% wrong who knows.

I'm not saying there isn't room for expansion.
I'm saying that if someone wants to start video at this point in the game, they need to do something above the rest to stand out.
They need to be that rockstar to attract buyers.

I'm also talking from my own experience with trying to join other video sites that don't produce.
One site I'm on has been selling stock photographs for years.
Last March they joined the video world, I have almost 700 clips and sell 2 or 3 a month and usually a web size. It's to the point, it's not worth taking the time to upload more to them.
I would think that after a year they would be selling more if they could and there must be a reason they don't.
So thats why I think the way I do.

Maybe you're right and I'm shortsided but, its what I see in my own business.
I already stopped uploading to two other startups for the same reason.


Jake

I agree Pond5 is a great place, but I think it has 2 possible futures:

1. It gets so flooded with simple clips, and buyers have favorite artists, Pond5 tries to do things to attract more buyers because buyers become alienated. IN an effort to be competitive they do things to screw the artist, and the good artists leave, and pond5 sinks like shutterstock.

2. Pond5s quality standards (including PV) go up and diversity is maintained. Pond5 becomes a mega marketplace for stock and possibly gets more division between types of stock.

Bryan I think you can make spectacular clips with crappy cameras,,, IF you make them distinctive. If you stylize them a lot in after effects, or do weird subject matter. If you get rid of the grain in AE, or maybe even exagerate the grain on purpose. Keep in mind bryan when I say quality I also mean PV, im not just talking about cams with a huge sensor.

YES! I agree 100% Mark.
I think pond5 needs to be 2 in your list.
That's what I was talking about, you need to be above the rest to succeed in the video business.
I've already seen some spectacular shots from people that own production companies.
I think, how the hell am I going to compete with that. But I will because I'm the rockstar.
Be the rockstar.....
By the way Mark, I'm buying that DVD set from Hollywod Camera Works today.

This weekend I shot about 50 clips using the crane. That thing is really cool for PV.
Now to master the steadicam. (that will take a while I'm afraid) :-(

Jake

Yeah I just don't want to much limitation to come from the camera end of it. It has to do two things, be able to produce a clip with enough quality that I don't need to make it artistic the clips can be stand alone nothing done to them sellers if I deem them good enough. An the work flow of the camera cant be a huge time consuming pain in the ass. Maybe that means shooting directly to HD instead of working with tapes I don't know.. I'm new to the idea still a long way off from doing it unfortunately(and new to camera's and footage all together) but when I do, it will be well researched I hate to waste good equipment. With all you guys I have a ton of knowledge on the subject at my finger tips. It should make research easy to do.

Oh and also I agree 100% with all the other stuff. That site your talking about I think I know who they are. I was lucky and did not upload every thing to them and I'm thinking about asking that they remove it, that's how much I don't care for them.

Jake, you are a rockstar. :)

The guy who practices every night in his garage is the guy who becomes the rockstar, not the guy whos always trying to sell his music at bake sales or whatever.

Bryan Im thinking about getting the 5d markii and using it strictly as a video camera, which sounds weird to be using a still camera for video. However it does shoot 1080 HD and it has a sensor size equal to a vistavision film camera (WAY better than red) and the compression method it uses is VERY efficient, it shows little artifacting and it makes work flow faster. The file sizes are suprisingly small, the codec is very good, and it doesn't look blocky. However there are some weird problems with the camera, that I can prob fix, not sure if other people can work around the problems though.

Yeah since you first talked about the still as video I have been wanting to mess with that on any level. The chick took her nice cameras when she bailed though, so cant mess with it any time soon. What is a good, entry level cam for what I talked about?

Mark,
This guy shot a hotel commercial using only the 5d. Very cool footage. Makes me jump back to wanting this to upgrade to.
There are some stills also shot with the 5d mixed in with the footage.


5d footage
Jake