State of the industry summarized in an Insta post

[ND64]

Don't want to start 2025 with a negative post, but I saw this depressing new year resolution today:

Nothing wrong with being a train operator, but we're at a point that being a train operator is a better career option than shooting pro video with RED cameras. 

[QuickHitRecord]

Interesting post. I'm not familiar with him, but he's in my city (Portland, OR) and I ride the Max often.

As a full-time freelance videographer for the past ten years, I just did my end of year accounting for 2024 and I can officially say that my income has been on a downward trajectory since the pandemic. Video production is just not considered a specialty skill anymore. 2023 was so bad that I almost threw in the towel. 2024 was better, but still barely a living -- probably around half of what my friends with office jobs made. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, I'm currently underperforming the average income for other videographers in my area by a wide margin, but I have to wonder about the accuracy of their numbers. A lot of my local colleagues have been exiting the industry just as Airview has. People with genuine talent.

One trend I've been noticing in the past couple of years is that I'll show up with a car packed with lighting, multiple cameras, dolly track, etc. and yet some of my clients will often just tell me to hurry up and get the shot with no lighting or movement. And then we wrap early, which is nice. But overall, I feel like my work has been going downhill and this is really bothering me.

And then there are discussions like this taking place on Reddit, so I know that I am not alone.

Overall, I'm pretty discouraged and I need to figure out whether to ride it out or try something new.

[ND64]

20 minutes ago, QuickHitRecord said:

And then there are discussions like this taking place on Reddit, so I know that I am not alone.

Interesting stories in that Reddit discussion. I guess we're dealing with Chinafication of content creation: super fast, short, low budget, cheap consumerism.

[Davide DB]

I know it's bad to generalize but I want to open 2025 by doing so.

What is happening in the video, happened ten years early in computing and more specifically in the web. Huge numbers of people have had access to devices and skills that were previously restricted to a few people. Let's call it democratization, that is, a downward availability of resources. A fundamentally good thing that has triggered processes of competition and lower prices for customers.
But if we look at the issue from the point of view of those who have (or had) an IT company with employees or maybe even freelancers but not off the books, the issue also had negative effects: any pimply nerd from his bedroom would make you a website at bargain prices that you with your company would never be able to offer.
You will say, yes but the quality suffers. Yes we agree. but how many customers appreciate it or are able to tell the difference? for every wise customer there are ten who rush to buy at the lowest price and who gives a shit if the results are crappy.

Now, in my reasoning, replace computers with video cameras and software engineers with filmmakers.

Does that make sense?

[MrSMW]

So it might not be ‘sexy’ but the average salary for a train driver in the UK is approx double my salary.

And you get paid to go on strike whenever you feel like in order to petition for even more pay.

Yup, that is the world we live in.

It’s mostly been that way actually as in one where very few creatives actually make any real money and the financial benefit is usually in favour of having more regular employment.

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

2 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

One trend I've been noticing in the past couple of years is that I'll show up with a car packed with lighting, multiple cameras, dolly track, etc. and yet some of my clients will often just tell me to hurry up and get the shot with no lighting or movement. And then we wrap early, which is nice. But overall, I feel like my work has been going downhill and this is really bothering me.

 

This sounds a bit like a short film that I recently helped shoot, but where I wasn't DP.  The DP was solid, but the director seemed really inexperienced.  I showed up a couple of times to shoot when the DP wasn't available and before we shot, I said "Ah, we should get the Tentacles connected to everything for timecode" and the director said to just shoot it.  I asked about the slate and he said that we'd just clap for sync.

"Alright, but the editor is really going to hate us, without a slate or timecode."

Sure enough, I'm now being asked to pull a bunch of selects from hours of footage to send to the editor because they got overwhelmed and annoyed when presented with a mountain of non-timecode footage without a slate to identify which take, etc.  It also didn't help that the footage for one scene had no camera audio due to my unforced technical error (we'd plugged someone else's Rode Wireless Go into the Ronin 4D during the previous scene and I'd toggled the left/right audio inputs to external vs the internal mic, I forgot to switch it back on the next day when we shot and didn't use the Wireless Go again).

Anyway, at least now I hope that the director has learned that you will pay a lot more in editor time/goodwill later if you don't take the minimal time to hook up timecode and use a slate on set.

[Clark Nikolai]

3 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

...the director said to just shoot it.  I asked about the slate and he said that we'd just clap for sync.

"Alright, but the editor is really going to hate us, without a slate or timecode."

Sure enough, I'm now being asked to pull a bunch of selects from hours of footage to send to the editor because they got overwhelmed and annoyed when presented with a mountain of non-timecode footage without a slate to identify which take, etc.

Yep, I remember working at a production house that produced made for TV movies, it was at the time of transitioning from film to using HD for shooting (Mostly HD-Cam and DVCProHD videotape). They figured they could streamline all sorts of things and save time and money. They decided to not use a slate anymore. What happens was that, yes, you could now sync the audio with software (PluralEyes) and you could figure out which take it was by what order it was shot in, it took so much longer for the assistant editors to do all that work that it was much faster to just take 30 seconds before each take and use a slate.

So, basically, the new technology helped a lot in lowering the cost of production but they had to scale back a bit for practical reasons. (They also tried to shorten the shooting schedule to 12 days for a feature. That proved to be too little time even with two cameras running and they went to 18 days.)

[zlfan]

it is all the iphone's fault. 

[zlfan]

4 hours ago, MrSMW said:

So it might not be ‘sexy’ but the average salary for a train driver in the UK is approx double my salary.

 

 

it is all about the union. 

[zlfan]

9 hours ago, ND64 said:

Don't want to start 2025 with a negative post, but I saw this depressing new year resolution today:

Nothing wrong with being a train operator, but we're at a point that being a train operator is a better career option than shooting pro video with RED cameras. 

actually, modern trains are high tech instruments, no less than red cams. lol. 

[newfoundmass]

10 hours ago, ND64 said:

Nothing wrong with being a train operator, but we're at a point that being a train operator is a better career option than shooting pro video with RED cameras. 

Honestly it SHOULD be a better career option than shooting professional video with RED. People's lives and safety depend on train operators.

---

In my area, which is mostly rural, I am offered more jobs than I need/want. There aren't tons of videographers in my neck of the woods, so there is a lot less competition. In an area like Portland, Oregon it doesn't surprise me that it is becoming harder though, especially in specialized areas like drone videography which I think is what this guy specialized in. Anyone can buy a DJI drone and get impressive visuals with almost no skill, as the drones do a lot of the work for you.

I've seen all this before. I started in video when I was 12 years old. Working in video was an expensive endeavor and very specialized back then. Things changed when everything went digital and all of the sudden anyone could buy a $500 miniDV camera and a copy of Pinnacle Studio for $99 at Staples or Best Buy.

I used to get hired in my teen years to film and edit birthday parties, recitals, sports games, and other stuff people wanted to have filmed for their own collection. I used to go to sports games and film things myself, then sell VHS tapes of the games for parents to buy! It was great and paid for all my equipment! But everything changed once video became less specialized and Dads could buy a camera and editing software to do it all themselves. Soon every computer came with editing software, like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. Then YouTube became a thing! Then everyone had a video camera in their pocket when phones started adding cameras! All of these things, to some extent or another, impacted our industry and has continued to.

With each step more and more folks found themselves either out of work or needing to adapt. As new things pop up we'll continue to need to adapt. It's not unique to just us, though. I know someone who became a millionaire off of building websites who now mostly gets work specializing in helping folks with Wordpress and Squarespace websites. I know a print shop and marketing owner who used to be able to employ 6 full time people who now works alone because many local businesses have taken marketing in house since they can just get one of their younger employees to figure out how to use Canva. It's happening really everywhere.

All you can do is adapt. Not everyone though is going to be able to, especially the more specialized their work is cause once that becomes less specialized there isn't a lot you can do about it.

[fuzzynormal]

14 hours ago, ND64 said:

We're at a point that being a train operator is a better career option than shooting pro video with RED cameras. 

Well, look, always has been.  Trains are cool.

[MrSMW]

6 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

so there is a lot less competition

And that is about the sum of it…

A. How many competitors for your specific services are there?

+

B. How good/unique are you within your marketplace?

=

Being employed or not.

Actually there is a C. which is how good are your business and marketing skills as they are as, if not more important?

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

And that is about the sum of it…

A. How many competitors for your specific services are there?

+

B. How good/unique are you within your marketplace?

=

Being employed or not.

Actually there is a C. which is how good are your business and marketing skills as they are as, if not more important?

It was something people should've seen coming a long time ago. So many folks moved to these larger cities, in part because of the amount of work there was, not realizing how oversaturated it'd quickly get.

I know so many people who moved to Nashville, Atlanta, Portland, Austin, and other cities thinking they'd do great there. And at first they did pretty good. They were booked up solid doing music videos and social media content, among other things. But more and more "creatives" moved to these areas, and then businesses started taking social media content in-house, so jobs dried up. A lot of them ended up doing jobs they thought they'd left behind (weddings!), moved to another city (where the same thing happened), or moved back home. 

Video jobs will always exist, to some extent, it's just a matter of being in the right place and being willing to take jobs that you don't like/enjoy. Those folks who thought they'd moved on from having to film weddings might need to start doing jobs like that again. Maybe being the camera op for the local cable access channel filming school board meetings might be necessary. It's not glamorous or fun, but it's work. I never stopped doing jobs like that. $50 for two hours of work filming a school board meeting or a city council meeting isn't exciting, but it helps pay the bills. 

I live in a mobile home. It's bought and paid for. It's a nice one in a nice community. I pay a lot fee of $340 a month. Even if I had a mortgage it'd cost a lot less than an apartment even with the lot fee. It's not glamorous, but I own it and it's affordable living. From doing public access work alone my lot fee is paid for every month. Pre-covid I'd considered selling my mobile home and buying a house, since I was doing really good. I don't care about the stigma or prejudices people have towards mobile homes and their communities, but owning a house and property where I wasn't restricted by the mobile home park's rules appealed to me. At the end of the day though I decided against it because I was able to live comfortably. If I'd gone ahead with it though COVID would've killed me financially even worse than it did. I was able to weather it because of how cheaply I'm able to live. My work would need to take an huge hit before my lifestyle became unsustainable. Making this job work for you might require changing how you live and being willing to take jobs that are "below" you. It's a hard pill to swallow, since we all got into this because of our desire to create and be creative, but it's no different than everyone else who has a job that they dislike. 

I hope that makes sense haha

[ND64]

8 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Honestly it SHOULD be a better career option than shooting professional video with RED. People's lives and safety depend on train operators

Remember "Essential" workers in covid lockdown days? Did they become millionaires? No. Because a job's income is determined  by the number of available people who are willing to do that, not the importance of the job. And there are lot of people who want to be essential workers. The only reason train operator income is relatively high, despite the high number of people who want this job, is unions that can keep the income artificially higher. There is no union for video shooter and content creators. And thats because the political left couldn't figure out how to extend it to the industries that didn't exist in those years Marx was alive.

[Snowfun]

Am I part of the problem...

My local heritage steam railway (yes, back to the train theme) wanted some promotional video to put on their FB site. I offered to do this for them - in return for an "all access" pass. No fee. It took ages. The train only runs 3 times a day so to collate a series of shots in different locations was not a trivial exercise. I used my Blackmagics, a FX30 on a gimbal, a drone, an RX0 and my iPhone. So far I've provided 3 short videos. Which they love. And so, apparently, do those people who view such sites on FB. 

Objectively - I'm the first to admit - they are probably dreadful. Poorly "graded" and edited. But. in my defence, they are atmospheric, the drone shots give a different perspective and, in terms of what they want, they are a success. The expectations of the majority of people looking at heritage steam railway sites on FB are, in terms of cinematography, low. Hence, to succeed, one only needs to reach a low bar. And as a hobbyist volunteer I think I achieved that.

So two points:

1. By doing this on a voluntary basis am I diminishing the real value or worth of a professional cinematographer?

2. If they had to pay they wouldn't have done it (they couldn't afford it).

I suppose that what I am actually saying can be summarised as "it's good enough".

[MrSMW]

3 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I don't care about the stigma or prejudices people have towards mobile homes and their communities

Ditto.

If anything, it has more appeal than ever, especially to the younger generations.

I live the ‘Tiny Home’ ethos but can’t quite subscribe to the ‘I live in my car’ brigade because yup, perhaps you do, and maybe it’s your ‘home’, but let’s not pretend it’s your real choice!

If I was single, I’d live in my motorhome/RV full-time, zero question.

I live/work out of it 3 months a year out of 6, Apr-Sep, ie, 50% of the time as it is.

Typically 3 nights per week on site wherever I am working in a corner of the carpark and then 4 nights either in free aires (official overnight van parking areas in France) or cheap camping grounds in order to fill/empty my tanks and use their electric etc.

It’s my transport, office and tiny home on wheels with near zero set up ie, full-time bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living/office space.

Less ‘trailer parks’ in Europe or the UK though and very much looked down upon unless it’s one of the more upmarket over 55 one’s where prices tend to start at 250k£GB.

I would have zero issue living in one unless it had a bad rep. I just might not tell so many people because the old and in some cases, rightful prejudices are exist. 

Over-priced city centre apartment or semi-rural trailer park? I know which I’d choose!

[Ty Harper]

Something I haven't seen a lot of people discussing about this shift is that the people with the most protection from all of this are the OG cam operators, editors, etc., in unionized spaces (and rightfully so as a lot of them walked so we could fly, etc, etc).  But their protection comes in the form of 30-40 years of unionized seniority AND the reality that their severance packages would be way too expensive for companies to even consider shelling out. So as long as they stay creatively hungry and on top of the tech side, they'll be ok. Again, I bear no ill will to these OGs and salute them. But on the other end of the spectrum, it's heartbreaking to see younger video producers in these unionized spaces grappling with a shift they/we all saw coming... it was more a case of them not knowing HOW it would hit them.

I mean we just got a bunch of Sony PTZs with the whole shebang of rails and monitors (etc) - and that likely means a bunch of video producers will now be doing waaay more switching and tech-related duties/troubleshooting than actually running a cam. And how knows how long that will last.

But yes, it's all pretty sh*tty.

 

[newfoundmass]

15 hours ago, Snowfun said:

Am I part of the problem...

My local heritage steam railway (yes, back to the train theme) wanted some promotional video to put on their FB site. I offered to do this for them - in return for an "all access" pass. No fee. It took ages. The train only runs 3 times a day so to collate a series of shots in different locations was not a trivial exercise. I used my Blackmagics, a FX30 on a gimbal, a drone, an RX0 and my iPhone. So far I've provided 3 short videos. Which they love. And so, apparently, do those people who view such sites on FB. 

Objectively - I'm the first to admit - they are probably dreadful. Poorly "graded" and edited. But. in my defence, they are atmospheric, the drone shots give a different perspective and, in terms of what they want, they are a success. The expectations of the majority of people looking at heritage steam railway sites on FB are, in terms of cinematography, low. Hence, to succeed, one only needs to reach a low bar. And as a hobbyist volunteer I think I achieved that.

So two points:

1. By doing this on a voluntary basis am I diminishing the real value or worth of a professional cinematographer?

2. If they had to pay they wouldn't have done it (they couldn't afford it).

I suppose that what I am actually saying can be summarised as "it's good enough".

I don't think you're part of the problem, really. Like you said, if you weren't doing it there's a good chance it wouldn't be done at all. And the truth is, for a lot of work, "good enough" is just that: good enough. For better or worse, today you can show an average business owner something crappy put together using the AI in CapCut or whatever and their socks will be blown off. So doing something better than that, even if it's not something that you consider your best work or are even that proud of, is fine, at least in my eyes.

 

13 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Ditto.

If anything, it has more appeal than ever, especially to the younger generations.

I live the ‘Tiny Home’ ethos but can’t quite subscribe to the ‘I live in my car’ brigade because yup, perhaps you do, and maybe it’s your ‘home’, but let’s not pretend it’s your real choice!

If I was single, I’d live in my motorhome/RV full-time, zero question.

I live/work out of it 3 months a year out of 6, Apr-Sep, ie, 50% of the time as it is.

Typically 3 nights per week on site wherever I am working in a corner of the carpark and then 4 nights either in free aires (official overnight van parking areas in France) or cheap camping grounds in order to fill/empty my tanks and use their electric etc.

It’s my transport, office and tiny home on wheels with near zero set up ie, full-time bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living/office space.

Less ‘trailer parks’ in Europe or the UK though and very much looked down upon unless it’s one of the more upmarket over 55 one’s where prices tend to start at 250k£GB.

I would have zero issue living in one unless it had a bad rep. I just might not tell so many people because the old and in some cases, rightful prejudices are exist. 

Over-priced city centre apartment or semi-rural trailer park? I know which I’d choose!

The tiny house movement is kind of what inspired me, honestly. I could never live in one of those, too small, but a nice mobile home with 1200 square feet? That's enough to have a decent sized bedroom, an office for my video work/gear, and then a good sized living room and kitchen. I've always been someone that prizes function over everything else. My 15 year old vehicle? It ain't pretty but it does everything I need it to do and then some. Mobile home? I own it outright, have low property taxes, and it's more than a decent enough place to rest my head and work out of. These are things I value over everything.

When you temper your expectations, re: where you live, what kind of house you live in, what kind of clothes you wear, what kind of car you drive, etc. you become less impacted by industry changes. We could all, as human beings, stand to be a lot more economical. Almost everything in my home is used, from my furniture (all of it except my bed, my one luxury) to my pots, silverware and dishes. It not only was cheap, but it helped create a lot less waste. Most of my clothes? Second hand when I can find things my size, except for my underwear and socks! So if next year another pandemic happens, I'm pretty much in a position where I can survive that without too much hardship financially. 

Kinda off topic I suppose, but I do think people would benefit from looking at things differently so that maybe you don't have to quit that dream job if you learn to live more economical. Living on a budget doesn't mean living in poverty!

 

[MrSMW]

6 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

The tiny house movement is kind of what inspired me, honestly. I could never live in one of those, too small, but a nice mobile home with 1200 square feet

Same here except we moved from a 4/5 bed farmhouse with a couple of acres, to a 2 bed cottage, because although I could live in a converted garden shed (or RV), MrsSMW would be less keen!

Then we swapped the caravan/travel trailer for the motorhome/RV.

The only thing that stops us using the RV more is 2 biggish dogs and a cat, but I can’t downsize those.

Our car is also 15 years old this year. it does all we need, it’s quick, comfortable, capacious and relatively economical and has never stranded us and being 4WD on all season tires, got us to a few places in snow when with a normal car you’d be stuck. Such as a few weeks back when we arrived back from Paris on the train to the tiny village station 12 miles from our house and at least 8 inches of uncleared snow on the roads. Without 4WD and the all season tires, we’d have been f*cked!

Otherwise oops, we have veered off topic slightly 😉

But back on topic…sort of…we choose to live how we do, which is not exactly as minimalist freaks in a cave, but have a balance of not having status: home, car, clothes, stuff etc partly because my chosen career doesn’t allow for it anyway, but mostly because we are not interested in it in the first place.

I often get pissed off with parts of my job and then I remind myself I have no mortgage, no rent, no borrowing of any kind, everything is bought and paid for, low living costs, no early morning commutes, no arse of a boss to have to put up with 5 days a week etc…

Folks have been complaining that the sky is falling in since forever and in some sectors, it is, because stuff evolves and it’s usually about being ahead of the curve to avoid the worst of it, if not all of it.