CRAIG LIEBERMAN'S BLOG

You always get what you pay for.

Its been said a thousand times...yet people still don't get it. I'm a staunch proponent of shopping for value, but int he world of videographers, I can't tell you how many jobs we've got because of bargain hunters whose failed efforts left their company up the creek. Typically, we get the call after one of their CraigsList ads resulted in a video that was just a touch better than grandma shooting with an IPhone.

CraigsList has become the home to these bottom feeders. The typical MO is for some bright bulb in a company to decide that video is needed and therefore, a videographer can be found online by placing a free ad.

So far, the company placing the ad has invested nothing...which is typically about what they want to spend on video.

So the call goes out for a videographer who will work for "the opportunity of future work," or the "chance to work with cool people on a fun project" or "work for a credit in the finished production."

What hogwash.

Every videographer reading such ads on CraigsList knows immediately that the client is clueless, delusional and probably will ask the world for nothing in return. Adding insult to injury is the notion that such companies and the offending poster of said ad is usually being paid a handsome wage. The jig is up. The word is out. On every video editor's/prodcution web chat room in the country, habitual offenders are being identified and the quality videographers already know to stay away.

The few that do respond to nonsenical ads on CraigsList will ask a myriad of smart questions up front and demand payment up front.

If producing a video is so easy, grab a $200 camera and have a go at yourself. You'll quickly see that the video you end up with is substandard and worse yet, you'll probably have no idea how to output the file.

Even if you did find a video person for $50 a day, do you really want your company represented by the garbage they put out?

Videographers and editors are artists in the truest sense of the word. The work they do not only requries training in music composition, cinematography and production, but there are several different software programs and processes that must be mastered. Think of it this way: at your office, you probably pay one person to enter orders, one person to do the accounting, another person to fix your copy machine and still another to manage your servers and computers. A videographer/editor has to know, understand and master a wide range of equipment, software and processes and usually, the good ones have.

Would you ask a plumber, carpenter or doctor to work for free? Of course not. The similarties are stronger than you think: learning how to film, edit, produce and publish video requires training...and equipment...and every video production team member doing this for more than a year has countless hours and unspeakable dollars wrapped up in their craft. This is a craft...it takes time, training and equipment.

The production services we offer require the ability for a person to work with several different types of cameras, the ability to understand frame rates, several different CODECS and how to move from one CODEC to another, lighting, sound equipment, cinematography, editing software including Premiere, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Motion, Shake, Color and a host of computerized filters, plugins and presets, not to mention the operation of waveform monitors, compression software, color correction and much, much more. It'd be like having one doctor specialize in 20 different disciplines...ok, not as much schooling, but certainly a sizeable amount.

The lesson is simple: the service provided by qualified videographers and editors has value. You wouldn't shop for a doctor on price, at least have the good sense to take a person's qualifications into account when hiring for your video project.