“That was a great time in online video. We were not making money, but it was a lot less complicated…”
–
Not to single out Hank, because he’s far from the first one to repeat this bromide, but I cannot begin to express how monumentally offensive this concept is.
You only have the luxury of pining for the old days when you weren’t making money but had a great time/more control/more truth/more genuine art once you are no longer panicking about where your money is coming from.
Yes, with money comes more stakeholders, more interference, more people who get a say. But you know what else? It comes with being able to pay your rent. Pay your student loans. Pay for food. And pay for the people you work with to do the same.
Too often, in indie production we take a perverse pride in how little money we spend to make our projects. What that really does is discount the value of the time everybody puts into the work. It’s a toxic idea.
In other words: Fuck you, pay me.
(via jaybushman)
I’ve seen Hank’s post show up in all my social media feeds the last however many hours and have been unable to find the words to express why I found it so endlessly frustrating.
But Jay about sums it up.
Web is about conserving money spent because the profits are low. But when you add more people into the mix (particularly when you retain creative control and credit), you start fucking over people. And Jay’s right, people here take pride in that. I can only speak to the entertainment industry, but it happens ALL THE TIME here, and it’s particularly bad in YouTube both because the profits are often so low to begin with and because it’s considered the norm. Possibly in part because the people who have been doing this so long aren’t used to taking quite the hit they need to now that they’re relying heavily on others to split their work. But everyone I know who’s worked in YouTube has had to listen to someone they’ve worked for go on boasting about how little they spent on a project while they sit quietly fuming, knowing it’s because they, and others, got fucked.
We don’t need to propagate this idea and make things worse. Yes, working with others is becoming more and more necessary to succeed at YouTube. But HOW you work with others is just as, if not more, important.
..diverged somewhat from Jay’s point, but still.
(via rachelkiley)
I find this exceptionally disrespectful to Hank, without whom, said people complaining would not be where they are now or who they are now. It’s one thing to make a point. It’s another thing entirely to bite the hand that feeds you. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This is how writers and actors get black listed as people others don’t want to work with.
(via deosluxmea)
The entire point, my friend, is that the hand *didn’t* feed.
Jay’s blog can be summed up very easily: “don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
(via loganrapp)
I super agree with Rachel.
I think the flip side of this is the notion that the investors (be it fans or actual companies or whatever) don’t realize what it takes to make web “content”. It’s a movie. You’re paying for a movie. OF COURSE people need/expect to be paid because IT. IS. A MOVIE. And, in theory, it is also an ad for your product. So investors, to start, need to know what that REALLY costs and why and not be startled by the figure.
As for how you treat people …
I’ve created a thing. I’ve paid people for the thing & I take no pride in the fact that I KNOW my team is worth so much more than I can give them. The people who (lovingly, wonderfully) offered to waive their fee, I HOPE, feel appreciated and extremely valued. And the team was paid before I saw a dime. I still haven’t seen a return, in fact!
So I guess where this is going is that on the one hand, it seems a little murky what a reasonable video production is going to cost investors and on the other, people ARE used to not having to pay (I can’t even start to tell you how many DEFERRED series there are).
(via hackettkate)
Kate brings up deferred series. I saw Jay’s post as soon as it came up, but I wasn’t able to respond until now because I had to commute home from my full time day job (90 minutes) and then make sure that the kid is doing his homework and feed myself because I haven’t eaten for 7 hours (approx 60 mins) and also talk to my family because they are important, too. And only now am I able to work on things for me. Creative pursuits. The work that I got my degree in vs. the job that I took because I need to pay the bills to pay off the massive amount of student loans because I was told that the only way for me to get a job in my field was to get said graduate degree. Whoever “they” was was wrong. Kate talks about deferred series, but sometimes I feel like my life has been deferred because I can’t afford not to have my job that pays me pretty well but puts absolutely no dent in my student loans, barely pays my bills, and leaves me with little time to pursue the work that I want to do. At times I feel like I’m waiting for my real life to begin. Sometimes I feel lucky that I don’t have to live Langston Hughes’ life, but I do think of his poem and wonder “What happens to a dream deferred?”
I am really lucky that I’m working on a series that I believe in, that I’m helping to get it off the ground. Though I’m not actually writing the story, I’m helping to tell the story of the story out into the world. I get to analyze other series and see what has worked and what hasn’t. I get to analyze stats as part of that story. I get to use my M.A. in Administration of Arts Education and Outreach studies and do something that I’m good at. And I work with a team that is not only believes in the story that they are telling, but believe in my ability to help them tell it and help them get funding. But I’m not getting paid for it.
When I met jaybushman at Vidcon, I told him that his work had inspired me to pursue transmedia storytelling, his reply was, “I’m sorry.” And when I saw him again this year, he remembered that interaction. I really hope that one day this won’t be the case.
(via spinstermoderne)
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1pVWk2g.
