Videographers needed all over the U.S.

[Ray Lane]

Greetings,

Just to let everyone know. I have been in touch with Skye for over a month, and she appears to be legit. I know many of you think that the pay is too low, however, in my area (New England), Coldwell-Banker only pays their shooters $50 per house - and they are a multi-billion dollar company.

The company is a small start-up that is trying to do big things. I don't think that asking where you live and what equipment you use is an unreasonable request. As MANY of you know, being a "videographer" for many people consists of having a $300 camera and iMovie. If I was going to try and use videographers from across the US, I would want to know what equipment they have!

Skye seems like a very nice person, and she is working very hard on getting this going. Give her a chance!

[Doug Puckett]

Im glad to see more positive comments on this business venture.

Good luck to us ALL !!

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Just an FYI - I got an email from "Skye". It does seem at this point to be legit - she's talking about Re/Max International etc. & Verizon.

Everything business these days requires extreme caution, but from the outside looking in....seems legit. She talked about getting videographers a DVD that explains exactly what they want - wireless mics, tripods, exporting to an AVI for web purposes (encoding) etc.

In short, I do believe that someone (Skye and company) are trying to make a go at something here. Almost 99% of the time you'd never get an email back from someone that talks specfics (wireless mics etc.). Of course, we could all be wrong...but, something tells me it's worth waiting and seeing how it pans out.

Also, she said they were expanding their menu to include other types of businesses because the money isn't there in just real estate. Apparently, it's taking some time to get it all together and we should hang loose until she contacts us again in about 30-60 days.

It's a waiting game, and there is no harm in waiting!

Murph

[Rhett Allen]

<<<-- Originally posted by Ray Lane : As MANY of you know, being a "videographer" for many people consists of having a $300 camera and iMovie

And for $100 bucks that's all she should get! What a joke! Now she's branching out into car commercials?! Hell I get about 10 times that just to edit a 30 second commercial!
Some people won't be satisfied until they completely destroy an industries pricing schedule. I hope you enjoy driving all over town spending your time, your gas, your money and using your equipment to make some ingrate foreign (India, you know, where we're sending all of our jobs) company more money (they make almost as much as you off this) while you make a mockery of our craft!

I would rather see individuals go out and solicit the business themselves for a little more money. I don't care what other Real Estate agencies are paying, if the price starts going up, we all win!

Remember, if you start making it an industry standard to shoot and edit a commercial for $100, don't come crying to me when you can't afford to live at this craft anymore. Maybe fast food will pay better.

I also agree with others, my home address and inventory are none of her business (yet), and my insurance company would probably drop me for doing something as asinine as giving out that info to any website! DUH!

[Richard Alvarez]

I noticed on her page, a question along the lines... "If the product is not up to standards, are you willing to re-shoot at no cost to the client"?

So... I spend my time, money and insurance to go out to shoot some local car dealer, who can't get his lines straight, or his act together, my "One hour shoot" turns into three... and he still looks terrible because he can't deliver his lines, which were poorly written anyway. Two days later, he feels more comfortable with them, decides he doesn't like the first version, and I have to go out and do it all over again for free.


Whats wrong with this business model?


I provide the equipment, (My own values at over ten grand) the time, the gas, the transportation, the insurance (and expose myself to all the liablility) for 100 dollars. (Which, if we are realistic about office hours, travel, setup, shoot, edit and paperwork... is proably in the neighborhood of 20 dollars per hour) I also sign a non-compete that says I won't go with someone else who offers to pay me more if and when they come up with a better "model".

And they get ninety nine dollars for setting hosting a website and giving out your phone number.


By golly, they're right. All we have to do is find a member of this board that's web-savvy, bind together as the "Largest on-line community of Videographers in the world" with "Millions of dollars in state of the art equipment" and offer our "Professional level services" for three hunderd dollars a spot. (Marketing is fun, and easy, no?)

Heck, I'll only take fifty, you guys can keep the other two hundred and fifty.

It's not a "scam" in the sense of the "nigerian money deal" sense, as someone said. It is a business model that the local Television stations often use. The practically give away their production services at cost, because they make up their profit on airtime.

Only in this model, another company is selling YOUR production services at below market cost, because they are making their profit on "Streaming air time". You carry the skills, expense and liability, they carry the video on a server. Sweet deal...


Yeah,,,, painting this fence sure is fun. Why, I haven't had this much fun painting a fence in a loooong time... I wouldn't trade this job for anything...

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Doug,

Have you ,or anyone else, actually done any paid work for her? I spoke to her and she seems like a nice enough person. The only drawback is that she doesn't currently have any business. It sounds like she's trying to market her ideas, but is only in the planning stages.

I'd appreciate any info.

Bruce Yarock

[Bob Costa]

They were working on 90,000 realtor websites, now they are branching into car ads before they have shot a single home tour?

Their website does not work.

They put all risk on me. If client is unhappy it is my fault. If commercial is ugly it is my reputation. If they go out of business, who is realtor gonna call? (Clue: local guy). If someone gets hurt in the shoot it is my buttz and my insurance. If realtor is not ready to shoot, how long am I expected to wait and do they expect me to return again later for same $100 fee? Can I refuse to shoot with certain realtor who are chronically late?

In most places you need a business license to be in business. Here in Sarasota County, I would need 6 different licenses (One from each city plus one from the county) to do this kind of mobile work.

Is this work-for-hire? Who owns the copyright? What does the contract say? What does the non-compete say?

Am I expected to get each realtor to sign a talent release? DId they even think about this? Whose buttz is on the line ? Talent release even a bigger issue with car dealer ads.

What if homeowner gets pissed at the inside of their home (likely with personal possessions) being on the Internet? What if they get burgled? Who is homeowner going to sue? (hint: everyone). Will they be providing me with location releases for each house I shoot?

I seem to remember someone saying she must be legit because she gave him a phone number for her attorney. Did you call it, and did you verify that he is a real attorney?

Has anyone seem the agreements or non-compete she wants signed? She wants to use my reputation and thgen prevent me fomr even competing with her or stepping in to pick up the pieces locally when she crumbles. It is likely the non-compete will prevent you from ever working for that homeowner or the realtor ever. You may end up paying her a cut just to shoot a wedding for someone you met thru working for her.

BTW, she and programmer are the two "owners" of this business. Are they married? Boyfriend/girlfriend? What happens to all of us when they have a fight?

My questions just go on and on. Until I see some of the legal stuff mentioned here addressed, the amount of pay is meaningless to me. Even then, it just smells like a dead horse.

But she and her shill certainly know how to create some buzz.

[Bruce S. Yarock]

<But she and her shill certainly know how to create some buzz.>

That was my gut feeling also.

I spoke to her, and she had lots of different ideas. If you listened to Doug, you'd think she had an ongoing business. When I asked her about that, she said they were still laying the groundwork, and that she would get back to me later that day... Never heard back from her.

What I can't understand is why people engage in such mental masturbation, and waste so many people's time.

Bruce Yarock

[Richard Alvarez]

Well, there's a lot to be said for the "Stone Soup" approach to building a project. Start the buzzz, generate the interest, get SOME commitments, and everyone else jumps on board. The idea is to build a critical mass of people/money and the project gets moving.

SOMETIMES it works... but not always. Basically, you have to have a sound enough idea to get the real commitments in the first place.

[Bruce S. Yarock]

That's fine, but her "shill" presented the business as something that was ongoing, already in existence. Would have been more sensible and honest if she represented her efforts as what they are...efforts. She had nothing going on, but attempted ( and succeeded) in making people believe that she could offer them work.

Some images that come to mind- "smoke and mirrors", "cart before horse", "building a house from the roof down".
I've been in business since 1981, and I have low tolerance for bs artists.

Bruce Yarock

[Samuel Birkan]

Just Found this

All great ideas, especially starshipwarrior's. I just started a company and now have almost 1,000 videographers around the world. We tape companies and stream the the video. We charge the client $199 and the videographer makes $100 of that. Seems like pocket change to some, but then think about shooting 1-7 of these per day and it adds up.

website is www.GoLookInside. apply at www.videographersneededcom

I just signed a company that repesents 200,000 people who will all need videos. And, we basically give web sites away at $50 all inclusive just so people have a place to run our videos.

Thanks, Skye Winslow

Here
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t107348.html

[Bruce S. Yarock]

That's what the promo says, but when you talk to her, she tells you that she doesn't actually have any business yet.If you Contact her,I'd be curious to hear her reaction.
Bruce yarock

[Rick Spilman]

Well her website is reasonably well laid out with lots of stock graphics of smiling models. The video samples on their site however are pretty bad, about what one might expect with a single camera and available light. The resolution is terrible, either due to the camera used or just crappy compression for streaming. I wouldn't necessarily want to buy a house based on these sorry samples.

If this is the best they offer it is hard to see how anyone would want their services even with a rock bottom price.

[Rhett Allen]

Wow! Imagine that, BOTH websites are down!

I actually wanted to see the crappy quality of video to see what a hundred dollar shoot and edit looks like. I guessing similar to an Auto Trader classified photo. You know, the grainy black and white one's in the paper. Maybe not quite that good because after all, those photographers make big money, considerably more when you take into account your equipment investment and man hours involved. They show up with a $49 digital camera and take 1 shot and leave, most never even heard of a "tripod"!

[Rick Spilman]

The http://www.golookinside.com/ is up. The addresses listed were both mistyped.