I have a full time job as a Network Adminstrator. I do run an actual business as an LLC at visualappeal.org. I have never advertised and I am constantly getting requests to do projects for people. Our last major project, released on 11/29, was for a 3-camera shoot of a performance by seven magicians. So I am thankful for the constant flow of work. It allows me to buy more goodies. :-)

Ditto. :-(

I'm in the same boat at Ralph, so I don't have a steady stream of receipts to measure. However, our local economy in Carmel, CA is mostly from the tourist trade, and it is down -- a lot. Also, a huge number of second homes here. Even though many are "high end," many are just small cottages. That market, while not as bad as what's happened in Modesto and other Central Valley cities, is pretty awful.

Let's face it: video is a luxury, and not likely to do well in a for-real recession which, unfortunately, is something we really do have now.

We're slammed, as usual, but mainly from one big corporate client with ongoing training needs.

They have been doing their best to try to get more for less for the past year but their more stringent requirements have only made us spend more time on management so they actually get less for less. But we're busy all the time and the money is still good.

We're not using Vegas but we could be for the main client. It'd do the job, except that it'd be very handy to have some real vector based drawing tools. That'd make Vegas a killer app for our sort of training.

We've got a pair of feature length docs in the pipeline and settled on FCP for those because PPro/Axio chokes too easily on anything big and FCP handles DVCProHD from tape without trouble.

Rob Mack

I think you're finding that at a certain point you can run word-of-mouth. When worked as a grip-electric I never had to advertise.

Rob

On the corporate side, people in Silicon valley still use a lot of video. However, we've seen it scale down over the last 20 years.

Once upon a time the larger corporations would do monthly or quarterly addresses to the employees via satellite and they were maintaining professional studios for all their video. Apple, HP, Tandem, Kaiser, BofA, Wells Fargo, all had a stage and some had very big stages.

About 15 years ago many of the companies with bigger stages closed them or sold them to private parties. Those private companies eventually closed up and the stages went dark.

Currently, many people in corporations who are trying to get videos made are looking at youtube and thinking that's about what they need-something that looks like a college student with a camcorder shot it, something extemporaneous. Unfortunately, they want to pay what a college student would charge so that's a bit troubling.

Rob

If it weren't for repeat business I dont know what I would do...but ya...slow.
Good luck,
Randy

Once upon a time the larger corporations would do monthly or quarterly addresses to the employees via satellite and they were maintaining professional studios for all their video. Apple, HP, Tandem, Kaiser, BofA, Wells Fargo, all had a stage and some had very big stagesMy first real job was at HP at their corporate headquarters at 1501 Page Mill Rd. in Palo Alto. Just up the street at 1801 Page Mill was a studio that was beyond what most Bay Area TV stations had at that point. Unbelievable facility with several huge rooms with the low-flow air conditioning (to reduce sound), and massive control room. All of this so we could make a video on how to use a signal generator or power meter, to be watched by a few dozen of our geekiest customers.

What year was that? I know quite a few people who got started at HPs stage.

Eventually HP was doing those monthly satellite uplinks.

Rob

Business is down. A rental house in central Iowa closed up so even if I do get a
request must drive even further for HD equipment. Which now adds an extra rental
day fee.

Major customers are reusing existing promo videos. Haven't had any requests
to assist on any commercial shoots.

Perhaps a congressional bail-out is in order. We need another disaster like we
had this summer to generate some work.

What year was that?I was at HP Palo Alto from 1973 until late 1976. I was at HP Loveland, CO for a short time in 1977.

I think in the Midwest things are really slow. A few professional marketing firms were crying about shifting workload from big markets to small local ads. But my wife's sister and husband seem to be getting more commercial jobs vs weddings (?). I have no real knowledge of the local video trade but it must be hurting just from the increase of "new student and family editors". ;-) YouTube and school media classes are probably causing some real business lost in these tough times. ;-)

Until recently, my main paid gigs where off road four wheel driving events for Hummers and Rovers. That work is entirely gone of course. The bad news is that I have a lot less money coming in. The good news is that I've finally started working on this documentary project I've been talking to all my friends about for the past couple of years.

I think it depends where you live and what the competition is like. I'm going fulltime soon because where I am (Northern Canada), there isn't much competition and a lot of demand. I have half of my salary for the year already booked and I haven't even advertised yet. I was watching a marketing seminar on the net the other day where a big shot in marketing (can't remember his name) says most marketing is switching to internet and a lot of it is going to be internet video promotions, commercials, etc. If you can provide that, or get businesses in your area to catch on to it, there's a lot to be made there and it's only going to get better. A lot of small to medium businesses aren't willing to hire a big production company to shoot their stuff, they just need small operations, like some of us here.

And for Weddings, I know some hate doing them, but recession or not, people are still getting married. Some might have smaller budgets, but the high priced weddings are still going on. There are always people who still have big bucks irregardless of what's going on with the economy.

We're a small studio of 3 full-time employees and several part-time camera people. We've survived for 14 years by diversification.

In our small southern community, we've developed a "go to" reputation that continues to open doors. Our corporate and industrial work is taking a hit. But by the same token, the consumer based , smaller projects seem to be growing. Annual events, such as beauty pageants, graduations, music programs, and other events (weddings, etc.) seem to be solid for the moment. Local TV commercial production is virtually nonexistant. Also, we provide support services for several corporate training organizations. These areas appear to be growing.

We're diligent in creating new avenues of revenue. Not just finding more customers for what we like to do, but providing new and innovative services to new customers. For instance, this week we've hooked up with a pipeline construction company to video pre-construction sites in the lower part of the state. Our cameraman trekked four miles through a swamp Tuesday and Wednesday. They said they couldn't find anyone locally willing to do it! Its not glamorous, but it does look like a highly profitable avenue for us to follow.

It all about building relationships during the good times. We're watching the bottom line closely. I'm comparing current conditions to post 9-11 (2002-2004). I'm expecting a big hit after Christmas. Hopefully, our contract work and regular customers will provide enough work so that we can keep our head above water.

I'm not crazy about some of the projects we're working on right now...but I'm not crazy!

Butch

like some here, i already work a normal job & this is on the side.

Looks like I've got some work liked up for early/mid 2009, but right now nothing that pays (I do small free things occationatly to learn new things). 2009 might bring me $500-1000 I'm hoping. It's enough to keep the car running & get pizza for the family which is all I want right now.

Here in small town Idaho things are tough as well last year (2007) we did $4.000 worth of work this year (2008) only around $500 worth, we are very small and all that money was from Transfer to DVD projects. This is a part time thing as well but we have always wanted to make it Full time, maybe things will get better. We want to get into small business training and other types of things. Time will tell.

PaulB

Ah. They were probably shooting Super-8 and 16mm back then. A few of the Kaiser producers I worked for in the last decade had started out doing film for them.

Rob

Ah. They were probably shooting Super-8 and 16mm back then.If you are talking about HP, there was no film whatsoever. It was all 1" B&W video which we played back on reel-to-reel Sony players, if I remember correctly.

Finishing up a cursive Hebrew teaching DVD for an oganization in Isreal.
Three shoots next week. Promotional video for a school, a retirement home, a string of 20 retirement homes. I
n the New Year a video to promote a college materials handling program, dealing with cancer video for program at local university, promotional piece for a counsellors' professional organization.
Also doing a family bio for a community leader in '09.
Web site video.
Proeject on local research on aging.
It's year five for our business. Moved out of my home and into office about a year and a half ago.
Still do some freelance work for the national broadcaster here, CBC, but video is the mainstay.
2008 has been our best year ever.
I'm hopeful for a good 2009.
At 60, I need several more good years.
Still SD with Vegas and my trusty DVX100a.
HD will be a big step, but necessary in the next year or so.

Hello from Southwest Virginia...

I'm also doing freelance video work on a part-time basis (as I have a job that is full-time too), but have had a fairly active year giving Vegas Pro 8 a good workout...my biggest project being a promotional DVD for a local Christian school. We would have wrapped production before now, but a number of internal changes at the school required re-shoots in September. The good news is, based on the prelimary approvals of the first few "package" segments for the school DVD, their "parent" church now wants an outreach DVD as well, so I'm happy about that.

Also, just finished covering a dance recital for a local school of the arts, shot with an FX7 and a Canon HF-10. Used DSE and Johnny Roy's Gearshift plug-in to transcode the .mts files to HD, and cut the show together with Vegas' multicamera tool. The client loved it!!!

Also, I've been approached by our regional healthcare provider to work with them on a new "sizzle" video to promote a new hospital they're building here in our county. I can't wait to get started, so wish me luck!

James in Virginia

We have a niche where we live of science/environment education videos and shows, and so far we are still coasting on some projects that have been developing over the last year or so.

We have a few things in the pipeline, but we'll see what happens next year. Education seems to be the first thing to be cut in my country-and it is already very underfunded.

The big resortish developments around here are slowing down dramatically, but to be fair, many of them use sketchy financing and when the stock market went down they were suddenly broke.

However, our second-home tourist revenue has not been as bad off as many places-someone earlier mentioned their area was badly affected in this segment.

kairosmatt