Rough Cut Video Blog

It's not often that you get to stand up in the middle of a media marketplace and witness first-hand the buying and selling of tv programming.  I had this very opportunity recently at the Reel Screen Summit in Washington, DC, where I saw buyers from top channels like Discovery, History Channel, A&E, as well as leading independent distributors mix it up with reality and documentary television producers.  Sparks of all sorts were flying!

Producers with shows already in the can were busy courting buyers.  At the same time, other producers with hot concepts for new programming, were busy scheduling meetings with those who might fund their next production.

Like any conference, there were important lectures and workshops on all aspects of this media buying and selling business, but the real business exchange was taking place in a huge open air meeting space set aside for conference attendees.  Some preferred couches, others set up at the meeting tables.  At any one time, possibly over a 100 meetings were brewing simultaneously.

Of course PortalVideo wasn't there to sell or buy programming.  Rather, it was PortalVideo's opportunity to catch up with producers of reality and documentary television and show them how our rough cut workflow over the internet can have a huge impact on their creative enterprise.

Over the course of 2 days, we met with over 20 producers. What did we learn?  First, that although producers adapt their workflows to the type of programming they are creating and their available project resources, there is a remarkable similarity to how they actually get their work done.  

Second, we learned in more detail about some of the pain producers go through to complete their rough cut.  One extreme example involved bogging down an edit suite for 3 months to complete a rough cut.  Ouch!

And third, they got it. They really liked it. Several producers who had already received nods for funding on their next series of programs are eager to install our system and try it out.  No problem, of course. Because it's all internet based, it's just a click to download and install PortalVideo software... 

 Also, while at the RealScreen Summit, two really great SEO events occurred that resulted in a big boost in traffic to our site, not to mention some brand awareness.

The first was a direct result of a "power user" of Twitter, tweeting about us and our system.  @newmediajim, Jim Long of NBC News, stopped by to get a demo of our system. He tweeted to his close to 24,000 followers that he was seeing our system and how cool it was http://twitter.com/newmediajim/statuses/1170467855.  51% of traffic to our site came from Twitter. That is a direct testament to the power of Twitter, good information for folks who don't yet embrace how Twitter can help their brand.

The second factor in the surge of website traffic that day came from PortalVideo being mentioned in an article by Liz Gannes, of NewTeeVee. The article was picked up by the New York Times, Business Week and Salon.  26% of traffic to our site came from the mention of our company in this article about "Adobe and who they should buy".  

So with very little effort on our end, we got a lot of eyeballs to our site just by being active in Social Media and contacting a blogger/reporter and giving her a demo.  With this kind of increase in traffic, I'm sure we'll be pursuing much more of these types of SEO tactics and looking to see even more positive results in the future!

With discussions of how US automakers are so off-track from what consumers have said they really want, it occurred to me recently that I might compare this situation with my own back yard, that being the media and entertainment industry. I asked myself whether the industry giants in my market space are any more responsive to the needs of consumers than  Ford, GM or Chrysler?

This is loosely conceived to be sure, but we do have 2 very different, competing paradigms in our media market space. On the one hand we have our conventional media assembly lines made up of everything from cameras, recording media and editing systems, all extremely well supported by the big equipment manufacturers. We buy their equipment and we produce media, more or less, their way. On the other hand we have our world of the internet and social media, where there is little or no cost to distribute media globally, and where anyone can use social web applications featuring interactive text and media, also for minimal or no charge.

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I look at how our media creation technologies have been engineered, and then I look at the huge circulation of media on the internet, I begin to feel like I’m being sold a U.S. car product — a technology fundamentally mismatched for today's market space!

Here's one example. Let's say I want to collaborate with other producers to create a mini-documentary. I also want to invite contributors from all over the world, or for that matter, all over town. To make something like this happen, we need internet-based technology. Among other things, we want to share access to video transcription, we want producers to work together with online video editing, and we want others to be able to view our works-in-progress using a realtime video review portal. 

PortalVideo is introducing these particular technologies today, though it's just a small fraction of what I think is to come overall.  I'm hoping we begin to see all the major components of our media assembly line finally go "social" and "interactive".  

—Len Sitomer 

As a producer working with video transcription in the edit process, I am as intrigued as anyone at the possibility of being able to push a button somewhere to automatically generate transcripts from my digital media.

Avid maps digital media to text. EveryZing has its media to text linking technology. As one of the architects of the PortalVideo rough cut system, I am constantly looking out for any progress made in the areas voice recognition. PortalVideo wants to incorporate it as soon as it becomes viable.

So, I just ran across a review of the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 at Macworld.com and learned that Adobe has taken the plunge with a new feature to convert speech to text. I can't wait to try it myself. The review by Antony Bolante seems to suggest that the accuracy of the technology is not high enough to become a significant addition to an efficient edit workflow. My guess? We'll all have to judge this for ourselves. It's a big step though!

— Len Sitomer 

No doubt, when it comes to communicating with video, the new "tube" is delivering many of us into a grand new era of video possibilities.  We enter as viewers, and others as producers.  But the question I'm most interested in is why the separation between viewer and producer even exists at all?  Why aren't more viewers  becoming producers? What is preventing video from becoming just another form of writing, accessible to all of us?   This is the tight rope I'm stringing out there for anyone who would like to venture out there with me to discuss.

I tie my part of this discussion to a couple of assumptions.  First I see producers and editors as having the technology and the know-how.  With low-cost and super quality technology, their skids are very well-greased to access the internet with anything and everything they produce.  On the other hand, they don't have all of the ideas, and of course, few are independently wealthy.  So then we have viewers, and in particular the first vanguard, viewers with ideas (and a budget) that want to create video.  Without the technology or the know-how, they need producers to realize their ideas.  

My personal experience here is that of producer working with clients to develop interview-based videos for over 15 years.  Anyone who has slogged through video interviews in the course of putting together their video piece knows just how challenging the rough cut process can be.  Some call it painful. Others call it arduous. I call it insane.  Typically, the process involves grabbing segments from the paper printouts of video transcriptions, editing together a rough cut video, submitting script and video for client review, more transcript editing, more rough cut video editing, and even more client reviews.  It's a difficult ride for the both the producer and the client alike.

I looked at this process, looked at the available technologies, and came up with a new rough cut editing system over the internet for interview-based media.  I think it will make a big difference and I invite you to explore it at www.portalvideo.com before your next undertaking of this sort.  But with respect to the bigger picture here, I have been watching how our subscribers have been using our system and noticing that they are using it to work together in some very new ways.  These lines between producers and clients, producers and viewers, are blurring right out of the gate.  Though it may be impossible to know exactly where this will all lead I do think there is huge opportunity here for all of us. 

Looking forward to your comments here, and in future articles, I'll share interesting examples of new PortalVideo workflow and possible implications for all of the producers, editors, corporate communications directors, and video journalists among us.

 --Len Sitomer, Founder and CEO, PortalVideo