There was a job posting over on a message list I follow, and it got me to thinking. It seems that lots of companies feel safer and more comfortable about investing in a lot of high end equipment, but then want to find people to work on spec or for very little pay or for fame. As a creator though, I have some different opinions, so I posed the question to a group of colleagues at ad:tech last week. You can listen to their opinions, then make up your own mind – and please tell me what you think!
Here’s the original posting for context:
[Company X] is looking for a video engineer to manage, enhance and
operate our state-of-the-art HD multi-camera streaming video studio.
We’re switched, have about 3,000 square feet of shooting space, a green
screen, etc. We need someone who wants to chart the course of what a
videoblogging/streaming studio should look be, on a beer budget.
In all fairness, beer is part of the company’s culture, so you could take that last comment a couple of different ways. Feel free to leave a comment right in the video as well – you’ll just have to create a quick account over at viddler.
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Hey Roxanne, thanks for the interview, I’m glad there was a consensus, I think it’s a shame that human innovation and creativity is so undervalued, monetarily anyhow, in the digital community.
(Do I really sound like that?)
@Jackie – I like consensus too on this point, though I do know someone out there could make a case for the equipment, otherwise it wouldn’t be such an entrenched practice. My best guess is that it is easier to measure gear and not so easy to measure performance, as that can be highly subjective.
Do you sound how? I found your message articulate (it’s why you made the cut) and the audio quality overall is certainly lacking, as I was using the small hand-held Xacti instead of a big recording rig. I like being able to whip something out of my purse when the conversation is happening in real time, and hope my interviewees can forgive the ambient noises and less than perfect pitch. :-) being a new media guru yourself, I suspect you can understand all this and your question was in jest!