Volume 56, Number 1

"The Changing Production Economy"

"Volume 56" is no typo.  I've been a would-be satirist and card-carrying wiseacre for a long, long time.  Today, however, I tend to save my creative energy for filmmaking and leave the wordplay to young folks whose snark hasn't mellowed out with age and maturity.

Actually, this first entry of 2019 is courtesy of a creative director named Franklin Tipton, who is a partner and CCO of San Francisco ad agency Odysseus Arms (https://www.o-arms.com).  Writing in the January 2019 issue of SHOOT magazine, Tipton observed:

      "...the easy accessibility of the technological tools for content production has driven a rapid growth in the number of 'content producers' for clients to tap.  Smartphone penetration is at nearly 90% of U.S. households, meaning those     households have access to basic fill-in editing and broadcasting tools to deliver content to channels like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.  Anyone with a bit of gumption can become a content production house.* (emphasis mine)

     "The need for assets and content continues to outpace the budgets set to make it.  Quality content will take more and more a backseat to the economics of a need for a volume of content to fill a rapidly expanding media space and time. Brands are feeling pressure to be across too many channels for the funds they have available.  In the process, brands are underinvesting in the quality needed to compel people to give a shit."

After describing pretty well the current production challenge of "free" User-Generated-Content (UGC), Tipton does provide a "happy ending" to his analysis, saying that (surprise, surprise) "really creative work will stand out more than ever."

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