When I was over in Beit Shemesh a few months back I suddenly found that many of the network sites I had frequented for industry reasons no longer allowed video streaming. It’s not only a major annoyance, but contrary to the very nature of the web we have created.

HBO and others have strong ties to their distribution partners (cable and satellite companies). Online distribution of this content would require significant restructuring on their part. This isn’t something they need to do today, but it’s something they should be doing by tomorrow.

That sentiment I can definitely get behind, as some might argue that we pay out in not only our time, but our sanity.

Matthew

I tend to think that the aggregate of community ratings from a platform-agnostic source serves as the purest indicator of quality.

Also, as an audience member, I find persistent self-promotion unappealing.

I think your g14productions crew does good work, and I’m always intrigued when I find out that you did something new.

As far as “no budget”, what that means is that you and your crew are VOLUNTEERING your time, and as the saying goes, time = money… So you DO have a budget. You’re paying yourselves to do what you love to do, which is pre-produce, produce and post-produce.

Same thing as when Justin announced the weekly budget for STBD. The show doesn’t actually get done for that low amount of money. It gets done for that low amount of money PLUS the in-kind donations of TIME that the people involved give to the project because they love what they do and want to put on a good show.

You bring up an interesting philosophical idea: “Do it for the love”. I don’t know how easy it is to put together a crew of talented people that are all willing to “do it for the love” on ONE show…. much less a “network’s worth”.

My point isn’t about people that love to do what they do. My point is about attracting talented people to a project that are trying, as neovids said, to work on “real” shows without losing their shirts. Even if you put together a team that as you say “does it for free, because it lets them do stuff they love”, that means they have to take time out from concentrating on their new-HBO show in order to go ‘pay the rent’. Imagine how much better a weekly internet show would be… any show… if the ~8hours/day spent getting money were focused on tweaking scripts or shooting coverage or 40 extra hours per week on editing?

Ben has another good point in his recent reply. People have no idea how long it takes to do things like an audio mix for even a 5-minute video. Forget about color correction, so that someone’s shirt isn’t red in one scene and pink in the next scene because of different camera placement /lighting. Those elements aid immersion and bolster the feeling of “quality” in a production. By decreasing the budget on a production, perhaps all the way to $0, something’s got to give.

On the other hand, you have the Lonelygirl15 crew, which created apparently compelling internet content with a static webcam-looking shot of a bedroom. One could argue that THAT was a quality presentation, and throw out the idea of budget altogether. However, the song remains the same… If someone’s not paying them, they’re paying themselves with in-kind donations of time, so there’s no such thing as “no budget”.