“Simple Good”

We live in an era that is full of new gadgets and tools that are not only good, but easily affordable for almost every person and company. It all started with the Canon 5D. It’s an affordable camera that captured shallow depth-of-field and, to be honest, to the naked eye, looked better than a lot of more expensive cameras. Professionals knew it was not an ideal choice due to the lack of audio inputs and time code, as well as the CMOS sensor which hated any sort of fast movement. The list goes on. But while those professionals all turned up their noses at it, two things happened:  young talent with a lot of passion started cropping up everywhere. They were finally able to afford a somewhat professional tool that could capture their image quickly and efficiently. And, as a result, the market got flooded with people who thought that just buying this camera made them instant artists who should start a production company.

Fast-forward five or six years and we have another interesting era in cinematography. I like to refer to it as the “Dog and Pony Show”. Since people can afford to buy all the products like gimbals, drones, GoPro’s, DSLR’s, sliders, etc., they feel the urge to bring them on every shoot they are booked for to make themselves look more professional and talented. The problem is that they fall into a very systematic approach of how they shoot. Get an aerial shot of a location, cut to a dolly shot of the location, then a gimbal shot following the talent into said location, pass that gimbal off and follow a new subject out of the location and back to the aerial shot. Add some lens flares and light leaks in post and just like that, you have a commercial. It’s like the housing development of video production– very cookie cutter, very cheap to produce and a good return on the production company’s investment. It is NOT, however, typically a good investment for the client. Because these production companies are doing this for one client, they are probably doing it for other clients, as well. Which means the commercial you, the client, are spending a fortune on now looks just like everyone else’s. I was talking to my good friend Dave Poyzer about this, and he says there needs to be more of what he calls “simple good” in our industry. It’s nothing complicated. Just simple and good.

So what does that look like? Take a minimal kit out into the field and produce a high quality spot that focuses more on the emotion of the piece, and less on making clients feel like they are getting their money’s worth. We took that idea to heart on our Olympics spot for Fareway. No fancy lighting setup. No drones, gimbals or sliders. Just a camera, some sound and talent willing to be in front of the camera. And it seems to have worked. We’ve received great feedback from viewers who’ve taken notice. Because it’s authentic. That’s something all the gear in the world can’t get you.