This week features the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel Stephen Brown, and Owner-Operator of ELO Video Productions Erica Lynne Owens. Both discuss finding the talent they need for their video production projects, discuss the evolution of the Web, and give props to Spidvid’s new media model.

Topics covered in this episode:

- Finding the production talent you need for your videos

- Building credibility and a personal brand through collaborative video production

- How podcasting as a medium has evolved over the years

- How Spidvid benefits video creators

- Spidvid as a hybrid social platform

- A few websites that you may want to check out

Full Text Transcript

Show Introduction: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production. This week, we are fortunate to have the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel, Stephen Brown. Stephen has been delivering video content via the Web from the very beginning and he has stories to tell.

And we’ll also visit with independent filmmaker, Erica Lynn Owens. She’s also made use of the Internet to facilitate her productions. So, let’s jump right in to this week’s Spidcast.

First up is the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel, Stephen Brown. Stephen comes from a traditional video production background with credits ranging from directing the Dick Cavett Show to live productions featuring Kenny Loggins, Three Dog Night and so many others. In fact, we could spend the entire show today, just going over his credits. Stephen, welcome to Spidcast.

Stephen: Hey, thank you, Michael. Good to be here.

Michael: Now, Stephen, as way of introduction, could you share with us a bit about The Show Channel?

Stephen: Well, let’s see. We’ve been producing videos both live conventions for large organizations like the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters who’s an association in Hollywood of top people in the broadcast industry and five times a year, we will produce an event where they will honor someone in the industry.

Last year, for example, we had Robert Wagner honored. Just recently, Sally Kellerman. So we’ll do a big tribute. It’s almost like a roast, but it’s more of a tribute than a roast for top Hollywood people.

Then we’ll do big concerts for giant corporate events. One, we’ve done for many years is the Western Association of Food Chains, which is a giant organization of all of the major supermarkets on the West Coast. And they will have a convention and they’ll bring in entertainers like the Beach Boys or somebody like that. We’ll produce the big concert as well as all of the general sessions where people come and speak. We’ve had Norman Schwarzkopf. We’ve had Colin Powell. We’ve had a lot of big name speakers come and speak.

So we get involved in writing those, producing those and then of course, crewing those can be a really big job because you would have everybody from roadies to lighting directors to cameramen that you have to find somewhere and since these are in various cities across the United States, we typically can’t fly all of our people from California or Nevada all the way across the country. So we usually pick up local crews.

Michael: And what processes have you used to find those crews?

Stephen: Well, it depends on the type of person I’m looking for. If I’m looking for a cameraman, I would go to a site called Mandy.com or ProductionHub.com. Sometimes on ProductionHub, you can actually post your project and then people can bid on it. More on Mandy.com, you go through and read the ads of what guys have. “I have this particular digital camera package.” Then you send that guy an email and you communicate usually through email with these people or some communication tool on the side. I also use Guru.com, but that’s more if I’m working with guys in animation or computer-oriented person. I would go to Guru. I would go Mandy or ProductionHub if I was looking for a skilled technician.

Michael: And now as an independent producer, do you see Spidvid benefiting you and The Show Channel?

Stephen: Yes, I think in looking at Spidvid, the brilliant thing they’re doing is they’re taking a little bit where I have to go to multiple sites now to achieve what I’m looking for. Spidvid put it all together in one site for me. So it’s almost like I have Facebook. I’ve got a ProductionHub, a Mandy, a Guru; everything rolled into one. And we create a community of creatives and technicians all in one place that I can get to quickly. Because as you know, when we’re bidding a job or where specking a job, we need some answers and we usually need them very fast. And so you either go to multiple sites or Craigslist or wherever you’re jumping around or you now can just go to Spidvid and get it all done in one place. I like that.

Michael: That’s great to hear. And I want to remind our listeners just how much of an expert you are on Web-delivered content because you were trying to do this when it was really next to impossible.

Stephen: Yes. I was definitely a computer geek with the Commodore 64 back in the 70’s before there even was an IBM PC. The Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1998. That’s when he actually in Cern Switzerland invented what we know as the Web today, which was really HTML pages and websites.

When I saw that, because I was involved on sites like CompuServe before there was a Web, they were bulletin boards. Then we saw the Web. Now, originally, the Web, remember, all of us were on dial-up modems. There was no such thing really as broadband in the late 80’s, early 90’s. We we’re all dial-up modem people.

I remember going to the White House website in like 1990 or something like that and they had a big beautiful picture of the White House on their homepage and it took five minutes for the picture to download so I could just see a photograph of the White House. That was how slow the Internet was.

I think it was around 1995, a company called Progressive Networks, which later became RealNetworks invented RealAudio, which was here you and I are talking on a podcast now two decades later. But way back then, they actually came up with the first way to distribute audio on the Internet. It was called RealAudio 1.0. So we started playing with that in 1995 the minute it came out.

Two years later, they actually came out with video on the Internet. It was called RealVideo and it’s still really was watched by people on modems, so when they talk about postage stamp video, we’re talking about 160×120 pixel video image with really low quality audio and that was 1997. That was when it first came out and we of course because we were television producers already back then doing television commercials and things. We immediately jumped on board because we felt we could use it to show our clients samples of rough cuts.

Now think about that in 1997 and where we are today where you can watch high-definition movies on the Internet and now with the Spidvid, you can edit your video or a rough cut, throw it up on Spidvid and your clients can view it, your collaborators, animators, and graphic artists can work with you on it and they can be anywhere in the world. To me, that’s so exciting because I’ve seen it from the very beginning.

Michael: Yes, you have. So let’s jump back to the future and beyond and tell us about Show Channel and what’s next?

Stephen: Well, the Show Channel, we work primarily now on the Internet. Most of our projects are audio and video programs that are created specifically for the Internet. And our clients are primarily magazines. The vision we have for audio and video on the Internet – see magazines and newspapers are in deep trouble. They just financially are not getting the advertising to support the printing costs of publishing their magazines and newspapers. So they have to go to the Internet. But they really don’t know what to do with the Internet because they were really print people.

What we’re doing is working with a lot of industry trade magazines of various industries; the medical industry is really out front more than anybody else. What we’re trying to do is help them turn their website into a CNN-type website where it has news reporters. So instead of an author or an editor for a magazine writing a story and publishing it on the Web, we actually have them go out with a camera, interview the person, we’ll help them edit it, encode it, and of course, our company doesn’t just help them produce it, we also host it and do all the streaming for them. So we’ve done live events from trade shows where we will go in with the publisher and go around and interview all the top keynote speakers and industry leaders and publish it on their website so people the next morning can be up to date with what’s happening at the trade show without actually being there.

Michael: Virtual attendance – you got to love that. Stephen, if the folks would like to get in touch with you, how would they do that?

Stephen: Well the best way is email or through our website, www.theshowchannel.com. We’re always looking for good graphic artists, audio guys, cameramen, directors, even segment producers. Of course, we’ll be part of the Spidvid community too. So a lot of people will be able to find us through that.

Michael: Yes, they will. Thanks for being here, Stephen. It’s great to have you on Spidcast.

Stephen: Absolutely! Thank you, Michael.

Intermission: You know how challenging it is to produce quality videos without the help from others who have the skills and talent you need. Well Spidvid let’s you find the individuals you need for your video production project so you can create the Internet’s next big viral hit. Visit Spidvid.com. Click the sign-up link and reserve your spot with our collaborative video community today.

Michael: Next up, we welcome Erica Lynne Owens, an independent filmmaker and Owner-Operator of ELO Video Productions. Erica, welcome to Spidcast!

Erica: It’s great to be here, Michael.

Michael: If you would, Erica, tell us a bit about your body of work.

Erica: Over the past few years, I have gotten to shooting from shorts and commercials and just anything I can get my hands on. Right now, I’m in post-production on a full-length feature that I wrote, directed, and produced called When Love Comes Home.

Michael: And tell us a bit about that process? How did you find your cast and crew for When Love Comes Home?

Erica: Well, for When Love Comes Home, I posted on different websites, from Craigslist, to Southern Casting Call, which is a local website, which also carries national auditions. But anywhere I could find there’s a bunch of local stuff in Charlotte and then basically any Internet site I can find I posted on there and received hundreds, actually a thousand head shots.

Michael: So going through all those head shots and all those websites, how would Spidvid help you as an independent producer?

Erica: It would be a huge plus. The one really good thing I saw about Spidvid right away was the fact that it’s a social networking site as well as a contact point. So, from being on the site as both the producer and a person out there freelancing and looking for work, it’s great because it’s just not immediate-one-stop-oh-here-is-a-job-listing. You can actually get to know other people on that website which a lot of job sites don’t let you have that capability.

Michael: Now, Erica, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a fairly high flaky factor with sites like Craigslist?

Erica: Yes, most recently I’ve actually used Craigslist looking for music. And I have a song composer I’m working with currently, but we’re also wanting some band music to be in there with lyrics and everything that showed a couple of different themes and I have received hundreds of just really bad bands.

You have to fish through everything and there aren’t ratings on Craigslist and you don’t know who you’re getting and then to of course ask for CDs, you end up with a huge pile of CDs from people you will never listen to. And then of course, for me, I feel horrible big into the Green Movement to deal with and listen to all the stuff when there’s really not a good way to weed out people. You’ve got to listen or read their resumes or look at their websites in order to figure out who is quality and who you really want to talk to.

Michael: Now, speaking of that, if people would like to talk to you, how would they get in touch?

Erica: Well they can definitely check out my website. My phone numbers are on there www.ericalynneowens.com.

Michael: Erica Lynne Owens, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Erica: Thank you, Michael. It’s been a blast.

Michael: That’s it for this week’s Spidcast. I’m Michael London. My thanks to The Show Channel’s Stephen Brown and Erica Lynne Owens. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you again next week on Spidcast.