Sharing your hard earned information

I’m writing this article on the heels of a recent forum thread that cultivated some great debate thru a simple question – “should you share information with other wedding cinematographers, and if you should, how much should you share?”

There is an inherent fear, myself included, that if you share the “how” of doing something, it’s going to allow your competitors to gain ground on you.   But really, if you show a fellow competitor an easier way of doing something or introduce them to a new technology, new equipment, etc., is it really going to change who you are as a creative individual?

The only thing one should really fear is being complacent or stagnant.   Immerse yourself in something and research it, become an expert and then teach someone else.  Innovate-Apply-Share.  It’s a perpetual cycle that helps perfect a system, and you are a part of the system, so don’t miss out by removing yourself from the system.

I, like many others, have always admired the work of Patrick Moreau of Still Motion.  Among other things, I have always been drawn into his style of color grading.   I know from talking to Patrick that one aspect of their color grading is done natively in FCP and is a series of stacked clips.  Saved as a preset?  Probably.  Would I ask him to give me the preset?  Never.  But I know what he would do if I did.  He would explain some of the tools used to get a look that I might want and the process by which I can explore this myself.

In a competitive market, maintaining one’s edge goes beyond the look of one’s production, but is also dependent upon how well a producer interprets the wedding event.  There are many people that have the same tools and resources at their disposal as you do, but are they going to be able to create the same product that you do?

Look at some of the filmmakers out there and how their styles contrast with one other.  Examine some of the work of William Gaff of Human Story Films,  Kevin Shahinian of Pacific Pictures, Patrick Moreau of StillMotion and Chris Jones of Mason Jar.   Each of these has publicly shared a lot of the “how” of what they do to a very hungry and motivated audience, but none have been imitated by another to the point of losing their distinction.

Check out this YouTube Video from a DJ on this subject:

The goal is to increase the quality of productions so as to improve the available pool of able bodied filmmakers.   If a bride searches for a videographer  and the 3 sites she visits look terrible, she may stop and assume that everyone else looks the same.  If, by sharing, you are training studios to do better work so that clients won’t give up entirely on having a quality video produced after 3 web site visits, then it will occasionally lead potential clients back to you that may not have found you in the first place.

I remember reading a book by Zig Ziglar and the one thing that he really impressed upon me was this: “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people to get what they want.”    It is human nature to seek self preservation and to protect market share, but the best form of preservation is to risk giving away knowledge that will enable others to improve the industry-at-large, an industry of which you are a part.

I look forward to your thoughts on this topic.

John and Jennifer Moon