Rise Of The Consumer Producer, part 3: User Generated Content

I’ve been making an argument that the coming demand for video content created by the increasing viability of web delivered video will not be filled by television and film professionals, but by novice consumers with access to affordable HD cameras and post-production freeware. Today I heard some news that adds a new chapter to the story. Wikimedia is adding user generated video to wikipedia.org. In the same way that the pages of the site are user edited by the public at large, wikipedia will facilitate the addition of user generated “documentaries” to each entry that can be challenged and edited collectively. The video will be managed by Kaltura, a company offering content management solutions and a remarkable web based editing tool. You can take it for a test drive here. Its rudimentary at this point, but this is the future of post production.

The first generation of You Tube videos were horrible because it was like America’s Funniest Home Videos multiplied exponentially. Consumers didn’t know how to produce videos for You Tube publishing, so they uploaded what they had. But it didn’t take long for people to start producing for You Tube. They figured out what tools they needed, they learned how to use them, and now thousands of amateur producers create video content for self publishing on You Tube and other user generated video services. The technology available to them is improving, their skills are rising, and the demand for Internet delivered content is booming. With some coordination, and a little effective direction, these advanced Consumer-Producers will be ready to create TV shows, documentaries, news packages, EPKs, etc., for a fraction of what that work costs now.

As I stated previously, the business of producing television will be drastically undercut by the proliferation of free editing technology, and the dissemination of video production techniques into the realm of common knowledge. Much like what has happened to the business of photography, the bottom will drop out of video production budgets, and the middle class of working producers and editors will be marginalized. This will create a two tiered production system:

1) The elite Hollywood studio system that produces ultra expensive, high profile movies and TV.
2) The aggregate underclass of freelancers.

Ironically, the lowest paid members of the underclass, amateur video enthusiasts, are already hard at work for the elite studio system, and they’re doing it for free. Judging by the amount of “fan trailers” on the Internet, I don’t know why any film studio needs to pay an editor to cut trailers for highly anticipated movies. Imagine if Warner Brothers uploaded all of the footage for the new Harry Potter trailer and allowed consumer-producers to create their own trailer edits. Within days they would have hundreds of trailers to choose from, and probably some worth cleaning up and using for theatrical. The studio could eliminate the exorbitant expense of producing trailers internally while exciting a core fan base of movie geeks and generating terrific buzz.

A pre-YouTube music related example of high quality user generated content was the Squarepusher music video contest that Warp Records held years ago. They posted dozens of entries on their website, and they were amazing. Sadly, Warp didn’t give those videos a permanent home, or migrate them to a YouTube channel. The surviving videos are scattered around the internet in a way that doesn’t help Squarepusher or Warp Records.

Another example of user generated editing comes from Nine Inch Nails. Trent allowed a small crew to shoot three concerts with HDV cameras, then the raw footage was seeded as a torrent. There are now hundreds of these edits floating around the web, and the best have been collected on a NIN fan site dedicated to producing a free DVD of the best cuts. Trent gives up the revenue of another concert film in exchange for a deeper relationship with his most devoted fans.

For strong brands that have a good faith relationship with enthusiastic fans, user generated marketing is a smart way to stay ahead of the overwhelming demand for web content.