Why I hate the term “content”

As a video producer I thought I understood the meaning of the  word “content”. But I guess I don’t. Well, I think I know what it means now and I don’t like it.

It boils art down to a generic commodity. It tends to be used by people who are not creative producers and who understand nothing about it. Like when record industry people refer to music as “product” as if it were a widget rather than an artistic creation. I really, really hate this dismissive way to refer to creative works.

These days “content” is the term applied to whatever fills the framework of a website. Wether it is photography, graphic art, journalism, video, music; to me these are the creative assets that should form the core of what somebody gets from a great website and what makes them stick around and return. But lately I get the feeling that what I perceive as real creative assets and what non-creatives refer to as content are becoming more noise and clutter.

For instance, are Twitter tweets the new “content”? Well, I guess that kind of thing suits the label, but to me it does little to keep me interested and is disposable.

CONTENT                      CREATIVE ASSETS

Twitter tweets             journalism

rap                             original songs that were sampled

camera phone video     professionally produced video

YouTube                      Hulu

So is “content” the new substitute for real “creative assets”? Sure, if you want to make the most minimal investment of time, energy and resources then there you have it. But basically, you get what you pay for. So many artist/musicians are now devoting extraordinary amounts of their creative time to networking rather than true creative asset production because they are being sold the idea that the “conversation” is the content. Is the social networking “conversation” really any kind of tangible asset at all?

And this is why I see a real language gap between creative artists/producers and the tech sector that is building the pipes, framework, all the whiz-bang software solutions that render humans less useful all the time. Don’t get me wrong. I love tech stuff and rely on it every day in my work. I GREATLY respect the geniuses that design and produce it. I think they are artists in their field.

But my fear is that the respect is not mutual for creative asset producers and that their creative works are diminished now as “content” with every bad connotation the term implies. I hope I’m wrong and I would love comments and feedback on this. But it seems that every web developer and designer I speak with confirms the fact that after the flashy website is built for the client with some initial “content”, then both parties walk away. There is no creative asset strategy pursued subsequent to the big launch and 6 months later the site looks old and tired. No investment or plan is made to create anything compelling and original.

To me, there is a proper place for the communications now possible via software that allows social networking to flourish. But it needs to co-exist next to REAL creative assets or else, there is simply not much to twitter about.

What if you knew the future 5 years ahead?

I’ve been a member of the Nashville music business since the early 90’s. Let me qualify that. I’ve been working in the music business, but largely have been a resident Nashvillian outsider working in the “Americana” and AAA radio formats and non-mainstream country genres. But still, I always tried to integrate what I experienced in working with all my non-Nashville artists, labels and networks and bring some of that world and knowledge back to Nashville’s mainstream country sphere. I live here, have a lot of friends in the mainstream music biz, and wanted it to all grow and prosper. I figured whatever was a trend, innovation, technology, etc. that was happening out in the larger music world should be addressed, adopted and embraced in the country space as well. Pop trends were country’s canary in the coal mine.

Country labels historically have competed aggressively with each other but usually seemed to willfully ignore the rest of the music world as being on some other planet in a parallel reality. This always seems to be evidenced in the reactions of label presidents and radio consultants to the annual country radio/consumer research studies presented at CRS; CMA, CRB studies etc.

The outcome of these studies was typically something like, “majority of country consumers still want cassettes” or most recently, “half the core country consumers don’t have broadband”.  All this seemingly presented and received as evidence that the Nashville community had it right and was in step with their consumers. My reaction to these findings has always been, “What? We think this is good news?!?” It seems as if the research was interpreted by the establishment confirming status quo and “business as usual” every time rather than seeing trends in the larger music world as a 5 year sneak peek at the future coming down.

So Nashville has always had a remarkable 5 year preview of broadcast, consumer and technology trends and failed nearly every time to plan and be ready when it comes around to the “core country consumer”. If anyone running a label today thinks it’s a good thing that the “core country consumer” doesn’t have broadband, I simply don’t know what to say. Of course, when the CMA tallies Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatt’s sales as “country” I fail to see how these broadband research findings could even be true to begin with. Maybe they just polled George Strait and Hank Jr. fans? Not sure. It’s kinda like watching the Republicans trot out Rush and Cheney as the future of the party.

I bet that if rock and pop label divisions had the benefit of a 5 year preview of trends they’d retool and change course quickly without waiting for the inevitable to simply happen. And of course, that’s why when Americana began in 1995 the pop/rock/independent labels jumped in seeing it as an avenue to break new artists/music and Nashville majors largely waited around to see what would happen.

Some things never change.

Carolan in Nashville

I’m fascinated by the carolan at bicentennial mall. Another cool thing is to stand exactly in the middle of the towers and the sound reflects back, kind of a reverse “cone of silence”.

Things I Like (and that bug me) About Live Performance Video

Over the years of producing live-music performance video content I’ve come up with a list of things I like and don’t like and some where you wonder, “what the heck were they thinking?” I’m a huge fan of the classic music documentaries like, “Gimme Shelter”, “Woodstock” and “Monterey Pop”. The Maysles Brothers and D.A. Pennebaker’s approach still stands the test of time. So with that in mind:

LIKES

• Closeups. I like closeup shots. They are intimate, convey energy and command attention. Closeups on faces, fingers on strings, shots that stay close and pan.
• Handheld camera work. Let me clarify. Handheld camera work by people who can hold a camera still. Camera ops who know what they are doing. Good handheld work moves to follow motion, not to create unnecessary motion.
• Great audio quality. This should be a given but I can’t believe how often the audio is subpar. In music related video work there is no excuse to not have studio-quality audio, but it takes proper multi-track recording, mixing etc. to get there.

DISLIKE

• Silly sweeping jib camera shots. You see it a lot these days. For some reason, recent concert videos all seem to need to swing that jib around over the audience etc. I guess the idea is to inject energy (where there may not be much). Really distracting.
• Crowd mugging shots. I watch these videos to see the music, the band and the artists. Not the fans goofing off in front of the cameras.
• Missing the action. There should be a rule that editors and directors actually know something about music. Hey, what a killer guitar solo! No wait, we’re looking at the lead singer, fake playing a guitar instead. Huh?
• “Shakey cam”. I’m REALLY sick of this. I guess the idea is that we’re supposed to think it’s intimate, bootleg footage or something. It just screams to me, AMATEUR! The only legitimate “shakey cam” video that should be accepted is war zone news coverage; where actual people are shooting at you. Then it’s OK for camera work to be shakey. Anything else is pretty pointless. (See above – Handheld camera work).
• Crowd singalong stuff. I just wish this stuff would get left on the cutting room floor.

Topspin » Twitter Emerges as a Viable Direct Marketing Channel

Topspin » Twitter Emerges as a Viable Direct Marketing Channel.

Great piece about online music marketing

Hello world!

Today I jump into the world of  blogging. I’m sure everyone was waiting for this moment. I plan to contribute thoughts, “wisdom”, and some information about various subjects I’ve been involved in. These are some topics:

“Americana” – as in the music format, category, radio chart, that I had a large role in creating starting with the brand moniker, “AMERICANA”. More to come on this; history, stories and more.

Video production – I’ve been a producer and director of largely music-related documentaries, performance, marketing and lifestyle videos. For my own company, Americana Entertainment and from 2006-2009 at Gibson Guitar Corp. where I launched the in-house video department from the ground up and oversaw all video production.