IDEAS FOR FVM - and similar magazines.

[Dave Watterson]

The thread of discussion about FVM (Film & Video Maker - the magazine for members of IAC) has thrown up many ideas. I was intrigued by the notion of an Editorial Board ... but not as we usually think of such a group, applying criticism and censorship, tying the hands of the editor and so on ...

I strongly believe in letting the Editor run the magazine, the Webmaster run the website and so on with the minimum of intereference from outside. But offering positive help and ideas is a different proposition.

Can we use this thread to list topics, articles, photos - ideas - which would be helpful and useful in a magazine aimed at non-commercial film makers? If we come up with really good ideas they might be picked up by Garth for FVM or the editors of similar magazines in other federations around the world.

So crank up the brainboxes and resolve to be positive. No "stop this" or "less of that". Lots of "try this" or "this would help group Y"

Come on forum-folk, let's set the pace for the future.

Dave

[ned c]

In the most recent issue of FVM there were two articles by film makers of special interest, one about filming for the RAF and the other about an area of glass makers. Fascinating subjects, but were they shooting on 16mm film, VHS, Betacam SP? Did they edit on an NLE system, 3 machine or a Steenback? No photos (if I tremember correctly) The articles were very general as if for a non-film making audience.

As a film maker I am interested in the nuts and bolts of practical experience. So, let's have articles that describe a production in every aspect from script to distribution.

In my opinion the website is an excellent source of information as the articles are stored and can be recalled, my copy of FVM is passed on.

ned c

[fraught]

I'm looking to put together an article about 'Overtime' soon.

Also, i need to speak to Garth, as i earlier volunteered myself to do a Youth Section for FVM. Need to look at that, and get cracking really!

[Stephen]

The quality of the FVM magazine in terms of reproduction is excellent, but feel that it would be greatly enhanced if modern colour adverts (paid for by the advertisers of course!) and I mean advertisers, the likes of Sony, Canon, Panasonic, JVC ? and not forgetting the plethora of all those extra bits, memory, tapes, hard drives even PC’s.

I am not advocating filling the FVM with adverts, but just to give it a bit of a polished professional look to show that its not just old film cameras or how we used to do the recordings with turntables. Don’t get me wrong please, these articles in their own right are superb, but they do have their place, just not as much these days.


But hey ……… More… more… more…. club news please !....
The Club News section (usually inside the back page) goes some way but it could be greatly expanded - a job for all those who want their club noticed !

Where would the IAC be without the clubs up and down the country.? Can we have a complete and comprehensive up to date record of all the clubs with web addresses, contact details, locations? … what special shows are they putting on?

The IAC website is pretty good for that and my local area/region of NERIAC is also in there informing me what’s going on ….

But zilch in the FVM.

At every stage where feedback is required please make available an email address…. Email is the fastest form of communication and gets info around incredibly quickly and efficiently.

Can we have more (at least 2 pages !) of Questions and answers!

Fraught is getting stuck in to get a youth column up and running… great stuff….
Next generation equipment will appeal to this audience! …
How about something on the lines of the Gadget Show… maybe even ask the producers if they will help us?

Recent national polls suggest that Joe Public is utterly confused with HD TV formats etc… but is desperate to make the right decision on new gear…. there’s an ideal opportunity to get some peeps in who want to know more…

The expertise within the IAC is unique, it is a privilege to read and talk to some of the peeps within its membership.

Just a thought (or two)

[Brian Saberton]

I've mentioned this before on the other thread but it's worth raising again in view of Stephen's comments. The problem for myself and, I guess, also for the authors of Northern News and Southern Script is actually getting information from the clubs that can be included in our columns. With 6 articles a year to write we need to get the information regularly i.e. every other month. Some clubs are excellent at sending information on a regular basis but others may only send information once a year or even not at all. The internet has made it a lot easier to find out what clubs are doing but sometimes the web-sites aren't as up to date as they might be. I've mentioned many clubs in Scottish Scene based in information gleaned from their web-sites rather than from anything they have actually sent me. I'm fortunate that SAM meets on a monthly basis during the winter so that gives me a chance to speak to any club secretaries who might be there. I also have an interest in AV so can include this in my column as well. Otherwise it gets down to being pro-active and picking up bits and pieces of news wherever I can. Fortunately, retirement gave me the time to do this. It's great that Fraught is going to write a youth column for FVM but I suspect he may hit the same problems before too long.

Advertising is another difficult area. I used to be very well acquainted with the late John Wright who was highly experienced in selling advertising space but I know that even he had problems getting firms to take adverts in Making Better Movies which was a commercial magazine with a much bigger circulation than FVM. I'm not sure about the logistics of printing FVM so I may be wrong about this but if, say, a new advertiser took a full page ad, I think Garth would face a choice of either having to sacrifice a page of editorial or add three more. I believe that the way most publications work is to sell x amount of advertising space and this determines how many pages of editorial are available. When I was working in procurement we had a catalogue for customers that had to be totally self financed from the sale of advertising space and we had the same issue namely that we couldn't go beyond a certain limit without adding substantially more extra pages that (a) we couldn't fill with any content and (b) would have cost more to produce than the extra income would generate.

[Mike Shaw]

Your comments on how difficult it is to get clubs to contribute to the 'regional news' sections is, I wouild say, the same as the problem Garth has - getting people to contribute to FVM with articles.

More advertising would provide a higher magazine income, possibly enabling authors of articles to be paid (hence, an inducement?). However, I know from experience, advertisers look at circulation and readership figures (not the same thing!) before placing an advertisement - which apart from the space cost, can be expensive to produce (via their ad agency - with new creative work if existing material is not suitable, artwork, plates/lithos etc). They also analyse magazine content to assess the 'readability' and interest in the magazine, and ultimately, it all boils down to a total cost per hit, and more importantly, a cost per 'conversion'. Although FVM offers an extremely focused market, I suspect that what FVM would consider a viable ad rate would not be considered practical by many/most advertisers - unless they felt charitable. I would not like to be the one having to sell ad space in FVM!

I'm pretty sure a lot of members, too, will baulk if the number of pages increased in order to carry too many advertisements.

As for content - which is what this thread is really meant to be about, I make the following suggestions - I know most if not all of these already happen, but perhaps the magazine could be dedicated to making more of them with, perhaps, a little less of what I call 'local membership news'. (But - as stated later - thats what FVM is about, isn't it?)

* Regular 'how to' tutorials - for the most popular film making editors/equipment/etc , written by people experienced with the product being 'tutored'.
* Reviews on the latest equipment/software - to go with the excellent reviews currently being provided on new books on film-making topics.
* 'Behind the scenes' - a regular series written by or provided by makers of (eg) award winning films on how particular aspects of their films were created (special effects, or unusual lighting and so on)
* An 'agony aunt' column where people ask questions and an 'expert' responds - this is not meant to be a 'letters column', but more a 'your problem answered' column (I reckon Tom H would be good at that!!).

Now. All of these have to be written regularly by people dedicated to the task, and if all implemented (for example), would leave little space for 'off the cuff articles'.

It could all help to make Garth's life easier - I'm sure it cannot be easy juggling with all (?) the stuff that comes to him.

Personally, I think he is doing a splendid job and the magazine does exactly what it is intended to do - bring information about the membership to the membership.

FVM is not a commercial magazine for bookstall sales. Let us not lose sight of that -and expect it to replace (for example) extinct mags like Digital Video or Computer Video.

Nevertheless, always good to have healthy debate on what we'd like to see in our magazine.

[tom hardwick]

I do get a lot of questions thrown at me Mike, and they do get aired in Positive Image every now and then. My only difficulty is knowing at what level to pitch the Q & A. I'm often surprised by how basic some of the questions are and think 'I can't put that in FVM'.

And I'd be very willing to test out kit, but getting hold of it is the difficult thing. Garth has tried - to no avail. The tests I've done (portable DVD player, Manfrotto monopod etc) have all been kit I've bought and paid for.

tom.