March 22nd, 2010 by Kris
Once a week I get questions about workflow, process, check lists, how we manage the projects over here. More and more of my clients want to know “how the plane flies.” Well, I will attempt to give you a glimpse into how we run the shop over here. Workflow for us has really become a set of checklists, timelines, and creative meetings. Project management is still just good old fashioned customer service.
Anyway, here’s a short pre-production checklist that I use for both photo and video, followed by a short paragraph that I’ve recently emailed to a client about our “process and workflow.” Enjoy!
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March 19th, 2010 by Kris
As we all know there’s been a significant shift in the imaging business over the last 12-18 months. With the advent of the D90 and 5D mk II last year, those of us that rode the fence between still and video were all very excited. But I think this brings up some fundamental questions about the medium.
- Should photographers be shooting video?
- Are agencies now asking their still shooters to provide a demo reel?
- Does the shoe fit on the other foot, should the production houses ramp up their portfolio to include shooting stills?
Send me an email, yell at me on twitter, let me know what you think.
Kris
March 9th, 2010 by Kris
Not my thoughts, I got this from Seth Goddin’s blog last year and I think it’s worth repeating!!
“As a client, your job isn’t to be innovative. Your job is to foster innovation. Big difference.
Fostering innovation is a discipline, a profession in fact. It involves making difficult choices and causing important things to get shipped out the door. Here are a few thoughts to get you started.
- Before engaging with the innovator, foster discipline among yourself and your team. Be honest about what success looks like and what your resources actually are.
- If you can’t write down clear ground rules about which rules are firm and which can be broken on the path to a creative solution, how can you expect the innovator to figure it out?
- Simplify the problem relentlessly, and be prepared to accept an elegant solution that satisfies the simplest problem you can describe.
- After you write down the ground rules, revise them to eliminate constraints that are only on the list because they’ve always been on the list.
- Hire the right person. Don’t ask a mason to paint your house. Part of your job is to find someone who is already in the sweet spot you’re looking for, or someone who is eager and able to get there.
- Demand thrashing early in the process. Force innovations and decisions to be made near the beginning of the project, not in a crazy charrette at the end.
- Be honest about resources. While false resource constraints may help you once or twice, the people you’re working with demand your respect, which includes telling them the truth.
- Pay as much as you need to solve the problem, which might be more than you want to. If you pay less than that, you’ll end up wasting all your money. Why would a great innovator work cheap?
- Cede all issues of irrelevant personal taste to the innovator. I don’t care if you hate the curves on the new logo. Just because you write the check doesn’t mean your personal aesthetic sense is relevant.
- Run interference. While innovation sometimes never arrives, more often it’s there but someone in your office killed it.
- Raise the bar. Over and over again, raise the bar. Impossible a week ago is not good enough. You want stuff that is impossible today, because as they say at Yoyodyne, the future begins tomorrow.
- When you find a faux innovator, run. Don’t stick with someone who doesn’t deserve the hard work you’re doing to clear a path.
- Celebrate the innovator. Sure, you deserve a ton of credit. But you’ll attract more innovators and do even better work next time if innovators understand how much they benefit from working with you.”
Thanks Seth.
March 5th, 2010 by Kris
So, it seems that lately I’ve been getting a bit of attention for my food photography. So, I decide to show a few of my favorites from the Master Grinding shoot from last year. So, here you are:
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March 2nd, 2010 by Kris
So from time to time I get these emails from an old friend, Jim, over at the Sandler Sales Institute. Honestly, I’ve never been to one of their events, but as I get further into this imaging business it’s becoming painfully apparent that my best sales guy is me. Anyway, every now he sends a jewel out in his eblast so I’ve reposted this morning’s here.
“What separates truly successful salespeople from those who never quite attain, or perhaps sustain, high levels of success? Is it luck? Being in the right place at the right time? Knowing the right people? Having the right education? Working hard? Keeping your nose to the grindstone? Some of these may play a small role in achieving success from time to time, but they will not sustain success.
Achieving and maintaining success is first the result of knowing what you want to achieve. Success does not creep up on you, tap you on the shoulder, and announce its arrival. You must pursue it, but first, you must know what “it is.”
Decide what you want to accomplish, have, be known for, or create. Once decided, you can build a plan that bridges the gap between where you are and where you want to be. The plan should have identifiable steps. Each step should dictate specific actions which, when completed, lead to the next step and eventually “success.” Developing a plan also enables you to identify, in advance, areas where you may need help or additional resources. Planning helps eliminate future roadblocks.
Decide what you want. Develop a plan. And, you can be on the outcome.”
