jayshaffer.com

I built a new website/blog for my video stuff. Check it out  for all my video related news, tips and tech.

at: jayshaffervideo.com of course!

Over the years, between full-time employment, I’ve done freelance media production. And while I do good work I never had enough business to truly make a living. For example I think I made $20K in 2004 and a quarter of that was from the advance for writing the “Making Music with GarageBand” book. The trouble has always been finding enough clients to keep busy. This year is looking slightly better.
Since being downsized in March. I’ve been slowly growing a viable video business while hunting for full-time work. I have two regular video podcast for businesses, “Stickergiant TV” and “Fascination St. Fine Arts Presents” , And I did some Web page development and I’m editing on a half-hour kids cooking show called “The Kitcheneers.” In addition to Final Cut Pro Studio, I’ve invested in a new Canon HV30 camera as well as a CalDigit Firewire VR RAID array and lights and microphones. Even with all these hardware and software expenses I’m still slightly ahead on the ledger.
What makes this time different? I credit it to two things; 1. the rise in the role of video on the web and 2. the importance of social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m hoping to garner a few more clients who want to optimize their SEO and Web presence through the use of video, as well as I pursuing my goal of having a major credit working on an indie feature film as editor or post-production supervisor. I am am still actively pursuing a full-time or part-time position. But until that happens I’m going to really try to grow my business, and you never know freelance 2.0 might just work out.

I finally took over the editing on the indie film trailer for “The Fence.” I feel bad for the previous editor, but truth be told, the necessary chemistry between him and the director wasn’t there.

Anyway I reedited it and it’s available for viewing at http://riseandflyproductions/

I’ll probably act a post-production supervisor and editor on the real deal when it gets funded.

Here is a video I produced of pop artist Micheal Godard for Fascination St. Fine Art Gallery.

Finally got around to posting some items on the SL Exchange site. SL Exchange is an external Website that allows people to search your Second Life items that are for sale. So I’ve got a Japanese tea house and some furniture for sale through SLex. The tea house goes for 500 lindens which is about $2 US. And the Funiture goes for half that. So what am I really selling? If you are in SL, You know that in reality they are nothing more than bits that render as pixels that are little cartoon objects within the game world. But What I’m really selling is my time and skill to create those objects. I’ve created quite a few objects and sold them for fairly high prices by SL standads. My custom Formula SL race cars go for 10,000 Lindens ( about $30) a lot in SL terms but figure I probably put in 50 hours mopdeling the car and then another 5 hours in each custom texture and it boils out to pennies an hour. Same way with my DJ gigs in SL I make on average 1500 Lindens for a two hour set, and I put in anothe half hour preparing my set, So that boils out to about $2 an hour.

Don’t get me wrong I’m doing well in Second Life terms, I manage to make enough that (unlike most) I don’t have to pay to play the game.

But what confuses me is that in Second Life, My avatar VJ Shojo is a quite successful entrepreneur but none of that seems to spill over to RL(Real Life).

The hard cold fact that I made more money in the game Second Life, than in real life this week is kinda sobering. It’s not like I haven’t been working, I just haven’t been working for real money.
Last week, I wrote and edited a four page proposal for a producer job with a cable sports network and did a  Keynote presentation for the same proposal ( the first time I worked with Keynote.)
I did both stereo mix and (my first real) surround mix for “The Fence.” “The Fence” is a three minute trailer for an indie film project. I offered to work on the project pro-bono with the understanding that I will get paid to do the real film. I was originally “hired ” on as sound editor. But I became more deeply involved in the post production process and now I’m credited as Post-Production Supervisor. This is because I  designed the DVD art work and put together the DVD project, also last week. Oh, and I shuffled the project back and forth to the colorist (the guy that color-corrects the video.) You can see “The Fence” trailer at: http://riseandflyproductions.com/

I also recorded and published a new podcast about the Zoom H4 recorder on the MacAudioGuy.com site,  and updated the CSS on this site. Worked on my Linkedin Profile and Twittered a couple hours away. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m putting together a design portfolio page for an important job interview on Wednesday.
In Second Life, I did a custom Photoshop “skin” for my formula race car model for a client and was paid 10,000 Lindens (about $30), I did a three hour stint as announcer for the audio and video recoding of the Formula SL race on Saturday and then DJed for two and a half hours on Sunday for 1800 Lindens (about $7).
So, you can see why I’m a great workaholic but a lousy entrepreneur. Let’s just hope I have a great interview on Wednesday.

I’m somewhat hesitant to write this post, for fear of the RIAA goon squad. But sometimes you’ve got to say “fuck it” and just go for what you think is right, even in the face of legal intimidation. I’m hypothetically testing the waters at being an internet broadcaster.
I am renting a streaming server for my Second Life DJ and MC gigs and so whenever I’m not broadcasting an event into SL, I thought I’d go ahead and look into streaming the music I love for anyone to listen to. And that got me toying with the idea of really running an internet radio station. It is not a good time to have these thoughts because the RIAA and their puppet enforcement arm, SoundExchange are out to kill small webcasters.
SoundExchange sets the prices on performance royalty payments for cable, satellite, and internet music broadcasters. Currently they are charging internet broadcasters 500% what traditional radio is paying and 200% of what cable and Satellite are paying. Currently that rate is a $500 dollar a year fee plus $.18 per 100 listeners per song. And at 15 songs per hour that comes to about $23,652.00 a year per 100 listeners. And remember this is not covering the publishing rights which are enforced by ASCAP/BMI. Thats another whole fee and payment structure. ASCAP and BMI rates start at $288 flat annual fee plus $.0006 per listener hour. So if I had 100 listeners on average 24/7 that would be another $525.60. So basically to be legal for a mere 100 listener web stream I’d have to pay over $30,000 just for musical rights licenses. Thats not including server rentals, or the computer hardware to broad cast or the actual purchasing of music to broadcast.

Think about this for asecond and you’ll see that it would cost me over $300 per listener per year. Who’s gioing to pay $300 a year to listen to net radio. Adverisers aren’t because they are only reaching 100 listeners, and Listeners aren’t going to contribute that much. the average donation to public radio is only about $60 per person that donates and only about 10% of public radio listeners donate
So you can see why I’m not going to mention the address of my hypothetical radio station.

It’s May Day in Golden Colorado. Big fluffy flakes of snow today, and to think it was 80 degrees yesterday. click here to see some video

I have a good friend and colleague by the name of George Sanger, AKA The Fatman. That’s him over on the left. Besides being talented and charismatic, George is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met. He has this theory that he calls Good/Bad, this isn’t a really new theory, in fact it’s basically Taoism , or at least the Yin/Yang part of Taoism.
Simply stated, no event or thing is wholly bad or good. In fact most things are an almost equal mixture of both. I’m not a verbose writer, so I’m not going to bore you with lots of examples, suffice it to say that from any “bad” event , like getting laid-off, may grow a “good” event like a better job, or personal growth.
Don’t confuse this with fatalism, fatalism would say that every bad thing happens for a reason, and I can’t accept that premise. Good/Bad is more about causality. The reign of a tyrant fosters the revolution.
This blog post came about because as I looked back over the last few post in this blog, I realized that they may seem dark and sad to some. But in fact that’s not the case at all. Life flows past us in it’s own Good/Bad way and I go through making my Good/Bad choices that lead to my own Good/Bad results. It’s all Good/Bad.
If you want to find out more about George Sanger, go to http://fatman.com/ be sure to check out the FAQ page for some of his great stories.

The company I work for CleverMedia Inc. is reorganizing and I’ll be jobless as of Thursday, March 13, 2008. “Beware of the Ides of March” to quote Shakespeare. Gary Rosensweig is the owner and principle of CleverMedia, which he founded in 1997. I worked for CleverMedia from 1999-2002 as Technical Director, and did sound design and some web design for CleverMedia’s game sites. I was laid-off during the first Bush recession, as web advertising revenues dried up. CleverMedia struggled on with only Gary programming games and William the artist/illustrator supplying the artwork.
With the advent Of Web 2.0 and a resurgence of Web advertising CleverMedia’s popular free online games site GameScene.com was generating revenue. As a result, Gary was able to rehire me in 2005.
I was rehired as Video Producer, Gary had started Clevermedia.TV to try to exploit video podcasting and other video for Web opportunities. Over the last three years we produced hundreds of Podcast episodes, and became well known in the Podcasting community for our show “Podcast Salad” with Katie Bevard as host. We also produced a Podcast about books and publishing called “BookStories,” a conspiracy theory spoof podcast called “Secrets of Y” and finally we started producing a podcast called “MacMost” about all things related to Apple computers with Molly Stanberry as the host. Over the three year period, While I worked hard writing, directing and editing video, we we’re unable to find any way of monetizing (making money) from video podcasting. However, we were able to generate some traffic and Ad revenue from the MacMost.com website.
With the softening economy, Gary has decided to cut all full time staff, and continue CleverMedia by managing Gamescene.com and MacMost.com by himself, and hire labor on a contract basis.
I don’t blame him, and I feel bad that we were unable to turn podcasting into a viable business. It was a great ride while it lasted.
I will continue on seeking opportunities in video editing and producing, as a freelancer while looking for a full time employment. Any leads or contacts that you may be able to send my way are greatly appreciated.