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#BizTrends2018: The collaborative SA film producer-consumer cycle

OJ Van Jaarsveld of Young Guns Films says there are four main South African audience trends directly influencing what the film industry is doing, along with eight local film production trends, which in turn will affect the audience.

8 Jan 2018

OJ Van Jaarsveld, account director and film producer at Young Gun Films.

Four SA audience trends

The one almost everyone is aware of? Streaming television services, like Netflix, HBO overseas and yes, even pirate sites. The idea of scheduled TV is fast coming to an end.
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That brings us to the next trend, as one of the main reasons for the demise of watching TV as it is broadcast is that more people in SA have access to mobile phones than to TV sets.
As much as 73% of South Africans view online content – especially video content – through their mobile devices. No surprise, as people get to choose what they watch, when they want. Smartphones are also video-capable, so everyone’s now a content producer...
Through social media and the democratisation of film production, there are now various apps and social media platforms focused on generating content. Video content alone has increased tenfold on the internet, and it’s predicted that by 2018, two-thirds of all content produced will be video. So we may run into problems storing all of that.
Changing media consumption patterns are linked to the above. No one’s sitting watching the news at 8pm. You watch video when you feel like it, while on the move, and video itself is absolutely everywhere.

These content consumption trends in turn have influenced the video production industry and the way that film or video content is produced. We’re likely to see a rise of the following eight film trends over the coming months:

Eight film production trends

Expect an increase in the production of short-format video, for social media specifically – that’s 10- to 15-seconds long. People are consuming media in these increments, believe it or not.
There will be a decrease in one-off video projects. As a result, there will be an increase in multipurpose video shoots that yield more than one content piece. Behind the scenes, Youtube content, content for the TVC and photography – you name it, this will all be covered in a single shoot.
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The challenge will lie in getting those scheduled properly so no one’s tripping over each other, and getting the most bang for buck for client out of each shoot.
Consumers can’t get enough of live-streaming, and social media lets you follow the people and brands you’re interested in and that you feel reflect you as a person, so you’re notified when they start live-streaming. Multi-camera live-event streaming is the next iteration of this, with Red Bull TV taking it to the next level by live-streaming off drones, stationary cameras, GoPros attached to athletes, and someone at a mixing desk making it look like a live video.
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As everyone feels their smartphone shoots beautiful video, we can also expect an increase in demand for TV-like, higher image quality footage, for the price of YouTube content. Technology has made this a bit easier as 4K video can be shot on much smaller, more affordable devices than before.
There will be ever-higher demand for aerial photography and video, brought on by the availability of drones. Helicopter shoots – the only way to secure this content before the onset of drones – is massively expensive, so only your bigger TV shoots and productions would be able to afford it. Most clients with a reasonable video production budget can now afford aerial drone-shot footage.
We’ll also see an increase of animated video. It’s more affordable and less restrictive than live video and useful for business-to-business selling.
With that, we’ll also see an increase in fusion videos, which marry live shot or ‘real’ film footage with animated footage. This makes it more entertaining as you can add information and graphics enhance the overall viewing experience.
Many entrepreneurs coming straight out of college or film school decide early on where they want to specialise. It’s very focused specialisation, at that – going so far as to take out business loans to purchase a few quality lights and specialise in lighting specifically.