Photographers want to know how they can make money shooting video. For the moment, that's a problem. There doesn't seem to be much revenue being made from producing short-form videos. However, it's important to know how to do it -- and these tips can help.
Still photographers need to focus on several critical facts for survival. The future is the Web, not print. The Web is a video medium, not a medium for still images. Learning to produce short-form video is essential.
During his recent conference call, Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images, outlined a number of priorities for the company – getting units licensed and revenue stable tops the list.
Getty Images CEO, Jonathan Klein, intends to operate out of New York for about a year beginning in September. The rest of the executive team, with the exception of a soon to be names senior vice president of marketing, will remain in the Seattle headquarters.
Investors punished Getty Images in the first day after its announcement of its Q2 2007 results. The stock dropped 19.4% to $36.14 from its previous close of $44.84. If we go back two years to November 2005 when the stock price hit its peak in the mid-$90s, we see a steady decline. There are big drops almost every time Getty has made a quarterly announcement. A chart of the stock price over five years looks like a climb of Mount Everest, reaching the peak in November 2005 and now almost returning to the bottom again.
Getty Images reported revenue for Q2 2007 of $218 million, up from $204.8 million in Q2 2006 and $212.6 million in Q1 2007. Net income for the quarter was $33.7 million, with earnings per diluted share of $0.56. This compared to $23.2 million or $0.37 per share in the second quarter of 2006, but was down from $38 million or $0.63 per share in Q1 2007.
Gross revenue generated by Getty Images in Q2 2007 was $218 million, up from $204.8 million in the same period in 2006. According to CEO Jonathan Klein, revenues for the "creative stills imagery" side of the business were flat at about $161 million. However, it should be noted that this number includes iStockphoto revenue, not normally considered a part of creative stills. The number of iStock downloads in Q2 2006 was about 2.5 million and downloads rose to 4.25 million in the recent quarter. If iStock revenue was removed from both quarters, creative stills would be down.
The production of short-form videos is likely to be the next growth business opportunity. There are millions of videos online, but only a small portion offer helpful insights on how to develop a business producing them. Here is a sampling of useful sites.
We are on the cusp of explosive demand for short-form videos designed for the net. Are you a still shooter experiencing declining RPI? Do you have to work twice as hard and produce double the quantity of images just to stay even now? If so, video production may offer an opportunity to stay in the business of photography.