Re: Demo ideas for a starter who has no product video footage.

Do a freebee for a small business. Since its free you can be as creative as you like and pretty much do what you like. Make sure however that the business you are doing it for will support your effort and give you the time and attention required to produce a good video.

One side note, this business is VERY competitive, though it seems like its dripping money its really not, there are the lucky few who receive a bunch of producer driven work and they do make a killing but they are the few. Most are busting their respective butts to get each and every job, and they do more work than their being payed for on every job. The one thing that is more valuable than all the equipment in the world is learning from your mistakes, every pro on this forum has learned hard lessons and most of us are reluctant to let go of information that cost us a lot to learn. I have a close associate who has been in the biz for 20 years, do I ask him to reveal all his secrets to me? Hell no, he wouldn't tell me if I did and I don't expect him to. He payed some serious dues to get his info and a snot nose kid like me doesn't deserve the ride down easy street. My point is if you want to survive in this business you better have the gumption to come up with a useful demo without the assistance of this board. You'll be faced with many marketing challenges and this demo piece is just the tip of the iceberg, you'll have to prove yourself to each and every client time and time again. If you can make it through this challenge and be successful you might just make it through the next. Oh and one more thing a good friend of mine gave me a great piece advice when I was just getting started he said, "get out while you still can", he was serious, I thought he was joking.

John Schroeder