[meteorite-list] AD: Video Footage of our trip to Oman

[Darren Garrison]

On Sun, 05 Jun 2005 22:18:32 -0400, MeteorHntr at aol.com wrote:

>Hello list, and not just Darren,
>
>Maybe I should have explained this more in my first post, but it was long as it was, and I didn't feel that it was necessary at that time.
>

This is the last message I'll write on the subject, but I want to try to clear things up because
some people seem to be so angry about my questioning your price.

I had no intention to insult you or anyone, and it wasn't my intention to destroy your business.  I
didn't concider the "I didn't buy it because of the price" point to be anything but a minor
tangental point to what I was trying to say other than the central issue that others seemed to think
it to be.

Here's where the "price issue" fell with me.

Imagine that someone posted a message (to this mailing list or anywhere else)

"I took lots of photos on my trip, and if you want to see on my website, you can pay me 50 cents
each or pay me $5.00 and get to see ALL of them!"  

Would you give that serious concideration or just think "yeah, right" and hit the delete key?  

How about if they said "Interesting things happened on my trip and if you want to read about them,
send me $20!"  

Delete.  

I had the same reaction to what I concidered the same situation-- someone saying "I made a video of
my trip and you can watch it for $10 for a rough copy and $20 for a great one!"

To me, it was a "yeah, that'll happen" issue just like with the previous two examples.  I, myself,
would never buy photos from someone who wasn't established to my satisfaction was a qualified and
talented photographer, would never buy a book from someone who wasn't established to my satisfaction
a qualified and talented author, and wouldn't buy a video from someone who was't established to my
satisfaction a qualified and talented videographer.  After all, there are plenty of people who think
they are great photographers, writers, and videographers just waiting to be discovered-- and most of
them are wrong (see Sturgeon's Law http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SturgeonsLaw and Adams corollary states
that "Sturgeon was an optimist).  So what if one ordered it and it looked like "The Oman Witch
Project"?  There is a big difference between buying a rare physical item recovered by a person and
buying information content from that person.  Think of a certain not-too-popular dealer on this
list-- I'm sure that many here have bought meteorites from him before.  But given his writing
skills, would anyone buy a BOOK written by him?

So, to me, on seeing the message and not knowing anything about if you had skills as a filmmaker, I
saw an offer to sell your vacation videos which one may or may not have been able to sit through
even if free.  If your friends or neighbors or cousins offered to let you watch their vacation
videos for $20, would you bite?

And THAT is why I didn't even concider for a SECOND paying for a unseen, non-profesional video by
someone who's abilities I had NO knowledge of.  But if you have lots of buyers for the video, great.
If my post gave you more publicity (they say that there is no such thing as bad publicity) and
people that wouldn't have ordinarily bought buy a copy just to spite me, great.  And if it turns out
that the finished product is of a similar quality to what a professional documentary of the trip
would have been, then I, too, would be willing to pay a professional documentary price.  But for a
home video quality, I'm still willing to pay a home video price-- namely nothing.