OFFHOLLYWOOD 2.0

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2011 AT 12:34 AM

Warning:

1. This might be a long, rambling blog post
2. There will be more long, rambling posts here in the future

I might not be a great blogger. In fact – I might suck at this. But there’s only one way to find out …

Since you are reading past the warnings – here’s the deal. We FINALLY have a new website. It took an intervention from some of the folks on our team – who basically said – “our website sucks, you are not a designer, stop trying to do everything yourself – let’s hire a smart, motivated company to do something simple and professional that we can dynamically update”. I started to make some excuses about how I would make the time to get it done and Aldey put the hammer down and said “find the right guys to do it for the very good price and get it done.”

So here we are. New website. Some of the copy is a little rough and I’ll tweak when I get some feedback. I rushed to pull pics – so – I’ll drop some more exciting eye-candy stuff in the slideshows soon. The guys from CHIPS did a great job in a super short timeframe.

I want to use the new site being done to post about the fact that I’m going to post more.

Yup. I’m officially going to “blog” here. Lots of blogs are just reguritations and mash-ups – I’m no so interested in that. There’s an APP for that. Maybe I’ll do some BLOGWADS of some links to stuff I think is cool – but I Tweet that stuff – so, I’d rather actually try to share some ideas, thoughts and yes … OPINIONS. I’ve got a few.

The cool thing is – I can see the stats thanks to Google Analytics. So … as long as more people read here – I’ll write more. Want me to post more? Get more people to check OFFHOLLYWOOD BUZZ out. I’ll see the stats and it will motivate me. Go ahead – push me. I dare you.

I think a lot about how the world has changed in the past few years. I think about the impact of technology on the way we do things. I think about how technology is going to continue to shape and transform how we acquire, create, deliver and consume content. I think about competition in the digital cinema and media space. I think about what shooting a movie or television show will be like NEXT year – TWO YEARS from now will be like. What will the tools be? How will the process change?

I LOVE thinking about this stuff. I turn these things over in my mind in small pockets of time when I’m not multi-tasking -in the shower on Saturday mornings – walking to work while listening to ’80 hair metal – on a plane traveling to LA on business. And what I am crystal clear certain of – is that the currency of the future is going to based on your social relevance.

I’ve decided, while it’s impossible to not be aware of what your competitors are doing, my time and energy is better spent working more closely with my business partner Aldey and focusing on how we want OFFHOLLYWOOD to grow.

We compete with Panavision to provide cameras and support to films, television and commercials. Sometimes they win – sometimes … we do. We compete for jobs with Deluxe, Technicolor and Company 3 for color grading and feature DI’s. Some times they win – sometimes … we do.

What’s important here? We are not Panavision. We are not Deluxe or Company 3. And we don’t want to be. We want to be OFFHOLLYWOOD. And we want to be remarkable. Fanatically remarkable.

How are we going to get there?

Everything we have done in the past 8 years – since Aldey & I shook hands after drinking a couple bottles of wine on the Lower East Side and committed to building the company together – has just been a proof of concept.

We had no business plan. We had an idea. It’s the same idea we have today. That technology would change the way people create content – and that they will need access and expertise – to the best technologies and processes (otherwise referred to as “workflows”). And we are passionate about technology and passionate about the process – and we are fearless. We celebrating all our failures. Because while other companies are doing the SAME thing, the SAME way they did it six months ago – we are not.

We will NEVER stop innovating and adopting technologies. Finding better, faster and more powerful workflows.

RED has over-delivered on the dream they sold with EPIC. OVER-DELIVERED.

REDRAY is coming VERY soon and it’s WAY more significant than people think. RED has an insane developmental roadmap that is, IMO, out of reach of the competition. We put our chips on on RED Digital Cinema 5 years ago. Now, we are focused on providing the very best technology, tools, workflows and services around RED’s technology and being very best at supporting it.

And this year, we will start actively developing our own software technology. We tested the waters by collaborating on the development of QTake Advanced Video Assist Software with IN2CORE and introducing it to the market. It is now THE industry standard for video assist in 3D and visual effects and is now being used on basically every block-buster film being shot right now. We will develop and release a software project – a cloud-based SaaS platform that I have been dreaming about for years – nicknamed SET2EDIT. The time has come to build it. I firmly believe nobody else will build this platform if I don’t.

So … yeah … we are going to take lots of big swings this year.

2011, for Aldey and myself, is all about OFFHOLLYWOOD 2.0. It’s about taking the company to another level.

Aldey & I are going to stop doing LOTS of things that other people can do better and focus on the things we do best. It’s not easy to let things go.

I want to build the brand of OFFHOLLYWOOD. More blog posts – more information – more behind the scenes videos. More peeks behind the skunk-works / testing / R&D curtain. I want to do the opposite of what most companies do – they hide their process – they claim “secret sauce”. The best chefs in the world share their recipes in cookbooks. We are going to do that by creating more VALUE to the community. We are going to share more. Contribute more.

It starts now. Here.

Eight years ago we started Offhollywood with $100,000. This year, I’m going to raise $5-$10 million dollars to expand the company and make a few very strategic hires.

This year, we will also have representation, as a company, on the West Coast. The time has come. Might be an office, might be representation by an Agent. I don’t have the right answer yet – but I’ll find it. I don’t want to build a facility in Los Angeles – at least not a traditional facility. But we need a presence there to be involved in the meetings, conversations and early decision making that happen on projects at the Studio and Network levels.

How the hell am I going to do that?

Keep checkin’ in and sharin’ ride – it’s not going to easy – but nothing remarkable in life ever is.

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Failing often and then trying again. More testing and less waiting. More doing and less planning. More dreaming and less sleeping.

OFFHOLLYWOOD 2.0