Are you a professional stuck in your ways?

Rethink your professional skills if the usual solution makes a project hard to get started. In this 2012 video from New Zealand, I describe a conversation with journalist and guide Kirsten.

Rethink your professional skills without discarding experience

Kirsten wanted to portray artists on television. I explain that she saw a large production budget and a grant as prerequisites for doing it.

Instead, I asked about the wish itself: Did she want to meet the artists and tell their stories, or was that particular TV format a necessary part of the dream?

A different format could offer different opportunities

On our own trip, we made long interviews for Amino TV with a smaller setup. We let conversations run as long as we found them interesting rather than fitting them into a fixed TV programme.

I compared our equipment and trip with a traditional production. The figures are my information and estimates from 2012; the projects also had different requirements and purposes.

My suggestion was to consider a simpler format she could produce herself and put online. Perhaps that could let her get started without first securing the original funding.

Ask why the work usually looks like that

I didn’t want to throw away her professional skills. I wanted her to examine which habits still made sense and which were tied to a particular technology or distribution method.

The same question can be used in other professions: What’s the goal, and is there another way to get there?

I imagined new viewers and income opportunities, but those were expectations, not a promise of an audience or particular finances.

Also read about the background to my entrepreneur interviews.

Rethink your professional skills: What’s the dream really?

We’re still in New Zealand. Yesterday, we interviewed Kirsten, who’s been a freelance journalist for most of her adult life. At one point, she wanted to move here and initially worked with a hotel. When it didn’t work for her, she returned to Denmark.

Later, she came back to New Zealand, found a man, married and now lives here as a guide. She’s still a trained journalist, and we had a really good conversation about many things.

After the interview, as I remember it, we were eating. Kirsten described a dream: She wanted to portray some of New Zealand’s talented artists on television.

She said a feature like that could cost between DKK 300,000 and DKK 500,000, and she’d tried to get the Danish Broadcasting Corporation involved. But there wasn’t money for that kind of thing.

Is the goal the story or the TV production?

I immediately think: DKK 300,000–500,000? That may well be right if a camera operator and sound crew need flying out from Denmark, expensive professional equipment is needed and a traditional production edited.

But what’s her actual dream? Is it meeting the artists and talking about their lives and work? Or does the dream necessarily need a particular camera and TV station?

I felt her traditional training and experience in visual and print media led her first to think about how production had always been done. I mean no offence. But I think it’s worth asking whether experience can also lock you in.

Our equipment cost around DKK 25,000

We’re travelling as a family for five months, interviewing Danish entrepreneurs for Amino TV. I want to know why they moved abroad, how they’ve made their businesses work and what their lives look like.

In the video, I say the camera cost DKK 11,000 and microphones DKK 5,000. With software, extra batteries, a bag, tripods and the rest of the equipment, I estimate around DKK 25,000. We also get help with the work in Denmark.

I’m really happy with the equipment we’ve brought. We record in high definition with wireless microphones, and I describe the quality as broadcast quality. That’s my assessment of our setup and the prices I describe in 2012.

On the trip, I expect we’ll manage 30–35 interviews. If 30 last around an hour and a half, that makes 45 hours of video. We let people talk without rushing.

The internet makes room for a different length

A normal TV production needs editing to a particular format. It has to fit between advertising breaks or other programmes. That makes sense for a TV station, but it doesn’t need to frame everything you want to tell.

I’d like to make something you could call slow TV: Video giving viewers an unhurried insight into another person’s life, business and reasons for moving abroad.

That was also what Kirsten wanted with her artists. Online, we can give the conversation the space we think it needs.

I note that TV programmes often have the same lengths, such as 30 or 55 minutes. Even the news must keep its format, whether there’s a huge event or silly season. The form is decided in advance.

DKK 400,000 is a lot, but what do we get from the trip?

By my estimate, our entire five-month trip costs around DKK 400,000. That’s for four people, including many flights, motorhome rental, hotel rooms, food and so on. I mention around 15–20 flights.

That’s a lot of money. But my comparison is that we can travel as a family and get almost 50 hours of long interviews from it, while a traditional production might provide an hour of television for a similar amount. Of course the projects have different requirements, but I think the difference is worth considering.

On top of that, I make around 30 short videos like the one you’re watching. They last a few minutes each and add several more hours of material.

While travelling, I also answer thousands of emails, keep my four or five businesses going and maintain contact with developers in Manila. I write columns for Penge & Privatøkonomi, among others.

I’ve given paid talks over Skype and made video contributions for events and other purposes. So the journey combines family experiences, production and my ongoing work. That’s why I don’t simply see the budget as the price of one TV programme.

Which rules are still necessary in your profession?

Are you a little stuck in the way of doing things you learned during your training? That might be as a programmer, journalist, schoolteacher or something completely different.

My idea isn’t to throw away everything you’ve learned. Toss it in the air and catch the parts that are still good. Then look at the rest and ask why things have actually been done that way.

Did it need to suit an old technology? A different distribution method? A different world? The world has moved on technologically, but also culturally and in our attitudes.

Go through each part of the work. What’s its purpose? Can you achieve the same thing another way? That’s what I want Kirsten and you to consider.

A simpler setup could get the project started

I suggest Kirsten start smaller. Perhaps she could use an iPhone or a cheap Flip camera. In the video, I mention DKK 500–800 for the little camera and stress that I’d prioritise a good microphone.

My rough estimate is that a sensible setup for her purpose might cost DKK 6,000–7,000. That’s an amount she can manage. Then she can go out herself, meet the artists, produce the stories and put them on YouTube.

Perhaps she won’t get the roughly 100,000 viewers she imagines through television. But if she makes it in English, there could also be a larger audience around the world. I play with the idea of a million viewers, feedback, recognition and perhaps earnings from YouTube adverts.

Those are possibilities I imagine, not promises I make her. What matters most is meeting the artists and trying the idea instead of waiting for a grant of several hundred thousand kroner.

So throw it all in the air and see where it lands. Perhaps you can get started on something exciting you thought impossible if you change the form and keep hold of what you really want. You’ll find more of my experiences of finding new paths and getting ideas going in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

Best wishes, Martin