The present and future of post production business and technology

Presentations Portfolio

Philip presenting in the Academy’s Goldstein Theater at the NEXT TV Symposium.

Business, Audience Development, Metadata, Encoding, Production Workflows.

Philip Hodgetts is an accomplished writer, speaker and presenter. He has presented Keynote presentations for the NY DV Show, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences NEXT TV Symposium and the NAB Podcast Summit, as well as presenting at Streaming Media (East and West), the prestigious Seybold conference, and NAB Post|Production as well as dozens of user groups and business groups.

Business Presentations (for production professionals)

Philip has a unique perspective with a knowledge base that sits on the juncture of business, production and technology. He is a leader in all himself, and speaks regularly to the business opportunities that the modern world or the Internet and social media have to offer production professionals in growing their business and in growing and monetizing an audience for independent productions.

The New Now (How to grow your production or post production business) Part 1:

  • The number ONE thing you should do NOW;
  • Turning downtime into future profits;
  • Know what business you are in (it’s probably not the one you think);
  • Building your Brand;
  • Marketing, PR and Social Conversations;
  • Maximize your visibility on the Internet.
Can be compressed to 45 minutes; full length with questions is 90 minutes.

The New Now (How to grow your production or post production business) Part 2:

  • Getting more customers and more sales;
  • How to Sell;
  • What you need to get more customers;
  • How to turn into a great salesperson;
  • How to be more persuasive;
  • Advertising (Display v Search, Adsense, Adwords);
  • Cutting Costs by producing less expensively, and working smarter;
  • Getting paid faster; and
  • Finding your own income.
Can be compressed to 45 minutes; full length with questions is 90 minutes.

The New Now presentations can be combined into a half day seminar
as delivered in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco.


How to survive the “new now” of production?  (aka Making a Living from New Media Production)

As presented to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for their Professional Development Program, June 2010. A subset of the two New Now presentations. This is a customized version of the New Now presentations running 45-75 minutes.

The Future of “Television”

Based on the TV Academy NEXT TV presentation and updated appropriately this presentation looks at the future of Television from a historic perspective, and looks forward to the future of the industry.

  • What is Televsion, really?;
  • The history and future of Television 1
    • A Time without Television;
    • Broadcast Television;
    • Television Mk II;
    • Lower production cost means more programming gets made;
  • The 10 principles of Television 3.0;
  • The economic problem of the zero marginal cost of digital distribution and unlimited supply;
  • Hits, the Long Tail and the “Fat Belly”;
  • Attributes of a Television 3.0 “Channel”;
    • The new interaction between producer and audience;
    • Totally personal channels.

This presentation fills 60 minutes.

Since the advent of low cost production equipment almost any project can find a suitable budget. However distribution has not been democratized to the same degree. Learn how other have built substantial and profitable audiences for their independent film and video projects, and successfully monetized the audience.


How to grow an audience for your independent production?

  • When to start building an audience
  • How to identify and reach your “core audience”
  • How to ‘Connect with Fans”
  • How to create and use your evangelists
  • The role of the production blog and how to build out your production website
  • How to get your website found in search engines
  • How to use modern PR techniques

How to Monetize the audience of your independent production?

Having built an audience it’s time to monetize by:

  • Learning how CwF + RtB = profits
  • Monetizing free content (and even piracy)
  • Examining the six most common monetizing strategies and how they apply to independent projects
  • Learn which strategies have been the most effective for other projects.

All the information is liberally backed with case studies.

The How to Grow and Audience and How to Monetize and Audience  can be combined into a half day seminar.

Philip presents "Monetizing your audience" to a group in New York.
Philip presents “How to Monetize and Audience” in New York.

Production, Postproduction and Distribution Workflows

The Mundane and Magic Future of Metadata

If you wanted a ‘big picture: this is what the future will look like in 5-10 years” then the Mundane and Magic Future of Metadata is the presentation you need. Originally developed for NAB 2010, this presentation covers:

  • The six types of Metadata that are valuable in production and postproduction;
  • How Metadata helps in product (with recent, practical examples);
  • How Metadata will automate workflows in the future.

Relevant for all types of production, including web video where the metadata travels with the files.

The content of this presentation is unique and unlikely to be able be delivered by anyone but Philip who is known as a “one man think tank” when it comes to production metadata, and what can be done with it, as evidenced by his work at Assisted Editing (a division of Intelligent Assistance, Inc)

Using Metadata for Production and Asset Management

A comprehensive review of metadata for production workflows, asset management and distribution management. Delivered as a full day course.

Faster Post Production workflows

Tools and tips for speeding through post production workflows.

  • Native vs Non-native workflows;
  • What format for production, editing or distribution?
  • Faster logging techniques;
  • Tools for smarter post-production workflows or workflow automation from:
    • Intelligent Assistance;
    • Xmil Tools;
    • Digital Heaven;
    • Video Toolshed;
    • Spherico and others.
  • Paper cuts without the pain (or the paper) with prEdit;
  • Automating First Cuts for a documentary with advanced metadata.

Session runs45 – 90 minutes.

Codecs, Encoding and Distribution

  • The basics of codecs and encoding;
  • Distribution containers and which choices make sense;
  • Encoding for Desktop or portable devices;
  • How pre-processing improves the quality of the encoded video without taking more bandwidth;
  • Distribution and hosting options.

Session runs 45-75 minutes.

Video Production for the Web

  • Basic technical requirements for good looking web video;
  • Being prepared;
  • What shots work;
  • Sound for web video;
  • Formats and Workflows;
  • 24P workflows and how to prevent them from going horribly wrong; and
  • Masting options and Backup.

Session takes 45-60 minutes.

Making Sense of Storage

  • General introduction to data rates and storage requirements and why compression is our friend;
  • Types of drive connections and what they’re used for;
  • Levels of RAID and software vs hardware RAIDs;
  • Local or SAN storage – what are the options; and
  • Storage and archiving, focused on tapeless media;

Presentation runs 45-60 minutes.

Surviving HD

  • Shooting HD including format choices and recommendation;
  • Editing HD including input/output cards, storage and workflow;
  • Distributing HD – not as easy as you think.

This comprehensive presentation is based on Philip Hodgetts’ book “The HD Survival Handbook” and is focused on Final Cut Pro and Media Composer workflows. It requires a minimum half day to skim the content, a full day to cover everything.