...You Can Dodge a Ball

See this post Opportunities Abound and Part One.

Part one had some sports ideas but for the wedding guy how about Fashion shoots for the Bride, she paid six grand for the dress and all anyone in the church is going to get a good look at is the back of it. SloMo, SoftFocus, Fantasy Locations (did someone say virtual set?) let Uncle Charlie with his Digital8 camera match that.

Switch the ceremony live (or edit on your laptop) and show highlights at the reception. If you're going to edit, tapeless camcorders are the way to go. If your switching the thing live anyway you might as well stream it so the family on the other coast can see it even if they can't afford the flight.

In general move upscale, everyone has a camcorder and every computer that leaves WalMart has editing software installed, you can't compete with that by lowering your prices. This goes for a lot of the event videography gigs, if you set up a single camera in the back of the hall for the dance recital your video is going to be a snooze and the parents aren't going to pop thirty bucks for it. You've got to add production value.

Funerals are another growth market for streaming. Team up with the local funeral homes, they can do the marketing and billing for you. Making it a pretty simple gig.

More ideas as they pop into my head.

If You Can Dodge a Wrench...

After my post Opportunities Abound last week I started thinking. There really are lots of opportunities out there if you think outside the box a little. I've got several customers complaining their wedding business is drying up. In some places a lot of the traditional corporate work is disappearing or going to lower budgets at best. So what's a guy to do when his bread and butter work gets thin on the ground? To mix a metaphor.

Sports - The world is sports crazy. If you have seen the movie Dodgeball you'll remember "The Ocho" (ESPN 8) well, I looked into doing an alternate sports streaming web site and I found web sites devoted to every sport I could think of. So find an under served sport (and you should use this term loosely) go for it. Speed Chess might just be the next Texas Hold'em - you never know.

My town has a semi-pro football team, I'm trying to cut a deal to stream their games. I'm probably not going to get rich but I bet I can sell advertising on the web site and it will raise my visibility locally for sure.

Demo reels for high school athletes seeking college scholarships. Parents shoot footage of games you edit highlight reels. Well healed parents hire you to attend games and shoot footage to then edit into highlight reels. Hint: get several parents to chip in towards your fee. Throw in a few interview segments to show how well rounded the athlete/scholar is and impress the recruiters.

To be continued...