In order to survive in post COVID-19 era, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of IBST Media, Remi Ogunpitan has tasked audio-visual production practitioners to collaborate, recreate contents, and tap into new technologies in the age of social distancing and changing business landscape.
He gave the charge recently at the Live Instagram Chat of Brand Communicator, hosted by its Publisher, Joshua Ajayi where he spoke on the topic, “The Dynamics of the Changing Business Landscape on Audio-Visual Productions”.
He said in other climes, there is a high of level of collaboration and it shows in the quality of works churned out, adding that for Nigerian companies aiming international standards in their works, they have to begin to bring the best team together to work on their projects.
“I think the key to a lot of what will happen going forward is the need for a lot of us to start collaborating with each others to deliver projects that meet the stringent demand of a society that has changed”
In addition, he said the industry needs to consolidate and speak in one voice, pointing that every practitioner is calling for the same thing but the call is fragmented. He also tasked practitioners on professionalism and integrity in their dealings.
In another vein, he stated that as a result of social distancing, audio-visual production professionals should begin to look at ways they can use the content of clients they have in the archive by recreating them and get the clients or brands to buy into them.
Similarly, he pointed that content producers need to start creating content around education. “We need to start looking at how we can express ourselves in creating contents in the area of education. Everything should not be drama, comedy or reality TV shows because we need to understand that the way we work is going to change,” he explained.
On a different note, he pointed out that he is optimistic that live events will come back soon because Nigerians are social animals who love to celebrate together while the role of engagement may change because of health issues.
However, he said that remote working and new technologies are disrupting the audio-visual production, which cut across the way the industry now operates from event coverage to editing.
He explained that his company is already deploying the new technologies in their operations and what is happening in a location can be seen from a studio in London for example. He added that with his remote cloud solution, an editor can be editing a video in Lagos while the director and producer in London can be giving suggestions or pointing to what needs to be adjusted while the editor is editing live.
Also, he explained that from an office or anywhere a client or crew members are they can see what is going on live in a location where shooting is taking place and give suggestions. Also, the feed from four to eight cameras in Lagos or Ghana for example can be coordinated by a director seating in his control room in London.
He explained further that the first time his company worked in that way was during the last Nigerian general election.