[Thomas W. Bethe]

As posted elsewhere on this forum.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about remote recording and why it seems to dying profession for many. Here is what I have come up with as to reasons it is less profitable and there are less gigs to do.

1. Orchestras and Ensembles either going under or deciding not to have their concerts recorded because they are trying to save money or they decide to DIY their concerts with someone from the staff doing the recording.

2. Too many people doing remote recordings and not enough places or groups needing their services.

3. Amateurs doing the recordings for fun or as a hobby and not charging or charging very little.

4. Some groups no longer want their concerts recorded audio only because many parents and participants want to see themselves on a DVD. If you are not offering Video recording as part of your services you may soon find yourself out of a job.

5. Many places are now offering to record concerts as part of their offerings. Colleges have been doing this for years but lately churches and auditoriums that are used by outside groups are offering to record the performance both audio and video for a set fee and many times these same places put in so many restrictions that an outside contractor cannot do the recording. There is one church near here that on their RULES AND REGULATIONS sheet says that 'there will be no cables allowed on the floor due to fire code restrictions" but of course the church has all their cameras built in and all their microphones are flown. I don't know how you would get around this rule but it is GREAT reason for using their in house AV production unit and not to hire someone from the outside.

6. The colleges, as part of their courses, are offering to record performance for free or for a very reduced rate so their students can learn the art of ensemble recording. They typically have someone with some advanced skills supervising the students but the students are using this experience as part of their course work and the school picks up much of the cost as an educational expense.

7. NPR radio stations are now doing a lot of the recording of events that use to be done by an outside person and they are doing them for free.

8. More and more community orchestras and singing groups are buying their own equipment and doing the recordings themselves.

9. Many non profit organizations doing concerts had the recording funded by companies that no longer exist or have moved out of the area so their funding has dried up.

10. Many parents purchase their own video and audio devices and bring them to the concerts so they can film their own videos featuring their own Johnny or Jill and they don't purchase the DVDs or CDs of the concert so the revenue stream is down. Many non profit orchestras use to make enough money off the sales of the DVDs and CDs to pay for the recording costs. If enough parents decided to go the DIY route then the organization can no longer cover the cost of the recording and may decide to just let the parents do the recordings or decide to buy their own equipment and do it themselves.




As to unions....I was at a Cleveland Orchestra recording session. We were about 10 seconds from the end of the movement and the union representative blows a police whistle ruining the take because we were "over time". Now I understand that the orchestra members don't want to be taken advantage of by the recording company but 10 seconds??? and I also have to ask was the union representative more concerned with watching his stopwatch or with playing the music? This is why a LOT of record companies no longer wanted to record large orchestras.

I did all the recordings of the Cleveland Opera from their beginnings in a high school auditorium. A couple of years ago they were in contract negotiations with the union orchestra that played for their shows. The orchestra/union wanted $75.00 per concert per musician IN ADDITION to their normal salaries for the "privilege" of having the performances recorded and or broadcast. We always did TWO recordings of each of 6 operas and did a live broadcast of couple of operas each year. This would have added about $6,000 to the recording costs per opera. The Cleveland Opera chose to stop recording the operas so they were no longer broadcast on the radio, the orchestra went "professional" and became the RED orchestra and they went out of business not too long afterward. The Cleveland Opera had other financial problems and finally got together with another arts organization and now do about two shows a year which are not recorded. Maybe if some people had not been so focused on only the money and could have seen the larger picture of what the radio presence was doing for them this would not have happened.

I sometimes think in their zeal to do what is right for their members, unions do more harm than good because they have a very narrow perception of what is going on and really fail to see the bigger picture. If they would work out some of their differences with out putting a dollar figure on them maybe things would be smoother and less like likely to have catastrophic consequences. YMMV