Starting in the 90's very expensive video production tools became much, much less so.
There have been a number of different responses to this accelerating trend.
From clients, "If you work on inexpensive equipment, your skill set must be inexpensive."
Try asking your plumber what brand of monkey wrench he uses.
Or maybe ask the chef at your favorite restaurant if you can see his stove so you can judge his quality.
From owner operators with large investments in equipment, "The Flip Minio camera is taking money out of my pocket."
Perhaps jobs that are finished satisfactorily with a Flip and iMovie didn't really need your skill set anyway.
From manufacturers or tech evangelists, "The democratization of video production tools will make all of us content producers."
OK, but history says most of us will be unskilled.
Pen and paper are very affordable, but John Updike clones are not thick on the ground.
The majority of my work is currently in live or short turn around sports.
Although we have seen less expensive tools around the periphery, the demands of live television and the singular draw of sports as a community experience have kept expensive tools in place because they are needed – there aren't inexpensive tools that do the job well enough…yet.
I owned a Canon XL-1 in the late 90s that did a nice job for location scenics. It was approximately 1/10th the cost of an ENG camera.
Starting around 2001 my colleagues started using Final Cut Pro systems in live television trucks for quick turn around craft editing. A Final Cut Pro system was about 1/10th the cost of the alternative.
Recently I have seen a couple of creative business models that leverage the low cost of equipment and the belief that video production is a commodity.
"You Shoot Weddings"
http://www.youshootweddings.com/index.html
and "Demand Media"
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/
I feel both intrigued and fearful when I think about the implications.
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