Fly With The Wind / McCoy Tyner
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John Fraim
Today, an increasing asset in competition is not always the product itself but rather the products connection to universe of accessories that connect with the main product. In effect, there seems to be a particular ecology surrounding a brand. Those who have/had GoPro cameras will understand this. Those who have drones and cameras from DJI will also understand this.
There is always a digital ecology that surrounds leading digital brands. They create this ecology which other brands simply tap into. Much like the current wireless battles. By a digital brand I mean codes and apps and links and time one needs before they can even activate a product in an ecology. A consumer of the brand commits his/her time and money to all this when buying into its inclusive ecology. Apple (a product ecology I’ve been trapped in since 1985) is such a great example of this.
One of the great examples of this connected ecology is the global Chinese drone and action camera firm DJI. I’ve been a DJI customer for a number of years and realize how important it is for DJI for customers to stay within their brand’s ecology. Whether drones or action cameras. They are not allowed to wander into GoPro. Or, the new “kid on the block” Insta360.
DJI has not built just products but a connected digital ecology around these products. In effect, a particular medium around a message (content) of a product within this medium. As McLuhan argued “The medium is the message.”
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Modern marketing relies increasingly on an ecology of brands rather than a differentiation of products. Perhaps the best example of this on-going battle between digital ecologies is the current one between the three action camera companies within these ecologies: DJI, Insta360 and GoPro.
Control is around contents of the medium. Meaning, you buy all accessories and upgrades from the medium, the ecology, the brand. Expensive video cameras within these ecologies, hark for upgrades. One might hear of a great advance from a competitor in another brand ecology. Yet the entry cost for one within one brand ecology becomes higher and higher. The stakes in the game higher and higher. How much time does one give up in past, learned experience? Is it worth it to give this up?
Modern marketing needs to think more about digital ecologies that engulf brands – DJI, Insta360 and GoPro prime examples. But of course, greater digital ecologies overshadow these three today. My chosen system of computers since they came out: Apple. My loyalty to it and refusal to ever break out of this ecology. Challenged increasingly now on the smartphone front.
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I’m an Apple/Mac customer since the beginning. We lived just south of Berkeley, in Piedmont, and I became interested in the new Mac computer. I attended a meeting of a Berkeley group about the Mac on the campus of UC Berkeley. It was twilight on some day in late summer as I recall when I walked across the campus of UC Berkeley towards the famous old building on campus where the Berkeley Mac Users Group (or something like that) were holding a meeting. I was thinking about getting an Apple computer and looking for information. It was sometime in the mid-80s. I thought it would be like most groups of the time: maybe 10 or 20 people showing up. And few of them you want to really hang with.
The old building in the twilight of the summer night, right after the old lamps went on around the campus. I walked toward the area of the campus where its great scientists had come from. The science area of the campus. It was a huge old building with columns in front. Its stone walls covered in ivy. Even covering the windows of the building. Windows of professors?
I walked into the auditorium of one of the oldest lecture halls at Cal Berkeley. Cracked marble steps leading up to the building. And then, once inside, the light of the old globes that hung in the hallway like pale moons. It was changing outside. Twilight moving into the evening. The hallway was long and wide with large doors on both sides with various plates on them. A number of professors but also some special research groups of the department.
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Towards the end of the hallway, I heard some cheering over the steady sound of an excited crowd. I went through the large entrance into the auditorium. In front of me I was an “ocean” of young people stirred into a frenzy by some presentation on stage. There were banners on both sides of the stage. I believe it was Berkeley Mac Users Group.
My expectation was to walk into another one of those meetings of 10 or 20 people. But this meeting was huge. I slipped into a seat in the back of the auditorium. There was a feeling of a revival of sorts. All enthusiastic about the Apple computer and the upcoming Mac computer. The mid-80s. Perhaps the greatest example of an all-encompassing ecology of a product today. I currently have an iPhone 15. A group gathered around a growing brand. The brand offering expression to many creative people at the time. A brand ecology that I have stayed since this time.
It is the expression of an ecology (or “medium” as Marshall McLuhan might say). Something that surrounds so constantly, like water around fish, we fail to notice it. The invisible ecology of the everyday world of the brand we use. It dominates the world more than we realize. And there is little interest in the great brand ecologies to informing consumers about the controls they are under.
We have long been plugged into operating systems. One of the great ones is Mac and PC operating systems. The Mac ecology started as one of freedom while the PC ecology was more of duplication. That’s why IMB PCs were adapted by corporations for desktop computers for employees. While both ecologies have started from different places, both have moved towards each other. Apple more collective and the PC more free. Somewhat like the “ecology” of our local cable companies. The competition between Apple and PC is like the battle between direct satellite and cable communications.
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It’s bad enough spending a lot of time learning the ecology of a brand. The various computer system within the brand. The amount of time and importance one places on a product they use each day usually also means a lot of money. Brand ecologies cost time and money. One might “spend” themselves into the confines of a product ecology. Exit from this ecology might become increasingly expensive as investment in time and money.
One of the great battles of brand ecologies today is in the areas of action cameras for content creators. I now use two great competitors from different brand ecologies. Brands ecologies I’ve been captured within for many years. The DJI and GoPro brands. Now, the DJI Pocket 3 and the GoPro Mission 1 Pro. Two great pieces of filmmaking equipment Two different ecologies to learn and pay for though. It’s been frustrating. Not like existing under the grand brand digital ecology of a product like my Sony A6400 camera.
The battle of ecologies can perhaps best be viewed today in the action camera market between DJI, Insta360 and GoPro. The real battle is between DJI and Insta360 and GoPro pretty much out of the battle. It is a battle between miniature gimbal cameras that can shoot at 4K. Far better than the cameras of the major Hollywood studios. Even today in a lot of ways. The question really is return for investment. There is the growing trend of exciting new filmmakers coming from YouTube videos like the creators of Obsession and Backrooms.
The GoPro Missionn 1 Pro / Carrying a Cinema Camera in Your Pocket
GoPro is not in this dogfight. They position their new Mission 1 Pro as the first truly pocket cinema camera. I’ve had one for a few weeks and have to say I’m getting more and more convinced. This is after having many video cameras in my life. I remember my Bolex Super 8 I took off to college. I remember the large camera I got in 2008 or so. Probably the last using those miniature tapes. Not long before the arrival of digital cameras.
But I won’t be convinced that the entire “ecology” of the new Mission 1 series is cinematic quality until I hear audio from wireless mics. The ability to record and monitor sound obviously a key part of professional filmmaking. A part of the overall ecology not yet added. However, an outstanding piece of technology to hold in your hand and to realize you can record cinematic quality footage almost anywhere. The camera is spectacular under low light.
Although the onboard mics of the Mission 1 Pro are amazing, I still have to hear the upcoming wireless mic interface. I believe inn GoPro’s Media Mod II. I have Media Mod I for my Hero 11 and 12 cameras. The camera shoots in 4k and 8k. Stunning images I’ve never seen captured so well. Yet, hard to communicate since modern technologies can’t communicate in 8K. When will YouTube be able to do this. If ever? Do we need 8k broadcasting?
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My long-term research and writing about of symbols and their movement by symbolism. The messages and the medium, as McLuhan might say. The technology the Mission 1 Pro records at is incredible. If only my father could see this little camera. He carried heavy movie cameras and hot lights when he filmed any of the family events back in those years growing up in LA.
Yet digital communications technology cannot keep up with digital recording technology. Evident on the Mission 1 Pro. The images on projected screens never look as clear as the images on the playback screen of the Mission 1 Pro. But when we say “projected” screens, don’t we really mean to the projected screens of smartphones? No loss in clarity.
Besides the differences between the three great global brands in action cameras – DJI, Insta360 and GoPro – perhaps a major difference is that GoPro’s Mission 1 Pro is focused on the outside world. A cinema camera looking outward into the world. Rather than another blogging action gimble camera, focused on looking inward at the creator the film rather than outward. DJI and Insta360 fight out the blogging market. The video version of selfies. GoPro’s Mission 1Pro goes in another direction. Outward at the world rather than another narcissistic blogging device.
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Most of us become locked in digital product ecologies. For example, it is difficult to leave the Sony or Canon ecologies for photographers. My interest in a smaller product ecology called GoPro goes back a long time. To the promise and vision I saw in the tiny cameras. Especially I grew up in Los Angeles at a time when the studio cameras were huge. Did anyone ever suspect that one could carry an entire production studio in a pocket? It is an amazing feeling. There was the amazing promised of their first cameras. My early frustrations with them. And the different updates and the constant improvement of the GoPro cameras.
These frustrations are addressed by the Mission 1 Pro. So far by simply what I hold in my hand. Without any additional accessories. An amazing little cinema camera. Yet there has to be a great wireless system to match the DJI wireless mic system. This is an essential part of the brand ecology. It’s a camera that says very loudly that we are not a vlogging camera focused on the creator’s content anymore. We are interested in turning outward at the world and capturing this world rather than the refinement of the technology at capturing selfies via action cameras.
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Yet it seems strange when our technology of reproducing the world on video takes two views on action cameras. First, the DJI and Insta360 selfie idea. And second, the Mission 1 Pro outward focused cinema idea. A large part of current branding for the Mission 1.
All this an interesting but challenging ability to be able to use two different brand ecologies today. Not easy and frustrating. Now, my two current cameras, they seem OK together. Two great capturers of crystal-clear images in the DJI Pocket 3 and the GoPro Mission 1 Pro. The wireless sound unit is coming soon for the Mission 1 Pro so a review will have to wait. But I’ve been frustrated in finding a way to monitor sound on my DJI Pocket 3. How can you have a professional video camera if you can’t monitor sound? All the reviews say its easy but no luck in connecting yet. The two wireless Bluetooth mics work great though. They are automatically started when you open the charging box. Amazing to have two wireless mics for the Pocket 3. It opens the camera to many creative possibilities.
Now, after testing the Mission 1 Pro, the goal is to point it outward, at some story. A documentary? A short horror video like Curry Barker posted on YouTube? The point is to begin creating stories with these amazing cameras rather than continuing to post vlogs of the camera operator doing something. Stop posting videos on how to use them.
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I’m working with the brand ecologies of GoPro and DJI right now. It’s not that I haven’t juggled different brand ecologies in my filmmaking before like I’m working with now. So, many protected ecologies that have their own systems and codes. Of course, it is not profitable to share ecology codes between ecologies. And the way so much technology operates today. Protecting itself by a certain ecology that must be learned. Before products can be activated like a DJI product.
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