David Pendleton ventriloquist and I talk about his DVD project. You can find David’s DVD on his web site. I highly recommend it!
Video Transcript:
What year did you record your DVD?
Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
Would you mind?
Not at all. I had thought about making a DVD project for years. As a matter of fact, I had put together other projects where I really did it on a shoestring budget. I’d just hire a handful of video guys, they all had their cameras, and I’d say, “I want you stationed around the room, record this, and we’ll put it all together and see how it turns out.”
Generally, I learned the hard way that doing it that way was kind of a waste of time and money. I hate to sound so harsh, but at least for me, I was always disappointed with the results.
Finally, I decided, you know what, if I’m going to do this, I really want to do it right. And in order to do that, I’d need to be willing to spend some money. I actually found a couple of guys who were willing to front the money for me, which is a story in itself—finding people who will actually invest in what you’re doing.
I ended up spending about $30,000 on that project. What you get for that is a professional team of videographers, a truck, a switcher, a director, and all the elements necessary to put together a project that, technically, is something you can be proud of.
Once I had the money together, I looked around for what I would consider to be a good venue. I found one that held about a thousand people. Then I thought, “Okay, how on earth am I going to fill this place so I have a decent audience?” Of course, we promoted it like crazy. I went to a couple of youth groups and we set up a competition to see who could bring the most people.
We sold tickets, but I gave the ticket money back to the youth groups so it would be a fundraiser for them. Since I’d already covered the cost of the project, my highest priority was making sure we had an audience.
I actually did the show twice—an afternoon show and an evening show. That turned out to be a good thing because there were some technical issues we had to resolve before the evening show. I didn’t end up using any of the footage from the afternoon show.
So, it was a lot of trial and error, but at the end of the day I finally had video footage I felt proud of—something we could assemble into a DVD. I wanted a product that I’d actually be able to sell. Of course, my biggest concern was that the project would pay for itself, and it has done quite well.
I think the last count was around 20,000 copies sold. That’s a huge success. It’s nothing like Jeff Dunham selling millions of copies, but for a project like this, that’s a pretty big number. I’d attribute that to having something I was proud of and felt justified in putting a $20 price tag on.
The feedback has been great. People have told me they loved it, and just recently someone bought eight DVDs in one order—apparently to give away as gifts. I’m stunned that the project has done as well as it has.
For people considering a DVD project, I’d say this: you really have to be willing to spend the money to invest in it. The audio recording is absolutely critical. That’s a component people often overlook, but I learned the hard way how important it is. You have to have quality audio to marry to your video, or else the whole project ends up looking and sounding unprofessional.
If you’re watching a DVD and the sound isn’t good—if you’re not miked well, if the audience isn’t miked—it just feels cheesy and low-quality.
So, you’ve seen mine…
Next Article: Interview With David Pendleton – Part 6
Previous Article: Interview With David Pendleton – Part 4
Start of Interview: An Interview With David Pendleton
