Hi guys it's John here, someone sent me the link and it was entertaining reading! I love the amount of witty comedy that's out there in the farming community 
It's great to hear some straight feedback from the people who use our service as we rarely get to hear our members thoughts unless they reach out to us directly with an opinion. I'm all for constructive criticism (vs just the criticism) and we can't improve FarmFLiX if we don't know what you're thinking. I'm really pleased there wasn't a heap of things listed that need fixing so to answer some of the questions/comments:
1)
"I’d recommend it only complaint albeit minor is one of the last ones I watched had a young guy in with the shovel driver on the pit spent more time giggling like a kid that actually talking usually the chat is spot on as is the camera work"
"Yes seems to get a bit excited. Better than sitting there with a face like a slapped arse"
- unless they're born to the job anyone's first experience on camera interviewing isn't gonna be their best performance. We're constantly developing the team here to deliver better content and I'd really appreciate it if the new guys are given some slack for at least 12 months of content. We have a filming season and then an editing season, so often the internal feedback for the guys never happens until months later. That said I whole-heartedly agree that its great to see the new guys excited about their experiences.
2)
"could still do with subtitles at times"
- subtitles has been on my mind for quite some time, I'm very aware that some are better than others at understanding the range of dialects. I'm also aware there are a few who struggle with hard hearing who'd need them too. Like everything, I don't want to start the commitment of delivering them until we're going to do it right and do it consistently on every video. Given the volume of video content we're producing that means we'll need to hire at least one more team member just to deliver subtitles alone and work back through the library of hundreds of episodes and after that think about working back through YouTube as well. We will deliver this once it's within our means.
3)
"They have been affected by covid so haven't filmed as much as they would like. still put a new video out each week though."
- 2021 was a great year, we filmed like crazy and have a load of stuff in the tank from England, Scotland, Wales & ROI and lots of new faces. We deliberately only did AgLife & a couple of silage videos in Northern Ireland to rebalance the content from year we were spent at home. So we're sitting right now with some great variety to come and ready to get back on the boat very soon for more in 2022
4)
"John was originally in the Grassmen team wasn't he?"
"If you hunt around in some of Grassman's out take videos you can hear John Mc lane in the background"
"The farmflix fella used to run grassmen with donkey... Wonder what happened?"
- Yes I was the creator and 50% owner of our previous business. What happened was I decided to leave because the working relationship between myself and Gareth wasn't healthy for anyone involved around us. It was the simplest solution at the end of the day.
5)
"I think in context Gary is totally how 90% of people actually are"
- that response commands my respect because he has the self-confidence to not pretend to be someone else. Having adopted a role in front of camera to promote FarmFLiX through YouTube I'm well aware of what I need to do to put energy into a video. When I'm on my own it doesn't come naturally but I do enjoy the craic and find it easier with anyone else to play off. Mrs McClean often jokes that the man who's shouting 'SIR' to a camera is not the one she married! When it comes to our own social channels where we can remove comments, we generally don't but there is one exception where I am ruthless - a personal attack on any of our team or a contributor. Constructive criticism of the thing we're building is welcome but pot shots at people are not. We're all fair game for putting ourselves out there but we're also all human at the end of the day. I live happy when I'm blissfully unaware of the bad things people say about me!
6)
"John always makes it super clear that the good content is on the main site not there youtube (still amazing stuff)."
"I enjoy farmflix on YouTube. Haven't subscribed"
- so our YouTube just like Facebook / Instagram / Snapchat / TikTok is another marketing tool to promote FarmFLiX. To be fair cutting the blogs is quite fun afterwards because there's not the same pressure to make them polish perfect like we try to do for the main episodes. I still love driving even though I've very little time for it and we do have some serious craic behind the scenes filming - if only the camera was on for all of it! We turn off ads on most of our YouTube vids because Google pay so little that we'd rather someone kept watching than have an advert interrupt the flow. It would be fun to create more for YouTube but the episodes on our website / app membership pays all of our bills so that's the focus and funding subtitles for example would right now be a higher priority.
9)
"Good when they interview someone who isn’t a 2 flashy lights and red bull type"
"Proper farming, warts and all."
"Good variation on what they put out, it's the silage & slurry that sells, odd good silage video when they go in-depth on the outfit but I mostly prefer the other stuff."
- I love meeting new people, I love seeing well run farms and livestock in good condition, I like to hear about their challenges and I love to talk business when someone is open to sharing concrete facts about their world. Every person we meet brings something different, I gravitate to the older leaders who run an operation simply because I'm getting older and can relate to them better. The younger guys on our team gravitate to the young operators their age for the same reason. Everyone brings something interesting to the party and we cut a video as long as it needs to be - so if the conversation was heaped full of craic and knowledge then it's gonna be a long one! The really great thing about FarmFLiX is we're not funded by advertising or sponsorship, purely the members, so if someone wants to call a spade a spade on camera then it's always gonna make the final episode since we're not influenced by any third party.
10)
"Farmflix is more about the content, I'd like to see them travel to more countries and see global Ag but it must cost a fortune to do."
"I know they have plans for NZ but they have been put back by covid but as you said it would cost a bomb."
- yep, we'd love to be travelling more to see cool stuff and we were just getting into a stride in 2018-19 when we published our North American trips then covid happened. We'll get back out on the road eventually, I don't know yet if 2022 will be the year because to pull these trips off everything has to go exactly to plan and the weather has to play into our hands. Yes they cost a bomb in flights, accommodation & food before we factor in any labour costs. We'll figure it out when the time is right but members can be sure we'll not hang back if the opportunity presents itself.
11)
"Why do they put a limit on subscriptions?"
"So it can be sold as exclusive I’d guess"
- winter is a great time for us to focus on selling because we're in the office instead of filming. It also means we can budget the road ahead each year and yes it does mean we can market as exclusive too. The episodes are always the priority so come filming season that's the only thing we're about. I really don't miss beating the 'sales' drum the other 10 months of the year!
I hope that's given you guys a little insight. Probably the one thing most people won't realise is the time we need to create a quality polished episode
- we film most things in a single day with a two man team. A second visit is done sometimes if we're in the area and want a shot that we've missed or the weather caused us a headache. We're effectively like the contractors - when the weather is right we've got to juggle the list of work and get it done as efficiently as possible.
- After that the heavy work begins... from backup to project creation, syncing everything up in a timeline, organising the shots, rough cutting the conversation, threading the story, picking the visuals, reviewing it, refining it, polishing the colour and audio - finally getting a preview to the people involved, cutting a trailer and uploading it
- Can you guess what time it takes? Roughly one person needs a fortnight to produce a finished episode grade 20 minutes. Scale that up and you'll realise very quickly why we need a team!
Many thanks to all our current members who enjoy what we do - I assume you enjoy it because you renew your membership I thank you because without that financial support we can't create anything or deliver anything. In the world we're living in today with increasing levels of free content I respect anyone carrying the opinion 'why pay?'. It's not obvious from the outside but if FarmFLiX is going to deliver professional video geared only for the farming community, no bias, no fluff, no advertising influence then we need the members. The question is will FarmFLiX outrun Free over the next decade? At the end of the day we get what we pay for and I'd love it if FarmFLiX is still standing tall a decade or two from now!
It's great to hear some straight feedback from the people who use our service as we rarely get to hear our members thoughts unless they reach out to us directly with an opinion. I'm all for constructive criticism (vs just the criticism) and we can't improve FarmFLiX if we don't know what you're thinking. I'm really pleased there wasn't a heap of things listed that need fixing so to answer some of the questions/comments:1)
"I’d recommend it only complaint albeit minor is one of the last ones I watched had a young guy in with the shovel driver on the pit spent more time giggling like a kid that actually talking usually the chat is spot on as is the camera work"
"Yes seems to get a bit excited. Better than sitting there with a face like a slapped arse"
- unless they're born to the job anyone's first experience on camera interviewing isn't gonna be their best performance. We're constantly developing the team here to deliver better content and I'd really appreciate it if the new guys are given some slack for at least 12 months of content. We have a filming season and then an editing season, so often the internal feedback for the guys never happens until months later. That said I whole-heartedly agree that its great to see the new guys excited about their experiences.
2)
"could still do with subtitles at times"
- subtitles has been on my mind for quite some time, I'm very aware that some are better than others at understanding the range of dialects. I'm also aware there are a few who struggle with hard hearing who'd need them too. Like everything, I don't want to start the commitment of delivering them until we're going to do it right and do it consistently on every video. Given the volume of video content we're producing that means we'll need to hire at least one more team member just to deliver subtitles alone and work back through the library of hundreds of episodes and after that think about working back through YouTube as well. We will deliver this once it's within our means.
3)
"They have been affected by covid so haven't filmed as much as they would like. still put a new video out each week though."
- 2021 was a great year, we filmed like crazy and have a load of stuff in the tank from England, Scotland, Wales & ROI and lots of new faces. We deliberately only did AgLife & a couple of silage videos in Northern Ireland to rebalance the content from year we were spent at home. So we're sitting right now with some great variety to come and ready to get back on the boat very soon for more in 2022
4)
"John was originally in the Grassmen team wasn't he?"
"If you hunt around in some of Grassman's out take videos you can hear John Mc lane in the background"
"The farmflix fella used to run grassmen with donkey... Wonder what happened?"
- Yes I was the creator and 50% owner of our previous business. What happened was I decided to leave because the working relationship between myself and Gareth wasn't healthy for anyone involved around us. It was the simplest solution at the end of the day.
5)
"I think in context Gary is totally how 90% of people actually are"
- that response commands my respect because he has the self-confidence to not pretend to be someone else. Having adopted a role in front of camera to promote FarmFLiX through YouTube I'm well aware of what I need to do to put energy into a video. When I'm on my own it doesn't come naturally but I do enjoy the craic and find it easier with anyone else to play off. Mrs McClean often jokes that the man who's shouting 'SIR' to a camera is not the one she married! When it comes to our own social channels where we can remove comments, we generally don't but there is one exception where I am ruthless - a personal attack on any of our team or a contributor. Constructive criticism of the thing we're building is welcome but pot shots at people are not. We're all fair game for putting ourselves out there but we're also all human at the end of the day. I live happy when I'm blissfully unaware of the bad things people say about me!
6)
"John always makes it super clear that the good content is on the main site not there youtube (still amazing stuff)."
"I enjoy farmflix on YouTube. Haven't subscribed"
- so our YouTube just like Facebook / Instagram / Snapchat / TikTok is another marketing tool to promote FarmFLiX. To be fair cutting the blogs is quite fun afterwards because there's not the same pressure to make them polish perfect like we try to do for the main episodes. I still love driving even though I've very little time for it and we do have some serious craic behind the scenes filming - if only the camera was on for all of it! We turn off ads on most of our YouTube vids because Google pay so little that we'd rather someone kept watching than have an advert interrupt the flow. It would be fun to create more for YouTube but the episodes on our website / app membership pays all of our bills so that's the focus and funding subtitles for example would right now be a higher priority.
9)
"Good when they interview someone who isn’t a 2 flashy lights and red bull type"
"Proper farming, warts and all."
"Good variation on what they put out, it's the silage & slurry that sells, odd good silage video when they go in-depth on the outfit but I mostly prefer the other stuff."
- I love meeting new people, I love seeing well run farms and livestock in good condition, I like to hear about their challenges and I love to talk business when someone is open to sharing concrete facts about their world. Every person we meet brings something different, I gravitate to the older leaders who run an operation simply because I'm getting older and can relate to them better. The younger guys on our team gravitate to the young operators their age for the same reason. Everyone brings something interesting to the party and we cut a video as long as it needs to be - so if the conversation was heaped full of craic and knowledge then it's gonna be a long one! The really great thing about FarmFLiX is we're not funded by advertising or sponsorship, purely the members, so if someone wants to call a spade a spade on camera then it's always gonna make the final episode since we're not influenced by any third party.
10)
"Farmflix is more about the content, I'd like to see them travel to more countries and see global Ag but it must cost a fortune to do."
"I know they have plans for NZ but they have been put back by covid but as you said it would cost a bomb."
- yep, we'd love to be travelling more to see cool stuff and we were just getting into a stride in 2018-19 when we published our North American trips then covid happened. We'll get back out on the road eventually, I don't know yet if 2022 will be the year because to pull these trips off everything has to go exactly to plan and the weather has to play into our hands. Yes they cost a bomb in flights, accommodation & food before we factor in any labour costs. We'll figure it out when the time is right but members can be sure we'll not hang back if the opportunity presents itself.
11)
"Why do they put a limit on subscriptions?"
"So it can be sold as exclusive I’d guess"
- winter is a great time for us to focus on selling because we're in the office instead of filming. It also means we can budget the road ahead each year and yes it does mean we can market as exclusive too. The episodes are always the priority so come filming season that's the only thing we're about. I really don't miss beating the 'sales' drum the other 10 months of the year!
I hope that's given you guys a little insight. Probably the one thing most people won't realise is the time we need to create a quality polished episode
- we film most things in a single day with a two man team. A second visit is done sometimes if we're in the area and want a shot that we've missed or the weather caused us a headache. We're effectively like the contractors - when the weather is right we've got to juggle the list of work and get it done as efficiently as possible.
- After that the heavy work begins... from backup to project creation, syncing everything up in a timeline, organising the shots, rough cutting the conversation, threading the story, picking the visuals, reviewing it, refining it, polishing the colour and audio - finally getting a preview to the people involved, cutting a trailer and uploading it
- Can you guess what time it takes? Roughly one person needs a fortnight to produce a finished episode grade 20 minutes. Scale that up and you'll realise very quickly why we need a team!
Many thanks to all our current members who enjoy what we do - I assume you enjoy it because you renew your membership
I thank you because without that financial support we can't create anything or deliver anything. In the world we're living in today with increasing levels of free content I respect anyone carrying the opinion 'why pay?'. It's not obvious from the outside but if FarmFLiX is going to deliver professional video geared only for the farming community, no bias, no fluff, no advertising influence then we need the members. The question is will FarmFLiX outrun Free over the next decade? At the end of the day we get what we pay for and I'd love it if FarmFLiX is still standing tall a decade or two from now!
