21 Jul Impulse purchases and why they’re important

I commonly refer to my new purchases (for work) as my “toys.”  I’m not the only one to use that vernacular, but it made me think about my spending habits and behaviors for what I purchase and why I choose these items.  I can be honest and admit that there is a bit of FOMO in my own spending routines, whether it’s the latest new camera, lens or computing device that I’m coveting or even a new mobile device that I think is going to change my work/life balance…

The fact is that as sometimes I sometimes tend to think of these “work” expenses like I did toys when I was a kid.  A fancy, flashy or fun thing that I “needed to have” to satisfy a longing for something new.  The problem with that philosophy is 1. It’s an expensive impulse and 2. Kids get bored or disinterested in toys very quickly.  As soon as a new better toy is out, the old one is no longer “good enough” to keep me happy.  This is the kind of behavior that can quickly put businesses into mounds of debt.  Whether it’s keeping up with competing businesses or just keeping up with our own impulses, spending habits need to be as prudent as they are pleasurable.

Recently this was spurred on by some new projects that I’m in preproduction for.  I’ve budgeted the project for a single camera / lens kit, but I think that we could definitely use a second camera even if as a backup.  Since we’ll be traveling for this project, I can’t just run back to the studio pick up a spare, I need it with us in the field.  And the cameras we use aren’t available at local big box stores, they’re only available to purchase online or at specialty video shops and rental houses.  This isn’t actually an “impulse” purchase, it’s a camera that I’ve been considering for over a year and finally thought it would be a good time to make the purchase. Yes we do own a bunch of camera technology, but this camera is special, it’s unique it our space and it should pair very well with our other cinema cameras…  so what camera is it?  It’s the Black Magic Pocket 4k.  After much debate, I finally sold off my Panasonic GH5 and decided to replace it with another Micro Four Thirds camera.

The images that I’ve seen from this little cinema beast are quite amazing considering the low cost of the tech.  I spent a bunch of time over the weekend texting with Peter Fowler of Endure Films about the different accessories he owns for the camera and how he has built his camera system for his workflow.

Endure Films ©Peter Fowler

Once it arrives, I will have much more to share about the camera including image quality tests, and comparisons with our Red Digital Cinema and Sony A7iii kits I use for work and personal content.  But I’m super excited to have a RAW capture option for some of our upcoming travel adventures!  More to come soon.

So why is this an important impulse purchase? Well I often end up thinking about technology or sometimes the lack there of right before big projects.  I think this purchase is going to be a huge help for a lot of our production work.  It’ll allow me to get a cinema camera onto a small gimbal without the need of bringing out some of our large Movi Pro.  It also gives us a much more compact B-Camera for travel projects.  And sometimes clients don’t have budget for our most expensive camera package, so this allows me to bring more value to my clients at a lower cost.  This was not a purchase I had anticipated making until next year, but this weekend impulse was necessary to push me to make a decision I should’ve made months ago.  Something similar happened when I purchased my second Red Camera.  It was driven by a “want” but ended up becoming an extremely valuable part of our production offering that has paid for itself more than 5 times over in a year.

Once you learn out to differentiate between the fun and the frivolous impulses, they can become one of your best human alerts for making wise business decisions.