Am I neurotic, or is it just me?

[Shane Ross]

[Charlie King] “Believe me they paid dearly for that rougly 180 hours in 9 days.”

AH. Good.

It like when we edited a show (third in a series) with a certain style. Then the network comes back with the numbers from the first two and the demographic isn’t skewing the way they wanted it to. They wanted…needed, the younger crowd. So we had to rock and roll the cut (the footage and the topic didn’t call for it, but…OK), and gave us 3 days to do it…since the delivery date was the same. So 4 editors going day and night pulled it off…and we billed the client as this fell OUTSIDE the scope of the project…the last minute changes AFTER they cleared the initial “final cut.”

[Walter Biscardi]

[Pixel Monkey] “So here’s an idea – whaddo’ya think?…
1.) At the end of an edit, create a full-res Quicktime file of the finished product.
2.) Keep ’em all on some external hard drive.
3.) When specific requests come in for reels, burn only what they need to a DVD.”

I sort of do this. I have a simple Maxtor drive I picked up at the local Best Buy that I dump all my projects to, but what I do is create the MPEG-2 / AC3 file and save those so they’re ready to go to DVD Studio Pro.

What I’ve done is create a 2 hour DVD Demo, yep 2 hours of material. I have one menu that comes up with all the sub-headings, Long Form, Music, Children, Broadcast, Commercial, Training etc….. The entire pieces are on there and the client can simply choose what they want to see and how much of each piece they want to watch. I regularly go in and replace stuff as we create new projects here.

The way I look at it, any Producer can end up doing anything at any time. So even though they asked to look at my Commercials, they may also be working with a corporate training gig and by having the Training section on there, they can see that work as well. I believe it’s better to provide a well rounded sample of our work instead of targeting exactly what the client asked for. In the accompanying letter, I’ll direct them to the titles that are specific for what they’re looking for.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Chaz Shukat]

Speaking of demo reels. I’ve got a very clever, unique open on my reel, but unfortunately, a lot of the shots look pretty crappy because they originated from VHS dubs of the projects I’ve edited. If you own your own company, as it seems many of you Cows do, you are able to get a dub of your projects in any format you need for inclusion on your reel. What if you are freelancing for other companies at their facilities, how do you get a high quality dub for your reel? Most of the time I’m lucky to get a VHS if I can get a dub at all because they don’t want to be letting out broadcastable or bootlegable copies,especially before airing. Occasionally, I’ve had to resort to taping my show off the air. Anyone else in this situation? Any suggestions?

Chaz S.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Chaz Shukat] “Most of the time I’m lucky to get a VHS if I can get a dub at all because they don’t want to be letting out broadcastable or bootlegable copies,especially before airing. Occasionally, I’ve had to resort to taping my show off the air. Anyone else in this situation? Any suggestions?”

Whatever format you have available to you, try to get a copy in that format after it airs. Even if you have to take a VTR with you down to the place where you cut. For instance, if you only have DV available to you at all times, bring a DV Deck to the shop with your own tape and ask to make a dub.

I used to purchase my own BetaSP tapes and make copies of all my stuff onto 90 minute stack reels.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Cole]

[Chaz Shukat] “a very clever, unique open on my reel, but unfortunately, a lot of the shots look pretty crappy because they originated from VHS dubs”

Probably not appropriate for your use, but just a couple thoughts:
– Since it’s the open, you could just put that footage in a small window, or many small windows across the screen. Perhaps you won’t be able to play it at full length, but that would tend to make the quality appear better.
– Degrade it further and make it look like a piece of film trailer, again, briefly as an opener.

[Jb]

I got an idea about hoe to send demo reels.

You can get a cheap flash drive copy files in quick time or windows media to the drive. If you can find someone that could put your logo and address info on the outside of the drive you will be sending them a constant reminder of your work after they have long erased your material, i know its not cheap but its a promo expense.

James B.