Alex Rapp
Forum Replies Created
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I certainly do not mean to sound snotty! But since you asked, I will answer your question. You said whay would I do in this situation:
“shoot walking backwards while turning on my light and adjusting the manual iris and zoom.”
My Answer: turning on the light takes no more than a half-second (no different than turning on auto-focus I assume). After that, the left hand is the focus hand, the right hand is on the zoom, and the right thumb rides the iris. In general, if you are zooming out and slowly turning the focus clockwise you will have no focus problems… if the person is going the other direction and you are zooming in while turning the focus counterclockwise…this is where the real skill comes in. However, with motion is is normal to expect some quick patched of softness…tv viewers are “trained” to see it so it is no big deal if it happens on occasion for a short moment.
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I would just add that these guys may be missing one small point…that it was YOU who wanted to do the video, not the record company. Music videos for small record companies are a tough proposal…they’re fun to have, but there is not really anywhere to display them but on the net (the chance of getting a music video on MTV, BET, etc, if you are not a big name artist is almost nil) and therefore they have little monetary value. Most of they time they don’t make them at all.
From the other side, anyone who has made a lot of music videos will tell you that is not usually a real profit maker, but instead a way to keep their people working for a few days and a chance to try out cool new things. If you want to do it, you are probably going to have to offer your labor very cheaply or else the company will not go along.
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I am in a similar position, and face many of the same problems you do, and I dont’t have all of the answers. However, one piece of my philosophy is to NEVER turn down work. Any job you turn down just goes to your competition and will likely stay there. For me, finding new leads and closing new customers is always a challenge, so to risk losing one is a chance I won’t take. I would rather take the job and farm it out to someone I know and trust at higher than usual expense, and make little or no money on the job, than to turn it down. I realize that this makes for some harried weeks and a few less profitable jobs, but it means more customers in the end, and this is very important when the slow periods come along… (Also, then the guy you farmed the job out to “owes you one” which is also valuable). Just a thought.
As for hiring someone…I’ve seen too many people hire staff only to have it bite them in the backside, so I am overly cautious about this. The only way I would hire someone is if I had a “guaranteed” income to cover the position, meaning a long term contract, or a product that had regular sales, etc. I realize that this is not the only way to do business, and that taking a risk (getting a bank loan, finding an office space, hiring sales staff and employees) could pay off, HOWEVER I have often said before in this forum that as equipment becomes cheaper and cheaper, and therefore competition becomes greater and greater, this is becoming a less and less lucrative business, and playing it cautious is very important.
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I think there is a fairly simple solution. Since you are talking about limited sales and broadcast, getting verbal permission on camera will be more than enough to cover you. When you are doing your interview, once the camera is rolling, the first thing you will do is describe your intended use for the video and say “is this OK?” As long as he says “yes” on camera you are more than covered for the limited uses you intend. A verbal contract is a perfectly legal contract.
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Let me pose a radical solution: Buy a mac g5 ($2,000) and an aja IO-LA interface ($1,000), and a copy of final cut pro($1,000)… you will need to spend a bit more, but what you get will knock your socks off compared to the premiere.
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Hey Jeff,
Good question. I think that an early meeting is a good idea, and I personally am not the kind of person who belives you need to “front,” oversell, or otherwise pretend you know a whole lot about stuff that you do not actually know when you meet with prospective clients. While that strategy does work for some poeple, it is not for most. If you are new at this there is no shame in admitting it.HOWEVER, I would NOT discuss price at an exploratory meeting. The broadcasters do not know you, they do not know what kind of product you can deliver, and asking them what they would pay could really put them on the spot. If they do answer, you will esentially be allowing them to set the terms while openly acknowledging that you do not know what your services are worth. In short, they will lowball you, and getting them to go up from there later will be hard.
I would say it is imperitive that you find out money info in a different way, and the sooner the better. Work the phones, be clever, look in trade magazines…try top find out as much as you can about similar businesses and what they get paid. This is the only way you can begin to know whether you are getting a good deal and when you need to ask for more. Remember, just because you are making a profit does not mean you are getting paid as much as you deserve, and on the flip side, it is also possible that they might never be able to pay you enough to make your business work.
I’m not sure this answers your question but I hope it helps.
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I love it when people are honest and straighforward, and I think that is the ONLY way to do business. However, if you plan on returning a check every time something goes slightly wrong that isn’t even your fault…you are going to get eaten alive in the biz world. This has happened to EVERYONE, and will continue to happen, and it is a natural reaction to feel bad about it. But you still have to pay your bills, and I assure you the client is not expecting any cash back. If they were, you would hear from them. You live and you learn.
I’ll leave you with a little quote I picked up somewhere about independent consulting: “If you don’t feel a little uncomfortable when you send a bill, you aren’t charging enough.”
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This problem was fixed by AJA like 6 months ago…sorry to hear you didn’t get the memo! I recommend checking their website every month…they have released two firmware updates since February alone, and they solve a LOT of problems….
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HD televisions playing standard def stuff usually offer a few options…one is like you say, a basic stretch of the picture (another leaves the middle of the picture normal anbd really stretches the edges (this keeps faces that are in the middle of the picture looking noremal). So, yes, your theory is correct, if you create an animnation that is horizontally compacted, then your animation will play back correctly. To get it just right, ideally you would create it in HD (maybe on final cut pro for example) and then squish it to fit in standard def, and so forth. However, keep in mind that it is a background image and it might not really need to be “just right.” I would buy the tv first and play around with a few things and just see how they look.
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When I have used Panasonic equipment in the past I have had best luck using the component BETACAM input settings, as opposed to the generic component input settings. However, the best way to find out is to put a tape with color bars in to your dvcpro50 deck, and then use the fcp vectorscope to see which setting is more accurate. Does this make sense?