[Bill Davis]

Yeah, the union issue is typically quite a bit more complicated than people new to the industry expect.

A union signatory actor pays their union dues and give up particular rights in negotiations with employers (fully self directed compensation decisions, for example.) in exchange for particular protections (union negotiated terms in payment, working conditions, and extra protection from industry abuse.)

To get the basics do a web search for SAG and AFTRA contract info. You might also look up the Taft- Hartley labor provisions. When a NON union talent is desired on a union job – those provisions allow them to work under some strict limitations without a union contract.

It DOES all get pretty complicated. But if you’re going to be in the business for a long time – and want to move up to bigger and bigger projects – this stuff WILL come up eventually.

BTW, you don’t say where you are, but your location also can be important in these circumstances. For example, some states have “right to work” laws that make it ILLEGAL for a company to REQUIRE union membership in order to secure work.

That doesn’t at all mean that a talent can’t fully demand union terms regardless of any state or local laws – all work, after all, is fundamentally a negotiation between private parties, the union becomes a party only because one or more of the parties choses to bring them into the mix.

[Bill Davis]

Melissa,

Now you’re sounding like a smart video producer.

If you don’t have specific knowledge yourself, hire others who do – and watch and learn from them.

That’s a reproducible and practical plan that often leads to success.

[Bill Davis]

Matthew,

The surest way to break down the lighting in a scene is to examine the cast shadows.

You’ll notice in the hallway scene that not only are there almost NO shadows – there isn’t even a realistic line between the walls and the floor. This is because this is a PURPOSE BUILT SET. It’s crafted, painted and finished to give a particular effect. Look at the highlights on the walls. It shows matching LARGE light sources bringing up the areas in front of the talent in a way that allows those same walls to basically light the talent. Also, note at :17 in the MCU of the talent leaning against the wall that theres a pronounced REFLECTION in the wall surface. Clearly this is custom painted as either semi-gloss or gloss – something you wouldn’t run across very often in a real-world setting.

now look at the “girl rolling on the bed” shots. Notice how the highlight is perfectly centered behind the pilows. No accident. Based on the falloff of the beam, it looks like a relatively large Fresnel JUST to get that highlight. Then the bed is illuminated with just a slightly softened source that projects the striped pattern. Notice even how the striped pattern is CAREFULLY positioned so that the tips of the pillow on BOTH sides are in shadow rather than highlight helping them stand out against the lit back wall.

The ONLY way to get this kind of control is to start out with a PERFECTLY unlit set and add JUST the lighting you want. If there’s a window, or a doorway, or anything else allowing light to spill into the scene, the effect gets washed out and ruined.

None of this is by accident. This is thoughtfully planned lighting.

And it takes TIME, EQUIPMENT and KNOWLEDGE to pull off lighting like this.

[Bill Davis]

Uh – how exactly was my post NOT on topic?

Yes, it was a bit tongue in cheek. But does that mean it wasn’t appropriate?

It’s your show, Richard. You’re therefore free to focus it anyway you like. You can stick to the button pushing. You can deal with artistic issues. And you can even choose whether or not to allow social/political related business topics like I suggested. Thats exclusively your purview as the producer.

But you asked for open ideas. And I think mine was both germane and perhaps even important considering how the industry is configured right now.

So I’ll stand by my suggestion and encourage you to create content that has meaning beyond what’s contained in the “here’s the newest lens from Canon” press release. Or not. As you see fit.

And there’s actually a REASON I’m proposing this. The 5d Mk ii form factor and attendent issues may be history in all too short a time. If that’s ALL you cover, you MIGHT have problems sustaining interest for the long run. Or not.

Up to you.

[Bill Davis]

The larger the company you do work for, the more likely you are to face this situation.

And yep, it puts you in a tough position.

I’ve seen more (and more restrictive) Master Agreements and Scope of Work documents from my clients in the past few years than ever before. I suspect that’s because they are all growing and the legal departments are getting ever larger.

You want to feed off the big organizations, expect their legal departments to set the terms.

That’s how it works.

[Bill Davis]

I’d like to note just one more thing in this discussion.

The primary purpose of a light kit is NOT to bundle together the finest solution to any particular lighting situation. That’s may be the SECONDARY purpose of the best of the kits, but the PRIMARY purpose of any kit is to encourage INCREASED SALES within a particular companies product line. This is just basic business 101. The company provides you with a modest discount as you buy and spend MORE money on their products. This helps the company survive and prosper.

Again, nothing wrong with this. It’s a fundamental business premis across virtually all industries.

The best companies DO work hard to make the kits useful and to meet the needs of their customers – but they also understand that if they were to offer kits to truly match the needs of all their customers, they’d have 1000 different kit variations. And that’s totally impractical.

Kits are great. But they’re NOT solutions in a box. At best they’re an excellent way to save a small percentage of cost, or get a few modest cost accessories and a nice box bundled into the retail price of a set of instruments – often chosen to make sure the “price point” of the kit – fits in with what their customers historically wish to spend.

Not a bad way to start. But again, a START – NOT really a solution in a box.

For what it’s worth.

[Bill Davis]

Melissa,

Unfortunately, I’m still not sure you’re understanding this.

It’s as if you went out to have someone specify the factors that make up a good race car.

You’ve gotten the specifications for what kind of engine, what kind of tires, and some specifications for how strong the roll cage must be.

What you don’t have is an understanding of how to RACE.

The likely outcome of this approach is bad accidents in racing. For video, a similar approach can only result in extremely sub-standard in video.

Sorry.

[Bill Davis]

Please explain to the entire world why spending $3-5k to purchase a video capable DSLR is exactly the same as spending $3-5k to buy a nice used piano.

EVERYONE intuitively understands that ownership of a piano does NOT make anyone a musician.

But NOBODY seems to understand that about a DSLR.

(Personally, I think it’s because the camera has a nice simple button that makes it a red light go on – something vastly satisfying to the reptilian part of the human brain which interprets the light as “I’m making a MOVIE!!!!” while turning on an electric keyboard, for example, only frustrates us when we push the keys and receive only uncoordinated noise in return.)

Thank you.

[Bill Davis]

Dear Melissa,

I’ve been lighting and shooting professional video for more than 20 years…and I’d like to own a kit like that too!

I’d also like to own a food replicator just like the ones’ in Star Trek – you know, where you push a button and anything from a cheeseburger to a hot fudge sunday comes out of the gizmo in about 5 seconds.

Sadly, both of us are going to be disappointed.

[Bill Davis]

You guys are largely MISSING THE POINT.

Pulling a good key TODAY is LESS sensitive to color space issues and MORE sensitive to RESOLUTION.

Think about it for a second. When we were all working with SD analog video, then the amount of information contained for EACH pixel – particularly the OFFSET between the color info pixels and the luminance value pixels was CRITICAL for keying. This is because the WHOLE signal was working with VERY limited resolution. (640×480 rasters)

Now, suddenly, you can work in a 1920 x 1024 raster – that’s an INCREDIBLE increase in the ability of the signal itself to DEFINE EDGES between the INDIVIDUAL PIXELS in a picture.

So suddenly, instead of gross fuzzy edges between things – you’ve got TIGHT well-defined edges. And VOILA – you can KEY based on that much tighter difference!

You’ve got to STOP thinking you can apply SD concepts directly to to modern HD video signals such as those generated by a modern high-rez DSLR. The historical “Chroma schmutz” (my term) of SD is dwindling as resolution increases. Yes, if you want to key for a big screen MOVIE, you should consider chasing these distinctions. But for common, garden variety video – a DSLR image will RUN RINGS around ANY classic SD source for keying.

And I can tell you directly, after keying a LOT of DSLR footage – that the keys I can pull now, are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better than I could EVER pull back in the day of SD video.

Simple as that.