[Bill Davis]

OK fair.

However, if you’re assessing technical standards of video origination remotely – I think my base opinion that there’s no good “real time” way to do that at 3000 miles distant stands. iChat won’t do it since the compression and delivery throughput will rob your signal of a lot of the elements I’d want to assess if it was me.

You could conceivably have them capture, process and ftp stills, but again, I think that will screw up the workflow unacceptably.

So unless you want to book some satellite time or have a T1 line at both locations, everything I can figure requires so much delay it would be problematic for checking full-frame video of a real-time event.

Maybe someone else here does this kind of thing more regularly – and knows a way – but outside of buying satellite uplink time – I don’t.

My 2 cents, anyway.

YMMV.

[Bill Davis]

I always enjoy Grinner’s perspective. But I don’t always agree. Like now.

Two cutters. Both get bad instructions that go against their instincts.

One throws up his hands and says “I can’t do it unless I change it into what *I* want.”

The other breaks through their insular thinking – adjusts their approach – understands that while a LOT of musicians need 88 keys to bring an audience to their feet – there are other cats – BB King comes to mind – who can play one single freeking NOTE for 10 straight minutes and transport 100 otherwise sane people in a overheated nightclub to a place closer to heaven.

So yeah, you can make it what YOU need it to be. Or you can see if you can find a different approach that might make it something special even tho it’s not precisely your cup of tea.

Which thinking helpls YOU grow?

And them that grows best – they tend to win over time…

for what it’s worth.

[Bill Davis]

You have one choice that will work.

Carefully hire someone who knows how to shoot – then get out of their way and let them do their job.

ANYTHING you could do to monitor real-time work from 3000 miles away will DESTROY the flow of the production and you’ll get WORSE results than doing nothing.

The only kind of control anyone really has in enhancing chances of success comes in consistently hiring people who are better than yourself to help you.

Good luck

[Bill Davis]

It’s a given that the Zacuto iPhone rig is silly. But I actually think it’s a slightly nuts compendium of two legitimate ideas.

Proposition 1. My wife has a regular gig on local TV as the on-camera host of a segment where she uses her educational skills (former teacher and instructional specialist) to do lifestyle segments including money saving tips in this down economy. This is a major independent TV station that used to be the ABC affiliate – so it’s no small cable operation. As a part of that gig, she regularly does some segments on where to find bargains at local small boutiques. On both the show and in her web column she regularly uses photos taken with… her iPhone. Which is my hand me down 2nd gen.-= not the newer higher density photo chip. The point of proposition 1 is that dismissing “small tech” because it’s not “as good” as older, bigger tech is a slippery slope. She’s using an iPhone for legitimate on-air work – albiet in a limited and sensible way. (Check out https://www.azfamily.com/yourlife and click on Live and Learn with Linda – for the article this week and the boutique photo attached is courtesy of her iPhone.)

Proposition 2 is that while Zacuto makes what I personally consider to be uncomfortably overpriced equipment – there IS a market for their wares and in an open competitive economy – they have the same right to sell their stuff as anyone else. The basic concept is that if someone does want to shoot video with their iPhone -why shouldn’t there be a stabilizer for it? If they can find a customer base, more power to them.

Heck, Zacuto is one of the major players in the Canon 5dMk ii conversion to shoulder-rigged camcorder form market and since I own a 5d , I’ve got to tell you that used properly, the full frame 35mm sensor in that camera design is capable of INCREDIBLE video imagery. Seriously – near RED CAMERA pixel density at a fraction of the price.

So let’s all not get too smug about this admittedly “at first blush” goofy little gizmo.

Someone working with view cameras probably said that about the original LEICA pocket film cams as well. And in hindsight – when small finally meets truly capable – the game will change yet again.

And we risk our own futures if we don’t keep an open mind.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Bill Davis]

Personally, I’ve never owned a track and dolly system, and likely never will.

In the time it typically takes to assemble, level light and capture a single dolly shot, I can get two to four traditional shots.

Dolly shots are, in my experience, more typically seen in commercials where long set-ups per short shot is the standard.

That said I have ALL my gear – including my key lights, video village, and the primary camera tripod on wheels which makes for efficient moves between locations. Those wheels are OK for some basic limited dolly type moves.

Also effective and super cheap is to use a shopping cart. (selected carefully for a rare lack wobbly wheels!) Particularly a shopping cart with a cushion and a kneeling junior videographer inside. You can get some very nice tracking shots that way and it takes a fraction of the time to set up a shot like that than it does for laying traditional track.

In short, track and dolly systems are a costly luxury that most programs don’t really need. For the exceptions- rent the gear and pay someone who works with them regularly – you’ll get MUCH better results that way than trying to own and operate something like this yourself.

My 2 cents worth anyway.

[Bill Davis]

Need a line item cost for make-up per day?
Go to Mandys or any of the other long time qualified crew sources for your area – look up someone under MAKE-UP. Call them. Tell them who you are and that you’re doing preliminary costing for your new job – and ask them for their day rate. I

Then call someone else and get THEIR rate and average them or go with the higher price to give you wiggle room in the budget.

Repeat for each job description.

All you’re doing is acknowledging that you’re new to the market and are researching rates. Any professional will be happy to talk to you because you’ll eventually be hiring and it’s a new source for possible work.

The working pros in your market know the rates better than WE ever will – because most of us aren’t in your market.

Simple as that.

[Bill Davis]

Had time to listen to #1 only.

As to critique, there’s noting wrong with your voice per se and you could be a fine narrator or voice talent.

However you’re primarily supporting your voice with air from your LUNGS – which is a mistake that most untrained speakers and singers make initially. That’s the source of the somewhat “breathy” undertones in your performance.

You need to support your voice from your DIAPHRAGM instead. To understand the difference, try reading a longish passage with your hand over your heart and concentrate on keeping your chest wall absolutely still.

You can TRAIN your diaphragm like any other set of muscles. Start reading aloud every day. 5-10 minutes at first, longer as your muscle tone improves. Record yourself at LEAST once a week and listen back critically.

Notice the sounds and parts of speech where you might have trouble. For some, it’s “TH” sounds, or splashy “S” sounds or perhaps particular consonant combinations. (vowels are typically easy as they resonate well.) When you hear problems, concentrate practice on learning to handle them when you come across them in a script.

Do that and you can be very good at this.

Good luck.

[Bill Davis]

Just to complicate things further…

You’re correct, a 3 conductor plug into a 2 conductor socket (or vice versa) SHOULD NOT cause any problems.

However, most of us who’ve been around for long have probably run into a circumstance where someone has unknowingly wired a TRS plug or socket INCORRECTLY.

This usually shows up when you can’t get a proper audio signal unless the plug is pulled partially out of the socket. I know is sounds stupid, but it DOES happen if someone connects the RING circuit as the ground connection instead of the SLEEVE.

So given proper wiring, you’re correct, there’s no compatibility issue whatsoever.

[Bill Davis]

(QUOTE: I completely agree with you. Don’t sell time. But the point I was making related to the original question, what is the hourly/daily rate for an editor?)

Clearly, I wasn’t clear. 😉

When I said don’t sell time. I meant don’t sell time. No, not just “don’t” do it. Fight against it like you’d fight against a crack house setting up shop next door to your kids school.

And having/posting/establishing/listing on a form or writing on a wall an HOURLY rate is…. yep … selling time.

OK fine, yes, there are circumstances where clients FORCE you to quote them an hourly rate.

Along with that they will have a great desire to restrict you by budget, by deadline, and by focusing the discussion on the numbers and metrics that define THEIR viewpoint. And their viewpoint is often antithetical to what they really want.

Which is a video that blows the competition away, creates real brand awareness and/or drives some tangible results.

If upon viewing it, they actually LOVE your work – then a client thinking about what any hour you spent creating it cost – or how many of those hours it took to create – it is as rare as hair on a fish.

So here’s the secret.

You get to choose the balance of how you apply your brain to your work. You can let half – or even most of your productive time get caught up in pleasing the nice folks in the back office who ‘s jobs depend on comparing spreadsheets. They are important to keeping the customer, client, or corporation in business after all. But IMO if you go that path, at BEST you’ll toil for a long time as yet another producer in yet another company.

Or you can take a shot at being the fine artist rather than the commercial artist.

And to do so, requires thinking differently.

And one part of that thinking, in my experience, is to do everything in your power short of resorting to violence – NOT TO SELL YOUR TIME.

Maybe I’m wrong. But somebody out there right now is getting $10,000 to make a 10 minute video – and someone is getting $250,000 to make a video of the same length.

And I guarantee you the expensive one DOES NOT have 25 times higher costs.

What it likely DOES have is people being paid for their reputation and skill at delivering results – and those cats are NOT working for hourly wages.

Period.

For what it’s worth.

[Bill Davis]

Along with Ty’s always good advice I’ll just add some additional clarification for the new folks by saying that it’s a fundamental truth that you CANNOT have a balanced signal unless you generate and maintain THREE distinct conductor pathways throughout your wiring.

The very process that supresses noise in a properly wired “balanced signal” is that the signal is presented on one wire in the positive phase relative to the ground – and on the other wire in the negative phase.

Any inducted noise like RF or ground hum that’s picked up by the cabling will be present IN PHASE on both wires.

So at the termination, the balanced circuit inverts one leg and then SUMS the signals – suddenly the REAL signal is strengthened – AND (wonder of wonders) any inducted crap sees a perfect copy of itself OUT OF PHASE and is therefore SUPRESSED.

You cannot do this unless you have three separate conductors. So the use of any two conductor wire, wiring, or hardware ANYWHERE – whether it’s a TS connection OR sticking a RCA to XLR adaptor on the end of a wire – is fundamentally incompatible with a balanced signal. Period.

Yes, you can adapt a 2 wire signal to balanced using active electronics. Mixers and gizmos like the Beachtek and Studio One unbalanced to balanced converters turn unbalanced into balanced to get the benefits for the run of the cable. But without those active devices, you’ll ALWAYS have unbalanced signals unless both the signal generating and the signal receiving devices are wired to accept all three signals and the wiring between them preserve the balanced relationship.

Just over-emphasizing this in the interests of clarity since I see so many folks using cable adaptors without really understanding the fundamental nature of the balanced verses unbalanced process.

Pull out that nifty RCA to XLR adaptor and since one end (the RCA) is two conductor – your balanced signal stops right there. End of story.

FWIW.