Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
-
I’m actual a little hazy on this.
Yes, normally copyright law requires one to get permission from anyone who’s intellectual property is used in a derivative work. But there are certain exceptons. This clearly does NOT fall under fair use. However, I’d be interested to hear from an actual IP attorney about a situation like this.
You’ve got corporate logos that those companies display to the public on a regular basis. You’ve also got them displayed in context with a business which is – by displaying them is implying that there’s some form of contractual or other similar business relationship between the logo’s rights holders and the business wherein they are displayed. It’s POSSIBLE that the business displaying them has a perfect contractual right to display the logos of their partners – and if so, your including them in your video of the company interior might not present a copyright violation at all.
Obviously, better to check with the powers that be. But I’d think that if the company you’re shooting for is a legitimate, law abiding concern – there would be very little chance that you’d be held to account for including such a display of logos in your own video.
Again, I’m NOT an IP lawyer and I’m NOT saying it’s legal. I’m just thinking that inside the hundreds of pages of legal agreements I’ve had to read about copyright issues over my career, the use of corporate logos is nearly ALWAYS a line item that’s contractually covered when one big company agrees to enter into a business agreement with another and you MIGHT find that all the logos are perfectly OK to use in your video by virtue of those boilerplate agreements.
If you find something tangible about this subject, I’d appreciate it if you’d post back and let us all know.
Good luck.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
If these are the folks I’m thinking of, they’ve been around for a LONG time. They had large display ads in the back of most consumer video magazines back during the decade I was a contributing editor at Videomaker Magazine.
They also showed up at many of the trade shows where I was lecturing or teaching.
The “turnkey” franchise solution is typical of the breed. $50,000 to $75,000 to buy in (but that can grow up to $100,000k pretty quick if you buy all the “extras”. That gets a hardware setup based on FCP and a Mac with pre-selected gear in areas like decks, a camcorder, audio mixer, etc. plus training materials and “marketing” help. While the gear is nothing special – it all technically works – so it’s not a legal scam in any fashion – and who’s to say it’s “overpriced” in a world where the margins on something like Pentagon procurement or even non-sale RETAIL might be even higher on some of the stuff?
So the concept’s been running more than a decade now.
To my way of thinking, there’s nothing patently illegal about it, it’s just trolling for people with more money than common sense who can be convinced that tools and a few lessons are all that’s required to start a business as complex as video production.
I kinda think it’s roughly equivalent to selling AND GIVING piano lessons over the telephone. Not impossible. Certainly not illegal. Just really, really stupid if you take the time to think about it for too long.
I think this is why Caviat Emptor remains in the human lexicon.
And why PT Barnum is so widely known.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Ala,
Again, be careful here.
SOME people swear by the Z-finder solution. Personally I rejected it early.
The BIG advantage is that used with the typical RAILS system or with any kind of shoulder brace, shooters greatly like the fact that the Z-finder or equivalent gives the camera another point of stabilization when it’s braced on your face. And the better ‘stick on viewfinders” with good optics can give you a clearer picture of the camera’s existing monitor. The Z-finder is certainly in this class. All well and good.
BUT – I personally fine MUCH more utility with an external mounted monitor. Why? A few reasons.
First and foremost, the Z-finder has to be semi-permanently affixed to your camera body. Manufacturers of these have changed mounting system multiple times in their brief history, with velcro, and various glue-on retaining stages in use. My personal feeling is that Camcorder manufacturers won’t take too many more product rev cycles to respond to DSLR’s encrochment into their space and have true camcorder models with the imaging power of today’s DSLR with proper audio, white balance, and other sub-systems that make DSLR video more difficult than it needs to be today. If so, then investments in DSLR systems will be VERY hard to recover. Particularly investments that ONLY work with a particular form factor or design.
An external monitory will likely NEVER lose it’s utility. Today you might hang it from a DSLR, tomorrow you’ll use it as a jib monitor, or on a steadicam style rig, or as a client monitor on set, or as a second monitor for a 2-camera setup.
The point is that a flat screen monitor is WORLDS more flexible than a single purpose DSLR viewer.
Also realize that any loop style monitor REQUIRES you to shoot handheld unless you DUMP the very device you just paid for. And particularly with light weight cameras such as DSLRs, my personal experience is that one in ten thousand shooters have the muscular skills to truely, properly control a small DSLR to control the “shakey cam” look.
Also, the COST of some of the viewfinders, the Zacuto in particular, are VERY steep. That’s not saying the engineering and design aren’t worth it. Perhaps they are. But at HUNDREDS of dollars typically – for a product that my next camera switchout may make functionally useless – well, lets just say I’m hesitant to commit my own money to that path.
Just more to consider. It’s totally your call. And it depends on how deep your pockets are and the style of shooting you decide to emphasize.
For what it’s worth, anyway.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
I’m going to chime in here and add my voice of caution.
Not about the concept. I think it’s a GREAT option in certain circumstances. Giving an iPhone the “capability” of being used as a field reporters link will certainly let someone, somewhere file a story that they simply would not have been able to do any other way.
But…
I absolutely agree that the iPhone – as wonderful a gadget as it is (and I’ve owned EVERY model since v1) is NOT constructed to anywhere NEAR a ruggedness standard necessary for long time reliable field recorder use. The right angle 3.5mm plug for some strain relief is a start, but unless you do something like religiously gaffer tape it to the phone body during use, I’d expect shorting and noise at the connection within a few weeks of use. Too back they didn’t use the dock connector for this gizmo. That would have at LEAST had the enhanced reliability of spreading the strain at the point of entry over a significantly wider chassis area.
If it’s a company phone – no big deal. Break it and they can replace it without blinking.
If it’s YOUR phone and your contract, I’d want an employer agreement that if company use caused my phone to break – I’d get support to get it fixed.
My 2 cents worth – earned by having had at LEAST 6 interactions with iPhone service, mostly after my much loved but ham-fisted teenage son has sunk nearly every model that has been handed down for his use. Headphone jack problems leading the way slightly over broken faceplates.
YMMV.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Ala,
There’s actually a level beyond your question that’s important. It’s a personal preference thing you have to address before you decide how you’re going to build your shooting rig.
Some folks take what I’ll call the “CAGE” approach. That’s to use one of the many rails based systems to build a cage that surrounds the camera off of which they hang extras – mics, an H4n, a small monitor like the Marshall. Wireless receivers, etc. The benefit is that this ENTIRE shooting system can mount and unmount from a tripod or jib and all the functioning pieces stay intact. For “run and gun” work this is often a preference.
The other approach (“Freestyle?) is to mount your components separately. For example, to forgo the “cage” entirely and mount your external peripherals like the monitor and audio receivers and whatever to the TRIPOD and leave the camera itself unencumbered. In this configuration, you can pull the camera and go shoot stills or a quick MOS video shot without dragging along the much bigger rig.
The big difference, in my way of thinking is that in the FREESTYLE config, all the peripheral equipment stays ORIENTED to the operator regardless of where you point the camera.
Think about it. If you’re shooing a podium presentation in a ballroom, and someone stands up in the crowd behind you – and you decide to PAN 180 degrees to follow the action – it’s often a REAL HASSLE when the CAGE also swings your monitor and audio meters and everything else into a position where you can’t operate them without dancing around your tripod like a whirling dervish. This is particularly a hassle if you’re using something like a spider pod or other elevated shooting platform.
Neither setup is “right” or “wrong” they’re just different and so I think you need to decide how you’re going to shoot, before you decide how you’re going to mount.
After you decide that, you can start collecting magic arms, Mafer clamps, or cage rails as you see fit.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Ala,
Nearly every DSLR (including yours) has a simple 1/4-20 threaded mount on the bottom. It matches the threaded mount on the bottom of all camcorders (camcorders typically pair it with a small optional “guide pin” that can be screwed in if you don’t want to use it.)
Nearly every system for add-ons comes with matching threaded mounts. Even if your particular “rails” system or mounting option does NOT come with a matching threaded screw, you can easily use one of the very common photo equipment mounts like the ubiquitous Bogen 143 BKT mounting bracket that screws onto the bottom of the camera and then allows you to mount the result to most stands and rails.
It’s NOT complicated.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Yes, Digg’s current problems are a nice warning that even agile, modern “plugged in” types like Kevin Rose are susceptible to the lure of thinking that “what *I* want is exactly what the majority of my users must want.”
I also think Kevin got caught up in thinking that his audience was like the people that show up to his live Diggnation events. I think that thinking is, in itself, suspect.
I’ve been a Digg participant for about 5 years now. I check it every day and like Mike, I always valued it as an alternate source of slightly offbeat news and interesting stories that filtered through the attention sieve of the community.
But as much as I enjoy it – I’m neither a fan nor much of a participant in social media. Far too much of social media is, to my tastes, a vast wasteland of drivel. There’s hardly ANYONE about whom I wish to “follow” in 140 character bites. Why? Because the percentage of the people in the world who can actually communicate something useful in 140 characters is vanishingly small.
And even with my friends, when big changes happen in life – e.g. status change from “single” to “in a relationship?” somehow I always managed to get that info about anyone I truly cared about without a computer between us.
Yes, some form of social media will remain with us, likely forever. But if Kevin thinks hitching the DIGG wagon to some social media trend is going to enhance it by allowing us to assimilate into “like minded” communities of DIGGERS – all I’ve got to say is that the whole thing I LIKE about DIGG is that it was a place to stumble on things that were fresh to my perspective.
The whole exercise seems a waste of time to me.
But I’m old. So WTF.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Another thing not mentioned here is to use the inverse square principal to your ADVANTAGE.
If you’re using a boom mounted mic that’s 4 feet away from the subject – and have an air vent that’s 8 feet away (double the distance), there’s just a 2 to 1 relationship between them, so the background sound will be just 4 times less than the speech you want to cleanly record.
A chest mounted lav (or better yet, a hair mounted micro lav) that’s 6″ to a foot from the mouth is going to increase the voice/background differential from 4 to 1 to a whopping 32 to 1 for the lav, or an even better 64 to 1 for the hair mounted lav.
And since you’re moving the pickup closer, you can choose a LESS sensitive lav that will actually suppress MORE background sound relative to a highly sensitive mic in the same position. And really good lavs will also allow you to use low cut filters to diminish stuff like AC duct rumble even more.
It’s not rocket science, it’s just high school physics – but it’s still unavoidable.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Hey Steve,
If you’re still working on this a LOT of the Mac community is talking about ScreenFlow.
It’s a brand new app that just won a big Apple Design Award.
It’s supposed to really leverage Quartz Extreme and Core Animation and a bunch of other Mac Technologies to create stunning screen recordings.
The Apple page is here.
https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/screenflow.html
Might be worth looking at.
Take care, stay cool!
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com -
Actually, not that much. Sorta.
In large measure the quality “hit” probably took place back when the original video was encoded to MPEG-2 and authored onto the DVD. That might have been done preserving the signal well, or it might have been doing using bad encoding settings. If so, you’ll never get the quality back.
So hope for a good original encoding.
Now that the encoding is a done deal, what you need to watch out for are transcoding errors on the way back form DVD to DV.
You want to decode back to as robust a DV stream as possible, before taking that and encoding it to AVI. And when you DO encode to AVI, again, you want to do so with as little compression as possible.
There are a lot of ways to get a signal off DVD and into your editing system, from direct digital transfer – to hooking up a video feed and simply reading the signal back into a DV deck via composite, component, or S-video.
There are programs designed specifically for ripping DVDs back into digital video. In the Mac world where I work, I use DVDxDV – which does direct digital data transfer. If you’re on a PC I’m sure there are equivalent programs.
Good luck.
FCP since NAB 1999
creator: muti-track movies
http://www.starteditingnow.com