Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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If you’re not using contracts with both clients and contractors, you won’t be in business long. Good idea on your part to start using them, there’s no reason a contract should make things any less “easy going” or somehow corrupt your company culture.
As a purely anecdotal example of why this is so important, a post house I used to freelance for many years ago recently got nailed by the IRS because one single independent contractor tried to file for unemployment after the job ended (“you’ll never work in this town again” comes to mind…). Every IC the studio ever used was up for review as to whether they were legit ICs or just misclassified employees. We all got calls or letters, and I know for a fact the studio wasn’t using subcontractor agreements that spelled things out. The studio head called me and we had a pretty good chat about it, although I could tell he was freaked out and facing hundreds of thousands in back taxes. I’m sure they did end up having to pay back payroll taxes, for every IC found not to be properly handled, going back several years. Ouch.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
The one thing I fear in this big push towards 3D is that it isn’t easy to do right and the “bad” implementations may turn people off to it altogether. It’s really complicated to get good results. I attended a 3D seminar at Dolby Labs featuring a bunch of well regarded VFX sups and it really opened my eyes to just how tough it is to get it right.
All in all, HD adoption took a decade and still counting. I am hoping 3DTV doesn’t take as long. I’m with you all around, this is some pretty cool stuff and very exciting for the future of media in general. I have a feeling that, short term, the internet will be the best venue for 3D simply because it sidesteps some of the tougher cost and tech hurdles in true 3DTV rollout, even if it is limited to the dreaded red&blues.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I agree 100% here. Contractual language is almost always the best way to deal with these types of issues. Our contract spells out that we have the right to use productions for self promotion. While 1-2 clients have asked us to revise that part of the contract, most don’t care at all – either way it’s only fair and proper to ask upfront in advance. If it’s sensitive work, such as internal communication etc., we usually remove the audio from the promo version so that people see our work but we aren’t exposing our clients unfairly.
Like Chris said, if the work was for an agency or other intermediary client, we make that clear and don’t just list the end client’s name. The goal is to be fair, honest and upfront.
As for contractors using the work, we also use contractual language to control this. They can use the work (if our client lets US use it) but must specify their role.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
“In other words, someone accustomed to the $200 local ad is never going to be the customer for higher-end productions.”
While I definitely agree with you, I don’t think the big-picture problem is that simple – it’s not purely about finding customers who are used to paying more for production services, because we’re looking at a paradigm shift that’s happening at all levels. Notice how many Fortune 50 company adverts (web or otherwise) were purposely shot like crud to capitalize on the whole YouTube, user-generated “authentic” revolution? Giants like Burger King etc. all do it, but you WON’T see them using that look for shots of their actual product. For that, they cut to the same masterfully shot film we would expect. They know better than to harm the brand, but they are absolutely on the lookout for ways to cut costs AND dial in to the Facebook/Twitter/YouTube paradigm, which dictates that authenticity and making gut-level connections with the audience is far more important than other factors, quality included. They are shifting toward building communities around their brands, rather than focusing on expensive wow-factor.
The point is that there are some things that can be shot cheaply without reflecting directly on the product or company image. In the quest for cost savings, every company on earth is reviewing their budget and they WILL go the cheap route for anything that doesn’t harm the brand. This is why I said corporate video, especially the talking head variety, is a dead man walking – there’s no need to shoot 90% of that in high-quality video/film with weeks of post, especially when viewed from the client’s ROI-driven perspective.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I think this further highlights the discussion downstream about the impact low-cost providers will have on our industry. As I mentioned in that thread, the “quality” debate appears to be a losing battle, long term, because it will only get harder and harder to make a firm case that quality has impact where it counts – our client’s ROI.
I was particularly struck by the line “you need to educate your customer base to appreciate the value of your quality added to the product.” This implies that the problem is merely lack of customer education, but what argument could one use to make this case, especially if the benefit is so non-obvious to them that it requires explanation? What, specifically DOES quality add to the equation? Can any of us put a dollar value, in terms of ROI, on quality level? In your specific situation (customer testimonials), does quality of production have any impact on the message being delivered, or the audience’s reception of that message? One could quite convincingly argue that a homebrew presentation has much more authenticity than a professional production, and therefore might carry MORE weight with customers in this application. While it hurts to accept because our financial well being is in the crosshairs, Gitomer and others are probably right, and this particular application of video production is only the tip of the iceberg.
For the record, I am NOT saying that quality doesn’t matter. My position is that it no longer seems to be an obvious and quantifiable benefit of higher-cost production (YouTube etc. has changed all of that) in and of itself. Unless you want to have to constantly “educate” each and every customer as to why they should pay you more, using increasingly thin reasoning to support that argument, another path is required.
The only way to avoid being forced to compete with low-cost providers is to offer services who’s value is obvious, compelling and out of reach of the lower-tier production houses. If you offer a quality product, it needs to be aimed specifically at industries, companies, audiences and applications where your quality truly does make a difference. Corporate/industrials/testimonials are all very likely to be the first to go in my opinion.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t familiar with this particular system so I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. I just assumed the OPs problem was trying to feed an uncompressed video into an underpowered system.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Haha, yes I was not even remotely suggesting this to be something the Cow would be involved in at all, just a personal pursuit of truth and justice.
And yes, I would consult a lawyer before even considering it further.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
You make some great observations. I would only say that your boss had a point – as the business owner, he was presumably targeting lower dollar, higher volume work (which is a legitimate model) while you, being an artist with pride in your work, were trying to deliver higher quality work than his business model could sustain. It was a fundamental mismatch in needs – art vs. income – a mismatch that defines our entire industry. We are all prideful artists, so we accept lower pay and sloppy business practices in return for artistic satisfaction. On the other side, those who pursue business at the expense of the art are treated as greedy outsiders. Is either side right?
My studio has struggled over the past few years with this very issue. We can do very high quality work, and it’s a matter of pride for us. The end result is that we inevitably give our clients way more than they pay for, just because we don’t like doing work that reflects poorly on us. From a personal perspective it’s more rewarding, but from a business perspective it’s a slow atrophy that leads to death by a thousand cuts. The answer to this problem is simple. If you run a business, you have traded in your artist hat for that of business owner, and therefore have a duty to your employees and your personal finances to run the business well, whatever it requires, without crossing any ethical or moral lines. End of story.
Here’s two quick points I would like to add:
– For as long as I can remember, the realm of video production has been limited to those with the biggest of budgets, maybe the top 30% of companies out there could afford it. Clearly, the lower-budget clients of the world represent a huge majority, a vast underserved market. Now that production is getting so cheap, it only makes sense that most new business, the wild west, is going to be centered around cheap, fast video catering to these once ignored markets. Even if you and I choose not to pursue that business, it’s going to have a profound effect on us like it or not.
– Businesses, which by and large make up our entire customer base, live and die by return on investment. “Quality” means nothing to them unless there is a quantifiable, increased return on investment great enough to offset the risk of paying so much more for that quality. As consumers embrace user generated video, and the onslaught of video-mills lowers the bar, consumers will become desensitized and lower quality will become more and more acceptable in the marketing arena. Clearly, quality isn’t going to be something we can hang our hats on much longer.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I hear you, but sue for what? I can jump on Yelp and type out a scathing, damaging review of a restaurant without any fear of being sued, and clearly Yelp is under no threat (I’m sure they have many a disclaimer on the site). How is that different than my hypothetical proposal? Even if a particular accusation is untrue, it seems to me that this is protected speech – otherwise Yelp and all other review sites would have been sued out of existence.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Dave’s response is 100% spot on, and here’s a few additional points:
1. You shot in interlaced. Bad idea. Always shoot progressive for greenscreen, and ideally at the highest frame rate possible (24p motion blur can be a disaster to key). With most cameras, 30p is the best format, even if that limits you to 720p (I sincerely doubt you’re delivering @ 1080 anyway, right?). Bear in mind that virtually all prosumer cameras only do “fake” progressive. 24p isn’t 24 progressive frames, it’s 29.97 with some back-end trickery that makes it appear as progressive in your editing app. The solution is to shoot in 30p, and pull that footage into Apple’s Cinema Tools (included with FCP). This tool will convert the footage to “Real” progressive that can then be used for proper keying.
2. HDV is not real HD. HDV cameras (any prosumer HD camera, actually) shoots at 1440×1080, then your editing/compositing app stretches it out to 1920×1080. In other words, it’s fake HD – see a “fake” pattern here? Anyway, that massive amount of stretching reduces your image quality horribly, as you can imagine. This isn’t as visually obvious when you’re just watching regular HDV video, but keying is done on a pixel by pixel level so those details really start to matter.
3. All prosumer HD cameras suck badly when it comes to grain, especially in low light. It’s a good idea to use more intense lighting and stop down the camera to get the look you want. This ensures that the camera is getting plenty of light, and modulating that after the fact. When your lens is wide open, or even close to it, there’s gonna be a lot of grain.
In the end, “fake” HD just plain sucks for effects work, possibly even worse than traditional MiniDV because the “tricks” it employs are so much more extreme. It looks ok on screen if you shot it perfectly, but that perceived quality relies a lot of precarious back-end silliness that immediately breaks down under even the most basic color correction, much less effects work.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com