Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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As a musician for well over a decade, I would be the last person to disagree with you on the point of ethics in using copyrighted material. From an ethical standpoint, there is no justification for a client/employer to scoff at paying licensing fees if they so desperately “need” to use a particular song or video clip.
That said, the issue being debated here revolves more around the legal implications, and that is where my own comments upstream have focused.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I AGREE. There are some awfully paranoid people here who don’t seem to understand copyright law. The editors of an internal use video are NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER going to wind up in a copyright infringement lawsuit. EVER. EVER!
One must prove damages as part of a copyright lawsuit. In an internal use video, no money was made, no market value was diluted, and since copyright lawsuits are federal they are extremely expensive to pursue. They will, worst case scenario, send your company a cease and desist. The sky, contrary to popular opinion, is not falling.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Personally I think your frustrations, while perfectly valid, are aimed in the wrong direction. The case has been made that the lack of female participation here is due to lack of interest from women, plain and simple. If that irritates you or makes you feel like the Cow is less because of it, why not recruit some of your female friends to participate? When you get down to it, there’s nothing any of us can do short of being encouraging and inviting. I think this site does an excellent job on both fronts.
And as a side note, if you feel attacked it might be because no answers, no matter how sincere (or true) have seemed to satisfy you. I get the feeling we are all trying to make the same point using different wording in hopes that you will get the message – want more of X on the Cow? Make it so!
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I was going to open this can o’ worms as well. When you get down to it, where should the line be drawn? Of course that always depends on personal convictions, but at what point are you contributing to bad mojo in the world vs. merely earning a living? Personally, I loathe pharmaceutical companies and 99% of the crap they peddle nonstop on TV, but that industry provides a decent amount of work to our industry. I recently accepted a project for a particularly unsavory pharm, marketing a drug that was essentially being positioned to replace a common vitamin. Given that the PHARM lobby spends big money trying to discredit vitamin use every chance they get, this was a bitter pill to swallow if you’ll pardon the lame pun.
Immoral? Just paying bills? Hard to say, but it didn’t feel good. I probably will turn down more jobs that conflict with my values once I can better afford to. In the meantime, maybe I will just charge them a karma-markup.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Personally, I would just tell them that your company does not accept projects that may in any way be considered morally questionable, to avoid the risk of losing current/future customers. If you are polite you don’t slam any doors (your contact there may go on to work for a better company and keep you in mind) and will make the point without feeling like a jerk.
I think it’s very important for studios to maintain a certain ethical standard, and bravo to you for being willing to turn it down. Some shops seem to take any work they can get no matter how immoral or depraved.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Every producer I ever worked under as a freelancer back in the day was a woman. Most studios I have worked for had women as senior management, producing, directing etc. I have worked with several female designers, not as many editors (as Walter mentioned) but everywhere I’ve been, there’s been a woman at the helm or in very key positions.
Now that I run my own studio, half of my clients are female producers, agency reps or marketing directors. less than half of the contractors we hire are women, but only in certain fields. Again, as Walter pointed out I have never received a resume or reel from a female DP or editor – I can only assume there are just certain disciplines that less women are pursuing.
As for the leaders, it has been mentioned but they are selected based on posting habits, helpfulness etc. and, in my own view, only about 10% of posters on CC are women. Every one of the frequent posters I see are men. This tells me it’s not a sexism issue at all, but rather a lack of more women posting here on a regular basis. I wish that would change, but what can we do?
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
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You didn’t say whether these quality problems also appear when you do a high resolution render out of Final Cut Pro. Without that info, I will assume you are talking about what you see in the FCP timeline.
FCP has a real-time rendering function called RT that will reduce the quality of the footage as much as it needs to in order to play the video back at full speed. Since the Animation codec has a very high bitrate, FCP will make your footage look pretty bad in order to play back smoothly unless you have a very fast machine. You can temporarily disable the real-time function by using the little drop down box on the far left of the FCP timeline marked “RT.” Just tick off the following options:
– Unlimited RT
– Playback Video Quality – HIGH
– Playback Frame Rate – DynamicAnother possible issue is that you set up a DV-based timeline in FCP, but the footage you are using is in the Animation Codec. Unless the majority of your timeline uses actual DV footage, you might want to change your FCP project/sequence to be Animation codec based instead.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
What do you mean when you say “big screen?” Movie theater? High definition television? Projector?
If you mean movie theater screens, the frame size for that is 2048×1536 (otherwise known as 2K). You can have standard definition sized video blown up to 35mm negative, but it is expensive.
You won’t be able to do much in the render, with After Effects everything depends on how large you built the project to begin with. If you built your project at 720×480, rendering out to a larger size is a waste of time since it will suffer quality loss.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
I agree 100%, especially the part about grinders.
It’s crucial that all budget adjustments are in writing and signed off on before doing any of that work. This ESPECIALLY applies to rush situations because that’s where the grinders nab you – cost overruns that are “lost in the shuffle” sure as hell aren’t lost on them. After all, it’s a perfect opportunity for unjustified discounts!
Since your cost overruns weren’t signed off on, you have to just chalk it up to a learning experience that we’ve all dealt with many times.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com