[Brian Wells]

If you’re just getting started (or if you’ve been in business for 10 years…) the best use of your time (and money) is in promoting your services to clients and ad agencies — NOT buying more stuff.

Here’s a bit of advice. Every shoot requires specialized equipment which is generally too expensive to buy.

For example, a local car commercial where I live usually consists of a female spokesperson talking about the weekly specials while walking towards a camera which is mounted on a Steadicam. They generally use a wireless microphone of some sort to capture her dialogue.

This commercial requires two things you haven’t mentioned. A $11,000 Steadicam and a $2500 Wireless Mic.

Another example is a commercial for a professional (i.e. – dentist, lawyer, etc.)
These types of shoots generally require a substantial amount of light and grip equipment.

Truth is, you don’t really need any gear to shoot commercials. That is, if you don’t mind renting every time! Renting and leasing are usually bad deals if you can afford to own, but if you can’t, it’s not a bad alternative.

It’s very difficult to sell your service without an impressive demo reel. In fact, impossible. You will likely come to realize the only way to establish yourself in this industry will require a lot of money, a lot of your own money. And, many years of doing hard work and paying dues.

You will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t LOVE their job as a Director of Photography.

[Brian Wells]

Peter,

Thanks for clarification on the Sony cameras you mention. Whether or not the DVX camera has a similar signal routing, this pretty much confirms my fundamental understanding of how “it could work”

The talk of “uncompressed” output from a HD100 (I only mention this specific camera because of the limitations of not recording 60p to tape, for no other reason.. This looks like a nice camera, okay) seems to be “talked-up” per say as a “groundbreaking” feature that seems to have been there all along in (at least some) DV camera products.

I’m definitely not into hype and I’m glad to have confirmed that “uncompressed” output on a DV or HDV camera is not a “groundbreaking” feature as has been illuded by certain folks.

Looking forward to great things in digital video this coming year!

Best,
Brian Wells
Texas

PS. – I’ll try to update my Profile on here soon. Thanks again, Peter.

[Brian Wells]

I suppose my comment was made with the impression that all DSP in a camera is performed at the same point in the chain and that if you’ve got white balance on output, then you’ve also got chroma sampling, characteristic curves, etc.

Perhaps I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the HD component outputs on the FX1/Z1 and HD100 camcorders. I thought they were outputting 4:2:0 sampled footage and because it was coming out of an analog connector, you could call it “uncompressed” the same way Media100 calls DV editing “uncompressed” or the same way any other editor works “uncompressed” Says nothing about the raw material but only about the way it’s recorded.

Do I misunderstand the analog output of a HDV camera? Just looking at it, it doesn’t appear any more “uncompressed” than if one were using DV, but then I haven’t verified this either. Please advise.

Thanks,
Brian

[Brian Wells]

But Barry.. The DVX100 also has “uncompressed output” as well.
It’s done over the S-Video connector.
Analog HD Component isn’t any different in that regard.

Expect these guys to macgyver a HVX the same way they did the DVX.

How they intend to handle that much data is unknown at this time,
as the bandwidth exceeds that of USB2.0, FireWire400, FireWire800.

[Brian Wells]

Your assessment is terribly inaccurate.

In Super35mm motion picture speak, a DVX100 with a 0.6X Century Optics adapter is roughly comparable to the field of view offered by a 12mm lens on a film camera.. as a generalisation… The DVX would actually be a tad bit wider.