Chip Thome
Forum Replies Created
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It sounds as though you knew the company was booked and told her so, correct ??? IMO, you just covered the ethics aspect, as you are not stealing any biz any from your boss, who is booked anyways. BUT, that’s the LEAST of the discussion that should be going on here.
Your boss is an IDIOT for trying to get away paying you as close to nothing as he can. There are numerous guys paying very experienced wedding shooters the same for a day rate that you make in a week !!!
If it were me and my pay rate was $9, I’d be sitting down with this person and just chatting. I’d find out what they were thinking of as far as compensation for you, and if there’s a good chance for more work in the future. I would be using my own gear or that from this other person, definitely not your current boss’s stuff.
IMO, the chances of you going from $9 an hour to a decent day rate with your current boss are about zero. The downside of losing a $9 an hour video job is you go to $7.50 an hour and ask people if they “want fries with that?” I’d suggest keeping your eyes and ears open, like this opportunity, as you never know where these networking connections can lead.
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If you buy a Mac, first off your Vegas might as well go on Ebay because it’s not going to install, ever, on a Mac. As far as Final Cut X, there are guys jumping the Apple ship all over the place because of it. The option of going backwards to Final Cut 7, that’s old outdated software that will be as much or more of a PITA than what you are doing now.
A fast i7 PC with 8gb of RAM is going to do everything you want and would probably cost you about $1000. I would suggest a good NVIDIA card so at some time you can look seriously at Adobe Products. The Adobe Production Premium Suite where you get Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop among others is all the software you will need for editing purposes. For your audio syncing, look seriously at either Dual Eyes or Plural Eyes to speed up your workflow.
The thing about going this route, you can do this in stages as your wallet may allow. If you jump to Mac, you are going to do both the computer and your software, right off the bat.
My opinion and my bigger concern about going to Mac is the entire Apple business model right now sure appears to be geared toward handheld “devices” and away from the personal computer workstation. It’s not too hard to see why, their sales breakdown shows huge growth in devices, where devices have surpassed computers in Apple’s overall sales volume.
Those are my thoughts and as always YMMV.
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I have the same camera and just did some portraits of a lady last week. My working space was similar, somewhere between 3 and 4 meters distance. I used the Nikon 35mm f1.8G and shot with the camera tipped 90 degrees to produce a taller than wider image aspect ratio. I am very pleased with the results and found that when shooting images in a “portrait” mode as of against a “horizontal” mode the 35 was plenty. If you want to shoot in the horizontal mode, where the image is wider than it is tall, then you are best to use the kits lens as it takes a focal length of about 20-24mm maximum to accomplish that.
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Here’s my take.
Daddy hired you to shoot footage. At a future date Daddy is then going to hire you to edit a highlights film. These are two separate transactions with separate compensation. IMO this makes him the owner of that footage, not you. You were hired expressly to capture game footage for him, not whoever walks up to you later, too.
IMO, and as others have said I am no lawyer, had this been one nice and neat bundled package with one price of $XXXX for Junior’s highlight film which would consist of you somehow acquiring all the footage and editing, THEN you, or whoever you got it from, would own the footage and could do as you or they pleased with it.
What I would do now is concentrate on getting footage of Junior and let the rest fend for themselves. If all of a sudden you have multiple clients, how are you going to get all the great plays each has? At some point you would have to decide, “do I focus on Joe for this play or on Jim?” Murphy’s Law says when that happens, the one you don’t pick WILL make the play of the year!
PS…if Daddy’s got money to burn….he also probably has a real good lawyer too. 🙂
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The one thing you are not taking into consideration here is the greed factor.
There are going to be times when you are going to have to take some short deals, just to keep some income coming in. 15% of a short deal isn’t going to be anywhere near what it sounds like you are going to pay your second shooter for these next four gigs.
If you give your second shooter BIG BUCKS for these four gigs, it is now mentally set in his mind that is how much money, not percentage, you are going to be paying forever! If you run into a run of three or four short deals and try to get away with a shorter 15%, he’s going to either beech about the low pay, complain that you aren’t getting enough money for the gigs, or going to go looking elsewhere for the amount you used to pay him.
Seeing how you have had to build the company from nothing. Find and recruit the people. Go out and find the customers. Sell the customers. Create and maintain any advertizing or web presence. Purchase any additional gear and peripherals. Have had to do all the rest of getting a business going before the first dollar comes in. PLUS have to go shoot these weddings and edit etc, deliver, listen to any complaints, fix any issues that arise and are at risk for any liability that may arise. When you take all that into account, at 15% HE is making a killing and YOU are losing your shirt!
In the industry that incorporates my day job, the average net profit after all expenses, after everyone is paid a good wage, after all deprecations, after all taxes and everything else that legitimately comes out of the checkbook, the average NET PROFIT for a business operating in this industry is just somewhere between 3% and 5% of gross sales. Under 10% NET PROFIT is customary for almost all businesses in this country.
I suggest to pay his day rate and maybe slide him a few bucks in cash when you are packing up as a thank you, if you feel compelled. IT will make a much better impression and won’t screw things up if the next deals are as big.
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If you haven’t done it already, get a large container of your favorite beverage and sit down tonight and watch all the DSLR Podcasts here on the Cow. When you are done, you will at least know some of the scope of all that is involved in DSLR shooting. I have enjoyed them and try not to miss any as each one covers something different and not necessarily in the order of “beginning – end”. They are free and right here and Rich and Robbie do make some of them pretty fun to watch.
Welcome and good luck !!!
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IMO, it shouldn’t be any different than shooting fireworks, which is basically what pyrotechnics are. If you can find the proper shutter speed for fireworks, I would think you should be good to go.
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Not quite the same situation at all. This is the Rokinon 85mm at f2.8 because f1.4 was blown out. Time was 2:45 AM and shot into a black, overcast, dead of night sky. Dome was located a block and a half away. Very minor adjustment to clip, just enough to bring flagpole a couple of degrees over to center. Shot with a Panasonic GH1.
https://www.vimeo.com/24335663
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Steve is right, you are going to be comparing apples and baseball bats trying to think you are going to put them side by side in a comparison. The shooting of a DSLR takes more photography knowledge than a camcorder does and acts more like a camera than camcorder too. But…..that’s what also gives it the great footage, so as Steve said, well worth it.
The 5d, by video DSLR standards, really is a pretty old piece of gear now. There’s been lots of talk about its replacement coming sometime this year. If you are hellbent on the high end Canon, wait for it. But that’s not your only choice and with DSLR you really should be open to which works best for you. Right now the Panasonic GH2 is the one to beat, even at less than half the cost of the 5d. But with so many new offerings in the wings, that could change twice before lunchtime next Monday.
I just bought the Nikon D5100, but for lots of different reasons that wouldn’t apply to you. But, the one thing that could apply, I picked the D5100 over the D7000 because the D5100 just came out in April. The D7000 came out last fall, and already there’s some rumors of it being replaced. If I were looking to the higher end, I’d try to hold off till at least Oct. 1 to see what gets announced for this Christmas season. Another option, buy a lower end DSLR, dive in with it for now and see if it fits your style. If you then find DSLR to be a PITA, you found that out for lots less than a 5d and lenses.
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If that is brand new, not a bad price. If it is used, that’s a touch pricey, keep looking.
As far as what it will do, Vimeo has a group dedicated to it. There are lots of clips there showing the abilities of the camera when it’s in the right hands. But even in a newb’s hands, hacked ones give impressive results.