Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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Tim Kolb:
Our ‘artistic ownership’ isn’t the same as someone who writes a song on their own and records and performs it…it’s similar to someone who is paid to write a jingle based on prescribed conditions and an agreed upon fee structure.I forgot to add…copyright law does not distinguish between “types” of creative works. It doesn’t specify that someone writing, producing and directing an independent film has any more rights or privileges than a production company producing a corporate marketing video.
And in the case of music production…and specifically jingles… every jingle writer we’ve worked with charges a base fee for writing and production, then charges a “per use” or licensing fee based on markets the music will be used in. If it’s national, it’s quite a bit higher than if it’s regional. The licensing fee is typically for a period of time (usually a year). After the year is up, you re-license the music based on the markets. Some will structure it as a buyout, but many still base the rate on the size of client, number of markets etc….which is completely fair.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
With all due respect…that’s simply not true. Copyright law has been around since 1790. It was modified in 1909 primarily because of the rise in popularity of motion pictures.
It was extended and slightly modified in 1976 because of, and I quote from a 1976 House of Representatives report:
“Television, motion pictures, sound recordings, and radio were cited as examples (for the modifications). The (new) Act was designed in part to address intellectual property questions raised by these new forms of communication.”
So the notion that current copyright law is based on still photographers intellectual property rights from shooting photos in war zones is just not accurate.
I’ve read (and re-read) the entire copyright law and all it’s provisions. Nowhere does it mention a work’s journalistic merits as superceding creative ones. In truth, it’s the opposite. It covers:
…”original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression…including (and listed in order), literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes and choreography, pictorial, graphic, sculpture, motion picture and other audiovisual works, and sound recordings.
We’ve NEVER had a client even question our position (until they were 4 months behind on bills). We’ve never had a client (that wasn’t trying to get out of paying bills), stop using us because of our position. I know dozens of colleagues (video companies and photography companies) who retain copyright of their work, and not one of them has ever had a client leave because of it.
One of our good clients right now is a Casino that asked for all their footage about 3 years ago. (their parent company was going through bankruptcy reorganization). We said we’d give them the footage for a very reasonable buyout fee. It was the equivalent of about $250 per tape and amounted to a grand total of $6000. If they had to reshoot all that stuff, it would’ve cost them $100,000 or more. They declined. Guess what? They still use us today. In fact, our relationship is BETTER now than it was then!
I agree the footage and finished works we create have little or no additional value. But copyright law was written to protect you financially. And that’s just what we use it for.
Lastly, this issue has NOTHING to do with customer service. How can people claim it’s bad customer service to follow a law that was written over 200 years ago to protect creative works?
It is NOT holding tapes hostage! Period. Those of us who retain ownership of our tapes are not somehow lesser business people, or giving clients lesser customer service.
These forums are great, but lets stop the misinformation on this issue. There are obviously two differing opinions. Both can work for a business.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Suggesting that a way to weed out clients is to hold tapes hostage does a disservice to folks trying to understand the intellectual property rights issue.
It suggests people and companies who claim copyright ownership of their footage are doing something unethical. We aren’t. Copyright laws were enacted for a reason…to protect the type of work we do. Most of our work is intangible. There is absolutely nothing unethical or underhanded about enforcing your right to ownership of the tapes and the footage that’s on them, as well as the finished product edited from that footage.
That’s right…in most instances, the production company owns the copyright to the finished product. The only time they don’t is if the producer or client is heavily involved in the creative aspects of production. And in that case, copyright is jointly owned.
If a client wishes to retain ownership, all they have to do is request that the project be done as “work for hire.” That’s it. In 25 years working in this business, I’ve never had one client ask. In the last 5 years, we include a sentence in contracts that clearly states we own the tapes, footage and the finished product. That too has never been questioned prior to a project.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…if you’re ever in a situation where a large client holds your latest invoice hostage until you deliver that next spot or set up that next shoot…(as we have had happen to us), believe me, you’ll be glad you have something of value as leverage in the deal. And for those wondering, yes we require desposits and don’t do the work until we get them. But a 30% deposit on a $$75,000 shoot leaves a pretty large balance.
“Holding tapes hostage” has probably led to us getting about $115,000 of nearly $215,000 in billing from a client. Without that leverage, we’d have probably been stiffed for the entire amount.
Since the ability to use the footage on the tapes or the finished product is virtually non-existent, financial protection is the key reason it’s actually a good practice to follow.
It’s also one of those issues where you have to use your judgement. We have another very large client that occasionally asks us to give footage to another production house that also edits projects for them. This client pays like clockwork with a bank transfer 7 days after we submit an invoice. They put us up in suites when we’re on the road. They feed us like royalty. So we gladly give the other production company digital copies of the footage (they use the same editing system as us so they just load them and edit).
Bottom line, there’s nothing wrong with companies who operate under the policy: “clients own the footage.” And there’s likewise nothing wrong with companies whose policy is “we own the footage.” They’re both ethical, and as this forum proves, you can be successful either way. I think the key issue is letting clients know up-front where you stand on the issue. Plus…on the majority of projects, it’s a non-issue.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Walter,
That’s why these forums are so great. It gives members so many differing points of view about these issues. And they can see there isn’t a certain way to do things nor is there one way to be successful.
5 years ago I would’ve agreed with you 100%. But after a couple of ugly client experiences, I’ve done a one eighty on this issue.
Neither experience was caused by anything we did improper, in fact both clients LOVED our work. But we’ve found there are a LOT of unscrupulous people out there who if they have the opportunity, will take advantage of small firms like ours (7 employees). Sadly in our experience it was two very large companies that tried to screw us out of payments AND get their hands on hundreds of tapes so they could go do the same thing to someone else. Our only line of defense was that footage. One company relented, paid us, and still uses us today (under different ownership but with the same core marketing staff)
The other company is mired in litigation from dozens of companies (including us) they did the same thing to. They would contract for services under the guise of their name and size, demand credit, then basically not pay for anything. And they’re solely owned by a prominent mega millionaire that owned an NBA sports franchise for 14 years! Think Mark Cuban rich.
Believe me, if you ever have a company do to you what these companies did to us, I bet you’d at the very least rethink your views on this issue. Both instances nearly put us out of business.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Interesting because we liked Canopus hardware and Edius much better than using it with Premiere. Guess it’s all about what works for each person. But everyone is right on this thread. Proper configuration is key on just about every system out there. And if you’re not knowledgeable or don’t have someone knowledgeable to configure the thing, it’s probably not going to work.
But I think in the original poster’s case, he has bad hardware somewhere. It sounds like he’s done most of the right things in troubleshooting, but that nobody’s been willing to step up and suggest what seems obvious to me. I’ve built and dealt with enough systems to suspect chronic problems like he describes are likely caused by the motherboard. It could be as simple as an out of date bios on the thing, but it’s unlikely that anything but the main board could cause this sort of catastrophic failure over and over.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Walter…I’m not saying there’s anything bad about using that business model and have said as much in many posts regarding this issue.
I’ve just never understood why it’s ok from a business model standpoint for musicians, artists, photographers, software programmers etc. etc. to own the work they create, but many people in our industry don’t believe it’s ok for us to do the same thing…and equate it with professional suicide.
From our experience, this issue rarely comes up with clients, but when it does, it’s typically in cases where a client doesn’t want to pay for the work they’ve had done…or when they want to take a project elsewhere to save money. In those cases, it gives you a tremendous amount of leverage. That said…we have and do give footage to clients in certain circumstances. It all depends on the relationship with that client, payment history etc.
If you just put it in your contracts, it’s virtually a non-issue, and in the few cases where we’ve had clients object, we point out that they cannot take photos, or music and use them any way they wish or in multiple print or multi-media pieces without paying for that usage. They pretty much have no leg to stand on at that point.
I think these forums tend to make a bigger deal out of the issue than it really is in the real world.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Todd,
I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t do very high-end work with Premiere and I stated as such. I even pointed out that an Axio based Premiere workstation is very powerful. Heck, a talented individual could do high end work using Premiere Elements or Vegas Movie Studio or Final Cut Express.
But it’s tough to argue that using Premiere with anything other than Axio hardware is as fast as using other systems. I know dozens of colleagues who share my take on Premiere from a configuration and performance standpoint COMPARED to systems like Avid, Final Cut systems with AJA hardware, VelocityQ and VelocityHD systems etc. If you compare the system I mentioned, Premiere CS3/Blackmagic HD Decklink Extreme to a VelocityHD or even a VelocityQ, it blows….even when it’s configured properly. You just simply cannot edit as quickly, efficiently, or with as much visual feedback. Plus, configuration of a system like that yourself is MUCH more difficult and quirky than building say VelocityQ systems like we have, or Final Cut systems yourself.
My point was that David has to consider that Premiere is a $600 program, and the machine, the video capture/acceleration hardware, and the configuration all contribute to the stability and performance of it, especially considering his hardware.
I have a friend using Premiere CS3 with Axio and he says it’s virtually identical to editing on a real-time Avid or Velocity system and is very stable, but with so many varied configurations possible with Premiere, there’s a pretty wide berth out there for opinions on it’s performance/stability quotient. And even on many properly configured systems using approved hardware, performance is pretty dismal compared to competing systems.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
As I said, it was and still is listed as a compatible board for use with Velocity and VelocityQ systems. There are people using it successfully even today. But certain versions and revisions of the motehrboard were just flat out bad. As I said, google that brand and model and you’ll see.
You can’t blame the manufacturer (Matrox) if they tested that MB and it worked. The only people to blame are the motherboard manufacturer and your system builder (for not researching the board). Matrox, just like Leitch, probably tested their hardware and Premiere thoroughly with this board and it likely worked flawlessly. But motherboard manufacturers are constantly changing chips, writing new code, changing bios settings, updating drivers etc. They could even get defective materials and chips from their suppliers.
You can lament the accountability issue all you want. You’ll never get anywere with it. Nobody plans for this type of failure. Not the motherboard maker, not the video capture hardware company, not the software company and not your system builder. Nobody wants this to happen.
At the end of the day, you were unlucky. It sounds like Matrox, Adobe and your system builder have tried mightily to fix the issues. But if the core hardware (your motherboard) turns out to be the problem, you certainly can’t blame them.
We bought a turnkey VelocityQ back in 2003. Worked great for a couple months then it started crashing. Upon reboot, it wouldn’t go past the bios screen. We sent it to Leitch. They couldn’t replicate the issue, but they wiped the thing clean, reinstalled, put in a new boardset. We get it back…same damn thing. Leitch recommends we call IBM as the workstation is under warranty. We call IBM and they’ve got a tech there that afternoon. He tears the thing apart, tests everything; can’t find a problem. He too wipes the drives, reinstalls, uses Leitch disk image to install the NLE software. Hooks it all up. Same damn thing!!
They take the computer to their shop. They hook up similar components (external USB’s and a Firewire drive), run it under similar software loads. They can’t replicate the problem. They suggest we have a power issue in our building. We call an electrician who comes out, checks everything (we had 200 amp service installed that serves just for our 3 edit suites). He can’t find any issues. They bring it back in, we hook everything back up, boom, same problem. They’re stumped. They replace virtually everything in the PC right there in the suite, motherboard, RAM, power supply, graphic card, all one by one. SAME PROBLEM. All this went on for a month and this suite was down the whole time.
I get a free day and I go in and take EVERYTHING non-essential out of the PC and unplug everything non-essential from it, including the USB backup drives and a firewire drive we used for rendering).
Boot it up. Works. I start adding components to the inside. After each card is added. Boots up fine. I get to the external USB drives. Boom…won’t boot. I unplug the USB drive (Seagate) and plug another brand USB in. It boots fine. I re-plug the Seagate USB. It won’t boot. So for a month I’m blaming IBM, Leitch, and anybody else I can blame, when the entire issue was caused by an incompatibility with the USB chip on the Intellistation and Seagate’s USB external drives. I later learned MAC’s had a similar issue with some brands of external USB drives. The Seagate drive worked fine as long as you turned it on AFTER booting.
I still can’t believe that experienced IBM technicians weren’t trained to work backward like this when troubleshooting…but they weren’t! The moral to the story is that there could be 20 things causing your problems. My guess is the motherboard, but it might be a bad or incorrect driver, it could be an incorrect setting in Premiere, it could be defective RAM that tests out ok (happens all the time). It could be a darn external USB drive! So stop looking for a reason and someone to blame and get on with getting a system that works.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I respect Walter’s position on the ownership issue, but I disagree…especially if you’ve put it in writing. I think a lot of the work Walter does (and correct me if I’m overstepping here) is at the network level and the folks doing the producing are savvy enough to probably demand ownership of all materials. Even if that’s not the case, there is nothing legally, ethically or morally wrong with taking the position that you own the footage, materials and the finished product.
Copyright law unquestionably backs this up, regardless of the many differing opinions on these lists. If a client wants ownership, all they have to do is ask for it as part of the project’s contract. And if you’ve put it in writing in this contract with them, then they have no excuse to now be surprised about that fact.
As for editing a 3 minute piece out of longer piece and needing it “like tomorrow.” I’ll relate a recent client story for you.
We were editing a series of product launch videos for a large manufacturer. There were 5 videos in all. 3 (about 6-8 minutes each were complete, 1 (about 4 minutes and the most important module) was about half done. We didn’t even have a script for the fifth video (about 4 minutes) and it was Thursday prior to a Friday deadline.
We had told the client on Monday that if we didn’t have that 5th script by Monday afternoon, we couldn’t get the 5th video done. We get a call from the producer at noon Thursday. The previously “most important module” was no longer important. The new “most important model” was the 5th video, for which we had just received a script (Thursday morning).
The producer was in a pickle. She was being told, “we MUST have the 5th video for this conference!” We COULD’VE told the client “no way.” But we told them…ok, the only way we can get this edited is if:
1. We dump video #4 for now.
2. You and your brand manager come down here tomorrow. One will work with an editor in the suite cutting the video together. The other will work with a graphics person designing and laying out and proofing graphics. We got on the phone and got our VO talent (luckily in LA and 2 hours behind us) to schedule a voice session.
We also called a couple other clients and explained the situation and asked them to move non-deadline oriented edits. They did because they’ve ALSO been in these situations.
The clients arrived at 7:30am Friday, we worked til 5pm and BOOM…we had a finished video. We even had time for a 30 minute lunch delivered from Panera..PLUS we sent it out for review and revisions, which we did between 5 and 5:45. At 6:20, They walked out the door with 4 separate DVD’s, and .wmv files uploaded to their FTP ready to drop into their presentations on Monday in Orlando.
We were heroes. Nobody worked all night. That client called the following Tuesday after a hugely successful product launch on Monday with about 4 NEW video projects!
I don’t think cutting a finished video of 9 minutes down to 3 sounds all that taxing. We do it all the time, especially for use on the web, and it usually doesn’t take us more than about a day, a day and a half or 2 max.
Should you charge it as a separate project. Heck yes…especially if it was never mentioned as part of the original deal.
As for continuing to work with the client…well…if you’re not making money on the deal and they’re a pain in the backside, then it’s not really doing you or your business much good. When we deal with non-profits on tight budgets it’s usually a joy because they’re appreciative of reduced rates and of our candor in trying to help them with the marketing, which is usually not very well done.
They also usually let us do ALL the creative, so we tend to produce some of our best stuff with non-profits (conceptually at least since production budgets are tight).
Bottom line, you’re in a service oriented business. You probably don’t believe it, but there are probably a hundred, heck a thousand other companies that could do what you do and deliver a similar product. What sets you apart will be the service you give to that client. Doesn’t matter what they’re paying or how they treat you. You should treat every project as if it’s your most important. You never know when that $3000 account is going to mushroom into a half a million dollar behemoth. We’ve seen it happen. And everytime the turning point was the service we gave them…NOT the quality of the finished video. I should mention we do quality work, but certainly nothing ground-breaking.
Hope that helps.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Heck nobody else will say it…so I will. Premiere Pro cannot be considered at the top of the heap of any high-end editing system.
Can you edit professional projects with it. Yes. Can you do it without pulling your hair out? Doubtful, unless you couple it with the Matrox Axio hardware.
We’ve tried virtually every version of Premeire Pro since version 1 all the way up to CS3, and it’s one quirky, resource hogging, finicky piece of software coupled with most other hardware. Over on the Premiere forum one of the most popular pieces of advice for users experiencing problems is to:
A. Not run ANY other programs while you’re editing.
B. Not to install ANY other software on your NLE machine.
This is flat out unrealistic, as Adobe’s products are designed to allow you to seamlessly move projects from one product to the other. The list of configuration recommendations for setting up Premiere is about 3 pages long…with half a dozen esoteric tweaks to registry and OS settings. We’ve run it with Canopus hardware, Blackmagic hardware and with no hardware. I’ve successfully built and configured no less than 20 high-end graphic and NLE workstations over the years going back to 1996 and have a pretty good working knowledge of hardware, Windows configurations and NLE troubleshooting.
From your list of specs I can tell you where your issue lies. The motherboard. We had a graphics system built on that motherboard and while it’s highly rated among many gamers and CAD programmers, it’s a piece of crapola when it comes to editing. (Hey I didn’t mention the brand). We tried to install one of our Velocity editing systems on that board, and while it’s also an approved board on the Leitch/Harris compatibility list, it absolutely would not run correctly on it. Constant hangs, crashes and quirky behaviour. We moved that Velocity boardset to an IBM Intellistation Z, has worked perfect ever since (5 years).
So…you CAN get Premiere to work without crashing, I’ve seen it run adequately in our shop on HP xw series computers, but I doubt you’ll ever get it to run on that motherboard. Switch motherboards. NOW. Buy a used, approved HP xw8200 or IBM Intellistation (if they’re approved with the Matrox hardware) off of ebay. You can get them for under $500. Then try reconfiguring.
Hope that helps…although it’s probably not what you want to hear. As others have pointed out, there are probably tens of thousands of people with RT-X boards that work fine. There are probably hundreds of thousands of people editing with Premiere Pro without constant crashes. But keep in mind this is $600 software coupled with a $200 motherboard (when new) and a Matrox board that was, if memory serves me, about $1,500 new. Our current turnkey NLE systems cost over $20,000 new, and that’s without video storage, which typically was another $3-4000.
Bottom line, I don’t see how any of the manufacturers are at fault here. The people that recommended the motherboard don’t sound real bright as you can google that motherboard model and find a litany of problems with it. So they’re the only ones that might owe you anything. I bet it was an IT company because that’s who recommended that board to us as part of them building a graphics workstation. Needless to say, I don’t use that IT company to build workstations anymore. Not after the hours I spent troubleshooting that thing.
I will use outside vendors, but I research the specs and hardware and ask questions on forums before diving in. Still, I’ve had experiences just recently that were disappointing. Dare I say it was combining Premiere Pro CS3, an HP xw6200 and a Blackmagic HD Extreme. It works…but only after we spent 2 months configuring and tweaking and updating and…whew…makes me tired just thinking about it.
We rarely use it though as it just doesn’t work the way it’s advertised by either Adobe or Blackmagic. It’s little more than a software based editing system with SDI capture and output, with very little real-time hardware acceleration or real-time functionality. But again…what was I to expect with $600 hardware and $1000 video hardware??
Like I said…can you edit a professional project on it? Certainly. Can you do it without pulling your (graying) hair out? Doubtful.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com