[Chris Ratledge]

[Robert Houllahan] “There is the EVGA dual board that would potentially be a screamer as a PC but as far as I know nobody has done a Mac OSX build on it…”

Nope, “Mikey D” has done it, in fact in 2010 was the first time I saw one of his SR-2 Hack builds, inside a G5 tower case as I recall.

https://www.youtube.com/miked826

[Chris Ratledge]

Thanks to all who participated in this thread. Here’s what I eventually decided to do.

I felt there was just TOO MUCH text and info to send as an email or attachment, so Instead of attaching a PDF to an email, I simply stated a bullet-point list in the body of the email what kind of info is available on my website, and invited the reader to visit and bookmark. (I modified my site to include the info from the PDF I created but never sent, it seemed better on display there)

I specifically mentioned in the very brief email that my site has a link to my online availability calendar I created, taking a suggestion from this thread, and also highlighted my money-saving feature, hopefully giving at least SOME incentive to visit the site.

I settled on not listing my rates directly in the email based on the mixed responses from this thread and through my own personal research, but they are only 2 clicks away at my website.

Thanks again everyone, hopefully others can get some good info from this thread over time.

[Chris Ratledge]

To give a little more specificity to what I’m preposing, here are some more details.

As of now I have a single-page’s worth of material. I plan to create a PDF of this and attach it to the email, as opposed to it being the body of the email itself. The materials contain the following:

– Name & Contact information
– Brief introduction stating DIT and DAT service available, including locations available and my money-saving “hook” in boldface.

– Following section is divided into my Day rates w/kit fees, and pricing for above mentioned money-saver.
– Another section just below with ancillary services also listed.

…This is where it can get potentially hairy. In the next section I detail a great many things. As I said my experience has been that a lot of producers and production co’s don’t really understand the difference between a DIT, a DAT, when you need one and why, and what I include per my stated rates reflective to these, so it is outlined in my contact as “Service Details”

– Brief Explanation of DAT services performed.
– Brief explanation of DIT services performed.
– Brief description of typical included equipment and items used under each scenario.
– Brief mention of other higher-end equipment available upon request but not included in rates
– Details of my “hook’s” technical specifications in contrast to common practices.

Final section is “footnote” area, where I detail what stated day rates represent, (number of hours, etc.) details on my product’s pricing, and other details for ancillary products and services mentioned.

So hopefully my concern for this all feeling a bit too verbose can be understood. Based on this, what would you say I could eliminate? It feels like I could leave some of the footnote details off this one, but there’s not much I see in the way of repetitive information whatsoever.

I agree this has been a pretty good thread, thanks for your participation.

[Chris Ratledge]

[Scott Carnegie] “talk about how hiring you will make them money, improve their workflow, etc.”

Thanks, this is both on my website, and in the past, was part of a series of emails I sent out. So that leads me to ask, whats better, one contact with a lot of information, or more than one message tailored to each task? I have to admit my materials are no where near as complex or slick as your example, but I’m a freelance crewperson, not a content creator, and my work doesn’t vary as much or have as many projects

I have incorporated what I feel to be a great money-saving and streamlining process into my DAT/DIT service into the draft of this email I plan to send, but as I mention elsewhere in this thread, there’s also a matter of educating potential clients and justifying my expense on productions, and I just want to try to be complete without overbearing.

Thank you for the tips.

[Chris Ratledge]

[Mark Suszko] ” a list of what you’re qualified to work with”

This has come up in conversations and correspondence of mine before, but in my particular situation, I don’t know what kind of governing body could verify my ‘qualifications’ other than my body of work experience.

In this regard, I can always submit a resume, and in my experience, many people I’ve worked for in the past in a different capacity appear to not grasp what a DIT is or does, and why it’s important. So, I feel I’m already trying to legitimize my purpose in the crew as a DAT/DIT in my targeted markets, and the amount of information is getting laborious, no matter how much I try to simplify it.

Also, since you mentioned references, how do you want these submitted: Immediately or stated they are available upon request? Again, this just adds more and more info, to which some may see and put in the round file just from the shear length of it, or at least that is my concern.

[Chris Ratledge]

Thanks for outlining a feature I never thought to add in a booking calendar. I’ll see if I can add that to my website as well.

[Chris Ratledge]

That’s an interesting departure, but I can see your concern, and I share it to a degree, cause I don’t just want to bombard people with what feels like an advertisement.

I do feel that the people that bothered to respond to my past efforts all requested rate information, primarily for “just so I have it” concerns, not because I immediately fitted a role they were looking to fill. I can’t speak for those that never responded as to why. This leads me to try to provide as much info as possible from the get go, but try to be sensitive and not make it so much a boardwalk pitch.

[Chris Ratledge]

Do you think that people here will discuss Matrox and AJA on the Blackmagic forum ?
Sure, but if they don’t, they don’t. I see no problem with my asking the way I did. If I’m wrong then I’m only out the time to post, and no worse off than when getting hardly any responses elsewhere as well. It’s not like I’m asking radio questions in a camera forum.

Don’t you charge at lease $400 a day for video assist with your gear ? You will make back all your money in 3 days. Have you ever heard of investing in your career ?
I charge what I can realistically get out of people in order to (try) to keep working. My situation is nowhere NEAR as simple as this statement. Doubt anyone’s is.

Many film cameras I encounter on set still have analog video tap output, not to mention analog wireless video transmission when it rarely happens. The “primarily working with RED” part of my question was mistakenly left in without further explanation due to the copy-and-paste to multiple locations.

If a MacPro goes down beyond repair on location, I’m SOL with a PCI card-only solution for video assist I/O and all I’ve got left is a MBP for backup. That being said the price point of the DeckLink Card is a lot more attractive than a KONA 3.

My suggestion to you is to go out with a video assist that is working on a RED shoot, and VOLUNTEER FOR FREE for that day, to see what he is using, and see his workflow.
Sure, that sounds good! I’ll ask to shadow someone with whom I’ll be competing for work, and somehow get them to explain all their gear and workflow to me when my observations leave more questions. I’ll have endless freelancers waiting to train their competition in no time!

[Chris Ratledge]

Thanks for the reply, Bob. I was actually just reading some of your articles from the COW mag last night.

I was curious about the necessity of a video patch bay but didn’t mention it, and I’ve actually been in contact with Virtual Media regarding an EditShare SAN/RAID setup, so I may contact them regarding this as well, but as a lowly lab instructor, the powers that be here @ Full Sail frown upon me contacting vendors directly, so I try to do as little of that as possible and as much research as I can on my own.

Additionally, myself and the rest of our dept. staff is going to have to know how to operate and troubleshoot this stuff to a limited degree, so I want to try to learn as much about it as necessary for our purposes.

You mentioned looking at the Sony HVR-1500 HDV Deck. According to what I’m reading in the specs provided by Sony, this deck nor the HVR-M15U will playback 720p HDV. We have had some students shooting with this format HDV and would like to have a way to get this in without them having to use their camera hooked up to one of our systems. The M25U offers playback and conversion to 720p HDV. It would be nice to have the connections on the back of the 1500, but we would like to have a way to get 720p HDV material in. How about the possibility of using one of the HDMI to HD-SDI converters from Convergent Design as you mentioned in the COW mag?

In my experience, if the gear isn’t part of the open-house tours, brand loyalty or appearance isn’t valued as much! Getting this kind of capability might elevate us to tour-worthy status though, so I’ll take your suggestion and research the other scope manufacturers you mentioned. By the way, can you enlighten me on this new Vidscope-VX HD from Hamlet? Maybe we could consider that as an option?

Again, thank you for all your suggestions and detailed information. Hopefully more folks here on the COW can benefit from this exchange too!