Tim Wilson
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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It’s easy to forget that one of the most popular early M100 configurations was a Media 100 board with Premiere software! This was the Media 100qx.
You’ll be able to find your way around Premiere Pro easily enough. As with changing to any NLE, you’ll find some difficulties along the way. But there are many unique features in PPro that will make the trip worth it. You’ll find many of them discussed on these boards.
This is especially true with PPro in CS3. You’ll dig it.
Best,
Tim -
Discovering superpowers is always a bit scary. Actually, few people are happy to even hear the news — not Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic Four….
Fortunately, this is a place where superhumans are welcome and safe.
But get used to it, dude.
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[David Roth Weiss] “I get angry just hearing about others working on a flat”
And here I’ve been crying so hard about hourly raters that my wife just gave me a bowl of ice cream and sent me to take my nap early.
😉
David’s right. Your *real* job is to make the client want to spend MORE money with you next time, and only with you. There are many ways to do that, no matter how collect the dough.
Best,
Tim -
[The Matt Hall] “In my experience, flat rates are worth it for jobs that you think you can produce quickly, and wouldn’t get paid to much for on an hourly basis. And also for jobs that have a DEFINITE completion date.”
That’s exactly what I did, and built a business on it.
I did a few hourly jobs to start so that I could find out how long things would generally take. I found people liked a project price because they could actually budget for it. But I set the ground rules, and in ten years, never had a dispute, and never felt that I got paid too little for a job.
In fact, I was able charge prices that I’d *never* have gotten away with on an hourly basis. I also used a high hourly rate to set a project rate that was indeed discounted from the hourly price I quoted. People looked at that as a bargain, and didn’t think too hard about the math.
No question that it puts the burden on *you* to manage expectations and schedules, though. If you’re up for it, do. It’s always been my recommendation.
But when in doubt, and especially while you’re establishing your footing, hourly’s not bad either. I just found project pricing to be such an overwhelming success that I’m especially fond of it.
tw
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[MindYourVideoBusiness] “All those “non-revenue generating” tasks”
Although way oversimplified, I prefer to think of them as “anti-revenue” tasks. If you’re doing all the things on Jackie’s list (scheduling, deadlines, estimates, purchase orders, job numbers, and billing), you’re just not available to do the work that actually brings the money.
If you don’t have the resources to hire even a part-time employee, check your Yellow Pages for answering services. (Paper Yellow Pages. Not a prayer in the whole wide world that you can do this online.) You’ll often find companies that will do much of the above…AND answer your phones…for relatively short money.
I lived in a town of a couple of thousand people, and, other than estimates and a handful of “only me” tasks, paid $400/month for all of the rest. AND answering the phone. You’ll be amazed how much easier this makes your life.
Your mileage will vary, but very much worth looking into.
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[Jeron Coolman] “ProRes and edit that in Premiere Pro and work with the ProRes media files in After Effects”
Head over to Cineform fast. They have exactly what you’re looking for. It’s now spreading, but it was developed for Premiere on Windows first. That’s a pretty big advantage right there, but there are others: cross-platform if you need to work with macs, rt capture to both .avi and QT, After Effects support, AJA Xena support, and many other advantages for higher end workflows (444 support, 2K, and so on).
It’s not free, but it’s very very good, and its optimized for you in particular.
[Jeron Coolman] “I’m not too clear how the codec is licensed and what Apple’s plans are for it.”
For now, it’s FCP-only. It appears (although nobody has confirmed this for me) that it’s not even a codec that you can render to on another machine…unless it has FCP installed.
I have no idea beyond that. So I’m going to guess Mac-only for the foreseeable future. That said, I wouldn’t want to be the one guessing whether FCP will come to Windows. It certainly started there…..
Several folks have asked me to do a follow-up looking at all the codecs more broadly, and one of these days I just might.
In the meantime, I hope this helps you get started. Thanks for the kind words! And good luck!
Best,
Tim -
No plug-in support for FreeDV anyway.
You can still check the Ultimatte manual online.
For Sapphire, the filters are easy enough to apply. But there’s no way they’ll ever trust you again if you try to use the plug-ins based on what you’ve learned from a screengrab. They’ll probably fire you on the spot.
Spend the money on the Sapphire book. I hate to be harsh, but if you’re serious about getting people to trust you, trust the $45 investment to pay off. Even if you only make $10/hr, you’ll pay it off before lunch on your first day, and people will not only trust you, they’ll love you.
The other cool thing about the Sapphire book is that you’ll be much further along toward your goal of MTV-style looks. But a HUGE part of this comes from editing skills, color corrections, and other things that have nothing to do with Sapphire.
That said, check out the website. There are plenty of pictures of the output of the filters. Once you’ve taken a look at them, you can watch the Sapphire reel again, and see them in action. You’ll easily be able to pick almost all of them out.
If you’re serious about these two plug-in sets, you now know what to do. If you’re serious about jumpy editing, be sure to check the Art of the Edit forum. It’s much more helpful, though, to pick a specific video, and search for it in the After Effects forum. Virtually any famous video has been discussed there.
At the end of the day, that will actually be more helpful to you for creating those kinds of looks. THEY have a free public beta for you. Then use the Sapphire demo filters for AE, which look very similar to the ones for Avid.
Problems solved. 🙂
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No need for screengrabs. Both Sapphire and Ultimatte offer free trials downloadable from their websites. Ultimatte even includes the manual.
If you’re serious about learning Sapphire, I can highly recommend their book/DVD combination for $45, available at their website. Follow the link for an idea of what it covers — far, far beyond the Sapphire manual itself into tutorials and more, including demo footage for you to use with the tutorials.
Or just start with the free trial. Either way, you’re covered for both Sapphire and Ultimatte.
PS. Most vendors offer free trials. Even if you don’t actually use them for anything, you can at least get an idea of what they look like…
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Russell’s merely a-head of the herd. Everybody’s head is shrinking.
Oh wait, my head is growing. It’s my HAIR that’s shrinking….
Welcome Russell!
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Sorry, not up yet. When it goes up, you’ll see it under the box shot on the AE main product page. For example, check the Illustrator page. It’s right there under the Buy and Upgrade options. Same with Photoshop Extended.
Those products are shipping now, so I suspect that’s the difference. Although they haven’t give the exact date yet (have they?), it’s coming toward the end of July.
In the meantime, download the AI and PS trials. Both very cool. 🙂
Tim