[Tim Wilson]

Sorry for the belated welcome out of the closet, so to speak. 🙂 Delighted to have you here, Jake….wait, you’ve BEEN here….nevermind.

Looking forward to seeing lots of AK postings!

Say, what’s the AK stand for? Is it another layer of intrigue? 😉

tw

[Tim Wilson]

There are a whole bunch of time filters in Boris Continuum. These are definitely what you’re looking for.

If you head to borisfx.com, they have movies for each of the filters, and you’ll get some idea of which might be the right one to get the exact effect you’re looking for.

Posterize Time and Temporal Blur might be good places to start. While Optical Flow takes a while to render, the results are spectacular. Just a few thoughts to get you started…

Note that time filters require Avid’s AVX 2 effects architecture. If you have a recent version of Xpress, you’re covered. If not, you’ll need to go to After Effects or something similar.

tw

[Tim Wilson]

I’m all about the populated mastheads.

I really loved running a video business, some of the most fun I had. If I can help some folks make more money with less pain from what I learned the hard way, then all the better!

tw

[Tim Wilson]

Sure, I didn’t mean to say QuickBooks/Quicken is the only way. There are others. But keeping track of all this is too much to do alone. ANY software is better than none.

I always went by the half up front, half on completion rule on the first job for a client, then got more flexible. By letting them pay later, I was free to say that cashflow is a little tight, can I get this next gig paid up front. Didn’t happen more than once or twice, but being a little flexible can get you some in return.

Not with a major corporate client though. 🙂 Set your terms up front, and stick to them.

And note that you have to be very clear about defining what “completion” is. When you turn it in? After you’ve made all requested changes?

The most fun I had with this was doing business with the federal gubmint. I did a TV show paid for with tax dollars for a couple of years (140-ish episodes), and the government has their own way of doing things. No funds paid until completion. Payment usually 90 days after, distributed from the US Treasury in Lawrence, KS. (In other words, can’t ask the client to hurry up.) The most fun was when Newt decided to shut the government down for a month…which meant I didn’t get paid for more like 150 days. The good news is that once you get in the queue, you WILL get paid…eventually.

Oh, and they’re free to redistribute your work, since it’s now in the public domain. 🙂 A story for another thread….

[Tim Wilson]

There’s perhaps a little gray here.

First, MTV doesn’t HAVE to blur a Nike logo. They do it because they want Nike’s money — MTV doesn’t advertise anyone for free. In fact, when I ran an advertising company, I did the same thing — never bought anything with a visible logo. If it had one, like my jeans, I removed all the tags. Bit of wankery, but my feeling really was that I was in the business of being paid to advertise.

However, there’s the question of how the image is used. For example, you can’t come even close to using Einstein’s picture in an ad. He actually trademarked his own image while he was alive, and placed the funds in a non-profit trust to support the founding of the nation of Israel. The fund carries on.

Not meaning to make a political statement here about Zionism or anything. Just an observation that people have been leveraging trademarks for a very long time. And that non-profit organizations are explicitly NOT exempted. They have to raise funds, right? From Einstein’s side, the only way to protect the revenue-stream of HIS designated non-profit organization is to protect the trademark.

One more example from the commercial side. Elvis’s estate was worth very little when he died. Almost no cash on hand, certainly not enough to keep paying for his house. You know what happened next — a merchandising blitz like the world has never seen, all based on the trademark of his image.

Here’s an interesting exception. The folks at Paramount were genuinely befuddled by fan sites for Star Trek. They understood that these fan sites contributed to the ongoing value of the trademark…but the sites’ uses of trademarked images and phrases was absolutely infringing. So what to do? They came up with a plan that remains a precedent: laid out the terms. Here are images for you to use…and if you’re doing a good job, we’ll give you some exclusives, etc.

And to repeat, there are some non-infringing uses of trademarks. If you’re doing a crowd scene in a commercial piece, and the trademark isn’t part of the “trade” you’re being paid for, no worries.

When in doubt, leave it out. Or ask permission. Or call a lawyer, which will be cheaper than paying one after you get sued.

There are also plenty of books and websites about this stuff, which is one reason why courts are so hardline — ignorance is no excuse, because it’s not that hard to find out the right thing to do.

Start by asking here. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

I always had similar rules, but the fact is that if you created the original files on the client’s dime, they’re entitled to those files under laws governing work for hire. You’ll want to check your state’s spin on this, but having worked in Florida, this is what I recall.

They’re entitled to the original files….but not anything you DID to them. Certainly not to the tools you used. As a result, they’re not entitled to your copy of Flash, your secret-sauce compression settings, the music you used (unless composed originally for them), etc. I’d try to persuade them that, even with the files, what makes the work a work of art is YOU. Further more, it will be cheaper and safer for them to leave it all in your loving care. And do they really want to learn Flash to the level of even being able to understand what you did before they made any adjustments to the files?

But if they’re firm about wanting them, you’re probably hosed.

The worst, worst, worst variation on this for me was a client who insisted on seeing the raw footage I shot of a musical performance in his restaurant…shot with one camera, obviously before I had a chance to edit it.

I tried to use the analogy that eating a raw egg, some sugar and a cup of flour was a lot different than eating dessert, but he was having none of it. So I set it up to show him, and in walks the dozen or so people he invited to watch it with him!! There was lots of loud sniping about “I could have shot that,” from a group of drunkards even less receptive to the thing about the raw eggs than the owner guy was.

In the end, the client was satisfied with the edited version, but it was so stressful that I turned down his repeated offers to do more work for him….

[Tim Wilson]

Note that Fair Use is limited to personal, critical, or scholarly use ONLY, and even within that, with some very tight restrictions. It applies strictly to copyright.

There is no such thing as fair use for trademarks. There are non-infringing uses, say, a news story on kids costumes, but for an even vaguely commercial work (ie, if YOU get paid for it), the lawyers are bound by law to come after you. In order to preserve a trademark, they’re required to come after every single known, or even possible, infringement. An undefended trademark is an unenforceable one. No trademark holder can afford for this to happen. They can all afford lawyers.

Note that courts have become increasingly friendly to trademark holders, thus much broader in their definition of infringement. A recent case had a court upholding Disney’s contention that the phrase “glass slipper” infringed on their Cinderella trademark…even though the phrase comes from a story in the public domain that Disney never paid a dime for.

Here’s something else to consider. Copyright infringement lawsuits are limited to the damage actually inflicted — you’d have to pay up what it would have cost to obtain the rights legally, plus your legal costs and theirs, plus any additional penalties. Not fun, but mostly survivable.

For trademark infringement, your maximum liability is the *potential* value of the trademark! I don’t know the value of a trademark like Batman, but the potential is surely in the billions. Now they’ll likely not come after the full value of the trademark even if they truly believed a shot like this constitutes an infringement, but you mess with this at your genuine peril.

Short version: you won’t win a fight against a lawyer. Pulling the shot was definitely the better part of valor.

A short PS about MTV blurring logos. They sometimes blur inappropriate things on clothing — pictures of guns, obscenities, etc. — and that’s that. Something like a Nike logo on somebody’s hat in a Spring Break special would certainly be a non-infringing use. So why blur it? Because of MTV’s brilliant and inviolable rule: if you want your logo on our airwaves, pay for it, sucka. Gotta love that. Not meaning that to sound ironic or in any way condescending — seriously, you gotta love that.

[Tim Wilson]

I’ve received 2 handwritten invoices in the past couple of weeks. I read them, saw that they accurately reflected the services performed, and I paid them without blinking.

If you’d rather have more professional looking forms to print from your computer, there are 2 basic approaches.

1) Create a template in a word processing application, the professional version of Adobe Acrobat, or similar desktop software. Simply fill in the blanks for each new invoice. You’ll almost always have to do the math yourself.

2) Get dedicated bookkeeping software like QuickBooks — very inexpensive for a small business, but worth its weight in gold. You can also track expenses, so you have some idea of whether you’re making a profit, and with one click can output statements and other tax documents. It does all the math for you, even for invoices.

Needless to say, I’m a big fan of QuickBooks. We can discuss the relative merits of software for 3D, animation, video editing, music composition and the rest…but The COW is not just for creative people — it’s for creative PROFESSIONALS.

If you want to actually earn a living with this stuff, this will be by far your best software investment. I genuinely can’t imagine running a business without QuickBooks.

[Tim Wilson]

I’m a boy, and thus have no udders.

But I’m fine with all you boys who do. Some of my best friends are transgendered.

tw

[Tim Wilson]

Wow! Thanks everyone! Sorry for showing up late. Rather than reply to each post, I’m going to try a “lightning round” response to all of them at once:

1) Shane! Thanks for the good wishes. Give my best to Dan and everyone else at ProMax.

2)Less than half an hour after the news hits — thanks for your SPEEDY good wishes, Jim!

3) Great to hear from you, Timothy. The last time I saw you was at Avid HQ, and I look forward to crossing paths again soon.

4)Mark! I totally remember talking Red with you at the Editors Lounge. I loved answering the phone at Boris, and will definitely be answering posts at The COW, too.

5)Thanks for tuning in from the desert, Ron!

6)Ah yes, Mr. Kolb, another of the WWUG’s grand old men! Corporate life was fun — we always practiced with white balls, and you never have to carry your own bags in the show — but not as much as I’m going to have here.

7) Jaime, your books are far better than any help I gave you. Any favors I provided are long repaid with all the stuff I stole from them. 🙂 Only kidding — I always gave you credit…but you made me look good.

8)Scott PD, I’ve been wearing black for way too long. Overdue for some bright shirts for sure.

9)Dave! A long way from college radio to…whatever this is. Thanks for saying hey!

10) Zax! Yes, Ron’s a luck guy, and so am I. Ron connected us back in the day, and I look forward to what we come up next.

And Gary Adcock: of course you’re going to start your own thread rather than show up number 11 on one already in progress. Nice to know some things never change. 🙂

Thanks again, everyone. This is going to be amazing, and already off to a great start.

Best,
Tim