[David Roth weiss]

Mike,

I don’t know all the percentages like you do, all I know is, it used to be pretty simple to get ahead here. If you knew what you were doing, were fairly ammicable, and could get things done quickly, you could expect to be well paid. Its much more difficult now, and there are more sub-employed and under-employed people in the industry in L.A. than ever before. Many very talented and experienced technicians and creatives are working for peanuts now. Add to that the cost of living, which is mind-blowing, and you can make a good argument for trying other markets first. However, no place else can compete with our weather…

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

LA ain’t all that anymore. A lot of production has moved away, and what’s left, reality shows, is lots of work for little $$$.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Steve,

You might check out the stuff from G-Tech. I’m especially keen on their external G-SATA drives — faster and just a little more expensive than firewire drives, at just over a dollar per GB. The necessary SATA controller card will take up a precious PCI slot in your G5, but I think they chuck in the controller card for free with the drive. I’ve heard good things about them and am on the verge of buyong one or more myself.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Chris,

If I told ya I’d have to kill ya… And Christopher guessed wrong, though I understand Paparazzi does similar things quite well, albeit at a very high price. I charge very reasonable fees for this service on a per picture basis rather than by time, and it can take lots of trial and effort to get each pic just right. Its not exactly profit center…

David

[David Roth weiss]

Sarah,

Actually there is… I use a proprietary software program that samples pixels from 1 or more frames and creates hi-res deiterlaced stills that can be used for print or other purposes. In many cases, not all, it will create very acceptable stills by sampling more than one frame where movement in any single frame is unacceptable. I’ll be happy to perform a test for anyone who might like to see how great the results can be on there own footage. Just send a very short clip of about 10 to 12 frames in QT format to me at info@drwfilms.com and I’ll get the result back to you in 24-hours.

DRW

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[David Roth weiss]

Lee,

I just acquired a Decklink Extreme card, which I thought had everything, and I was surprised to find that it does not have y/c (s-video) in/out. I’ll have to route my VHS machine through my BetaSP machine in order to capture or laydown to VHS.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Excellent Jason, exactly the type of reportage I was hoping for. Its always good to hear from someone whose actually working in a similar fashion, though I can only wish I had mastered one show per week as you did.

BTW, my previous software was from a Montreal based firm that I no longer care to be associated with. That company name starts with a “D” — care to guess???

THNX,
DRW

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[David Roth weiss]

[Leo Ticheli] “For our flat rate jobs, I add a 20% markup to cover the inevitable extra work.”

And that probably doesn’t come close to actually covering your arse in that situation.

[David Roth weiss]

Ernie,

Its a tough call. If the quality of your present DVDs is good, the only noticebale difference on most TVs would likly be some slight noise and some minor artifacts, and maybe a bit of perceived color depth. You can throw a lot of money at it and get noticeable benefits that you can see in the studio, but most of the time they’ll be missed when the discs are viewed on home players. On the other hand, if you’re trying to compete with the best, get the best.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

I agree with Bill. I really like ReelDVD because it makes DVDs that really seem to work. Like most female tennis players, its got a lot of grunt, and it is quite capable of doing the all of the basics you want to do, and more. Because it has no built-in graphics/text/menu tools, you might want to check out DVD Menu Studio from Media Chance. It can be integrated with ReelDVD (and other authoring programs), and does a lot of the overlay “grunt work” automatically after you create cool looking menus and graphics that would be very difficult, if not impossible, using PhotoShop.