Grinner Hester
2
Avid Coins
18
COW Coins
4
Premiere Pro Coins
Forum Replies Created
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My calculation was easy. I looked at what my competition was doing it for and added ten bucks an hour because I’m better than them.
It has nothing to do with overhead. Heck, I really don’t have any of that now.
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It has nothing to do with trust. They called ya. That means they trust ya. If they didn’t thumbprint it, they’d not have a job. You can have the most passive client in the world but before showing your product to his boss, he’ll always ask ya to make a font yellow then change it back to whow ya had it first. He’ll then get to go home and tell his wife what he produced that day.
I place a dead dog in every show for this reason.
The Dead Dog Theory, by Grinner Hester:
Art directors and set designers have often clashed after a night of set-making. Legend has it one clever set designer created for many hours and at the end of a long hard night, literally placed road kill in the middle of the set. The next mornign the director walked in with his reaction. “Well the set is perfect but there’s a dead dog in the middle of the floor.” The set designer removed the dead dog and was done.
By this, I now (and have for the last 15-20 years), place a “dead dog” in every unsupervised project for view by the client’s client. It may be a fat old guy in one shot for a contemporary beer video or an obvioulsy mispelled word in a sea of text. It varies. It’s a dead dog though and when the client’s client finally shows up after being on the clock but absent for days on end, they waych and the reaction is always “it’s perfect but can we swap the fat guy for the 22 year old smiling guy?” or “awesome exept we have to spell the name of the company right.
aaand I’m done.
This allows them to be a dictator without changing anything that I created. It’s not about a better product to them. If that were the case, they would have been there during the creation stages. It’s about the thumbprint so they can tell themselves how much they rock. In the end, that’s what we sell in this business. If they really just wanted a video, heck their son has FCP and a camcorder at home. -
It seems like more of a handicap than an asset to just have shot a trailer. The first question coming from a catcher when pitching this, should they like it, is “so it’s in the can?”
“mmm no.”
They’ll then wonder what they watched and why. The appealing part of a viewer watching a sizzle reel is knowing there is already a product to market. The handicap involved is it removes their thumbprint from production and limits their distribution market. You would have been far better off either shooting the entire production or printing a nice pitch piece on paper. -
Avid just sees em from that old location. Deleting the database files is hit and miss but I always have good luck by renaming my media folders, launching Avid, capturing a csmall clip (per drive if needed) and letting it create new folders, complete with new dtata base files. You can then drag your media over to these new folders and delete the renamed folders.
This gives everything a new address as far as Avid is concerned. -
Just the camera mic. You can keep a lav in your pocket for interviews if needed but you won’t have time to keep up with hooha in the pits. The camera mic is more than fine.
Try to keep from using the lav for interviews if you can. Remeber ambience is not always bad, especially in motorsports. These dudes are not always use to cameras and set up and production will greatly decrease your interview quality due to the deer in headlights syndrome. Be a dude with a camcorder, not tv.
And do be careful. I’ve been hit by more cars than I can count. It can hurst sometimes. Also, bring ear plugs if shooting any pro mods. I ruptured an eardrom once gettin’ caught off guard by a go-fast car on a resnt n tune night. -
lol
alriiight, alriight
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None of my time is worth less than other time. It’s all the same rate no matter how they elect to spend the time.
I do offer flat rates for turn-key projects. -
While there are sites like ozzu.com (and many like it) you’ll get more than enough pickin’s just throwing a job posting up on any job site.
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You’ll need to fly by external scopes.
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Skip the filters and simply go by your external scopes for proper levels. Monotors vary. Your scopes should not.
I have found a reference file into any DVD app to be spot on, color and level-wise.