Jonathan Ziegler
Forum Replies Created
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I agree with the rest on the size of the market but not on your odds of making it. First, make a website featuring the video and a few short (30-90) clips you give away for free. Get ppl to subscribe to your site. Check out https://www.foolishadventure.com and izzyvideo.com – he’s made a living with subscription videos. Forget mass marketing DVDs – the future is in targeted, individual marketing. Read Punk Marketing by Laermer and Simmons – ISBN 0061151114. Also, DVDs and bluray could be dinosaurs in only a few years as the movie biz goes the way of the music biz.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Hmmm, tough one. Always.
Depends on how much you want to make, really. Are you a shoe-in or are you gonna have to compete with others? Are you feeling lean and hungry or do you have specific financial needs that need to be met?
Will you be using your equipment or theirs? If its yours, charge more than if you are using theirs. Consider all your costs: rent/mortgage, utilities, phone, internet, computer, software, various peripherals, furniture, car, gas, insurance, food, entertainment, etc. Total all of that up for a year and divide by about 2000 (hours). Now double it. There’s your hourly rate – the first number is the lowest you can take. The doubled number is the number you want. Remember that you may not be working 40 hours a week and adjust the 2000 accordingly (40 hours a week times 50 weeks is 2000). For example, they want you to work only 40 hours a month which is 480 hours a year – your hourly just went up.
Think of this, too: if you ask too little and get it, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If a company is just looking for the cheapest person, they aren’t looking at dozens of other factors and you don’t want to work for them – they’ll just cut every corner they can and make you miserable.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
The plan sounds a little gimmicky – works great for a short time and then everyone wants to know “what else ya got?” skip the gimmicks and go with solid business practices. Most people will want to hire a photographer to get pictures the video camera didnt get. I know I will use snaps from actors phones, my phone, etc for a unique look or hire a set photographer for just that purpose. If the still and motion camera shoot the same thing, what’s the point?
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I’ve run into this with my hacked canon running magic lantern only the buffer simply overruns and recording stops. I have a number of off-brand (transcend, pqi, et al) class 10s. The one card that never causes problems is the far more expensive is the Sandisk extreme unless I’m shooting for bitrates higher than 60mbps. The cards just aren’t designed for it and the camera’s buffer gets overrun. Haven’t dared try it on my 7d for fear of bricking it, but I do it on my t2i all the time. I haven’t seen any quality improvements – in fact the codec gets a little weird when I tweak the bitrate giving me odd artifacts. If you can’t shoot active things, what’s the point of the higher bitrate?
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Forgot to mention: a good insurance person will make specific recommendations on what you should be using for coverage – think of them as a part of your team. As such, a good insurance person will only quote you on what you will actually need on a production, but will make suggestions to round out the policy and fill in coverage gaps.
For example, it sounds like you will need an equipment rider (if equipment isn’t covered in the main policy) and enhanced liability against injury (depends on policy coverage limits). Those can cost more, but for 1 day, it shouldn’t be too bad. We spent $2200 for a 37 day shoot (about $60 for each shooting day), but with only 1 day, your per day cost will be much higher since the policy isn’t spread out over several days. Get the quote and let the client know this is what it will cost and pass the expense on to them. After a while, you’ll start quoting gigs with insurance included. 😉
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
We’ve used this guy: Taylor Davidson (The Ruboyianes Company, PLL – 520-577-1040-work, 520-906-2872-cell). He’s based here in Arizona, but he handles insurance for most of the country. We used him for production insurance for a feature we shot last summer. Tell him what you need and, at the worst, he can tell you who you should talk to if he can’t do it. Mind you, this is no plug, but a person I’ve used in the past.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Please keep your wallets and arms inside the ride at all times. You will be allowed to purchase the software at the same time as everyone else. Any and all features of the software are subject to change at a moments notice and/or the whim of Apple, Steve Jobs, et al.
Since we are speculating: I predict the software will be released by or before the end of June. Since I have tons of work to do and no real time to spend on learning new software, I’ll likely wait until I do have time to buy this magical, as-yet-unreleased, incredible, new, amazing, must-have software I know absolutely nothing about except for what has been specifically stated and not what Apple or others have eluded to, speculated upon, or generally demanded from Apple indirectly in a blog, comment, forum, or other form of electronic telecommunication.
I guess we’ll all just have to be patient. Please save worrying for the developers as they have more at stake than any of us. 😉
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I prefer the Zoom H4n for it’s general versatility and portability (haven’t used the H1 or the other Zooms, but I’ve heard good things, too), but if you are planning on being stationary with the laptop off-camera, it should work fine. I don’t know much about the M-Audio stuff, but as long as you are using something like Soundtrack pro, Cubase, Logic, etc, etc., it should be fine. We used a similar device (XLR to Firewire box I think, but it might have been USB) for Finley Wade (https://www.finleywade.tv) as well as the older H4 with a broad variety of different mics (shotgun, hypercardioid, omnis, etc.).
Be wary – cables can be your enemy and while you are busy running them around this and that, you can pick up lots of distortion and noise. You don’t want too much cable – just enough to get from the source of audio to the recorder – the more cable you have to use, the more likely you are to lose signal strength, and pick up noise or distortion. I TRY to keep a 6′, 12′, 25′ and 50′ around, but you don’t always have that space. I like Monster cables – go with what you can afford, though. And when storing your cables, ALWAYS over/under! I first learned this at our local cable access station and I can’t stop doing it now for extension cords, audio, video, computer, etc. cables. The technique preserves most cable well and is very easy to learn. This is a good little video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yPcJD7RVuY – once you get the hang of it, it’s completely second-nature. I do it backwards with the cord pointed at me because I do it lefty, but it’s the same technique.That last bit was just because I see way too many people getting into this field who should know this technique for saving your cable. It sounds silly until you are getting noise from one cable and not another – the noisy cable is trash and it would only take you an extra 30 seconds to wind the cable correctly and prevent only a few tiny wires inside from breaking. There are other techniques which are valid, too, but this is an easy one to remember.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
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You might also want to look into the GoPro (https://gopro.com/) Hero cams if its just gonna be a crash cam. At $300, you really can’t beat it – uber-wide-angle, shoots 1080/960/720P at 30 and 60 fps (60fps is only available at 720P and WVGA). They work well for action shots and have a rapidly growing set of accoutrements and attachments (underwater, various mounts, sports, helmet mounts, etc.). I love these for mounting discretely on a car dash, car bumper, bicycle, as a hidden camera, and they rock underwater! Not so great if you want DSLR bit rates (gopros only do 15mbs which is low- to mid-level AVCHD). Then again, these are tiny cameras: Dimensions (H x W x D): 1.6” x 2.4” x 1.2” (42mm x 60mm x 30mm)
Weight: 3.3oz (94g) incl. battery, 5.9oz (167g) incl. housing. Also, they shoot 30P, but you can easily convert to 24P.Pluses and minuses abound, but the same is true for DSLRs.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Hey, I’m a big fan of practical effects so I’ll recommend the real thing as much as possible. Check out detonation films At https://www.detonationfilms.com
Most of his effects are free and you likely get away with an sd effect. Even his paid effects are ridiculously cheap – I once asked him why and he said basically he does it because he enjoys it.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293