[Klaus]

If you go the low budget option you need to shoot very smartly, do most of your editing in camera, and spend one day tidying up the footage. This is a service principally for people who just want a record of the day. If you want to do something you feel proud of, and want to use to generate more work, and don’t want to work for peanuts, then charge a decent amount (as suggested above). If your work is good enough, and you have a marketing campaign to match, there should be a place for you in the market.

[Klaus]

You can add any clause to your contract that you want. The question is, what will it cost you to enforce it?

[Klaus]

What about Firewire 800? Is that ok for HDV editing?

[Klaus]

I don’t think that purchasing a camera is such a terrible idea. I’m going to go out on a limb here: Based on the small amount you have written my hunch is that you have very little experience in producing professional quality corporate video. And my next assumption is that you do not have a sufficiently good corporate video showreel to go out and compete for work on an even footing (If I am wrong the I humbly beg your forgiveness).

By scraping together enough cash to buy a basic three chip camera you can be out there working every day. Shooting things on spec, volunteering on short films, winning your first clients by offering extremely low rates. Building up a decent showreel, and experience. All things you would struggle to do if you had to go to rental house before doing anything.

While the conventional wisdom is to produce a business plan, and there’s nothing wrong with doing so, the reality of the situation is that most people who are successfully running video production companies (IMO) did not start by doing a business plan. They grabbed whatever opportunities came their way to get experience and build a good reel.

I do not believe there is one right way to do things. I offer this approach as one of a number of alternatives.

Good luck.

[Klaus]

Thank you for your replies.

I actually want to keep the footage in it’s HD size and not downscale to DV Pal. What format should I bring it into After Effects (PC) in? Someone has suggested the Animation Codec. Any ideas?

[Klaus]

Thank you very much for your reply. Can you please explain what is a quicktime wrapper or .avi container. Are you suggesting that I need to convert my video files to .mov or .avi files? Do you, or anyone else, know what steps would be involved in converting HDV video content to .mov or.avi?

[Klaus]

No matter how careful you are to do the right thing by your clients, there will be occasions when they may be disappointed. It is simply the nature of covering a very complex event, with one go at it, and usually with a small crew (if any) and limited resources.

The best thing to do is to learn from the experience and to think about what you may do next time.

If you feel that you have let down a client then it is important to offer them an apology. With the apology should come an explanation of why it happened. Your explanation sounds fair and plausible. It should be stressed to the client that you are offering them the explanation not to abdicate responsibility, but to provide them with some context. It would also be useful to empathise with the client regarding why they might be disappointed.

Whether you offer a partial refund or not is up to you.An alternative to offering the client a partial refund might be to offer them a discount on future work. This would indicate to the client that you own the problem, and are committed to improving your service.

You may wish to consider adding a clause in your contracting to provide you with some level of protection in this type of situation.

[Klaus]

Will, are you suggesting that to create a shallower depth of field on the Z1 you are opening up the F Stop and compensating by using the camera’s ND filters?

Also, regarding your comment on keying and capturing uncompressed, can you explain what you mean.

Thanks

[Klaus]

If you’re looking for tv broadcast quality then no doubt you will also want professional microphones, professional lights, professional editing system with broadcast monitor, monitor speakers etc etc.

The notion of ‘broadcast quality’ is a bit of a misnomer. This arbitrary definition was initially perpetuated by tv stations (who seem to have no trouble running non ‘broadcast quality’ material if it is sufficiently engaging or salacious). It is also sometimes used incorrectly and interchangeably with ‘3 chip cameras’. These days it seems to be most trumpeted by some in the videography field.

If you’re looking for a decent low budget dv camera suitable for a wide variety of uses I would recommend looking for a second-hand Sony VX2000 or Canon GL2. If you are looking for 16:9 screen ratio then a Sony PDX10. While it is debateable whether these cameras can be defined as ‘broadcast quality’, they have all been used to produce programs that have been broadcast. And they all hold the capacity, in the hands of a skilled operator, to produce professional looking results, particularly for documentary.

[Klaus]

Thank you everyone for answering my questions.