[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Aiden,

Yes, always happy to help out people considering a career in media.
We’ve all been there.

Go for it!
Maybe even “high-jack” the conversation and turn it in to a video for the COW?
You might as well start getting published early.

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tom,

I recognise that reply… 😉

Hope that it is working out for you.
Do let us know.

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tom,

You are very welcome.

I suggest that you reverse engineer the problem.

Start by sorting out the contract that you want the performer to sign.

Then find out how much money that the client is willing to pay for the performer?
Whilst having the money discussion, also knock up a “persona” profile for the person that you are looking for (young, old and so forth) – grab a stock picture to put a face on it.

If below line, you are likely to be able to do a buy-out, if for use as broadcast advertorial or similar, you might have to dig deeper, much deeper.

Once you have that in place, you can put an advert out – make sure that client can afford to pay you to watch through a 1000+ head-shots / showreels. Many from people who “can’t read” the description of the actor/presenter that you are seeking, but are just trying it on in the hope that you’ll change your mind.

Instead of advert, if looking for a presenter, LinkedIn is not a bad place either. Or asking your professional peer network to cast the net out for you across their social media channels.

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Eugen,

You are very welcome.

As your Mac is “recently” new, it may be worth following Alex’s advice of installing Windows 10.

However, you are always going to run the risk, that when you mess around with one component, all the others will fall over.

Just a thought, have you tried to insert a good old analogue Audio Mixer between your microphone(s) and the camera?
I understand that the camera input is mic only, but that covers a number of possibilities.
Which could involve the analogue feed from an audio mixer.
Worth a pun, and may keep you going until the camera and/or Mac, is getting ready to pack it in.

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Eugen,

I hear what you wanna do, but my gut feeling is that you’ll be spending a lot of time, effort and money on a patching up a solution that will bring you no closer to your desired outcome.

In short, do consider your desired outcome, and whether you have a plan in place to upgrade your studio over time. As some of your components in the set-up are already reaching end of line when it comes to software updates etc.

Do NOT let the above discourage, it is only intended to be helpful.

On the vMix website there are a whole list of controllers that has been tested:
https://www.vmix.com/software/supported-hardware.aspx#capturehardware

The two brands that is IMHO best known is Elgato and BlackMagic.
Elgato is good if you’re trying to do everything yourself, including being in the front of the camera.
BlackMagic, is BlackMagic – kind of a “lucky dip” when it comes to functionality, but perfectly useful for you. One word of caution on the mentioned “ATEM Mini”, which was used on a music production that I was camera lead on a few years back – camera channel 3 overheated, as it is on top of the power unit inside that mixer – that was the explanation back them.

It highly unlikely that they will have firewire in, but you should be able to get a converter for that too. Or hopefully upgrade your camera to something with either HDMI or SDI out.

Hope that this helps you.

Good Luck, and don’t forget to post links to your music productions so we all can enjoy them!

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tom,

How exciting!
Sounds like a fun job.

It really depends on your product and the market.
But the reason for why soo many British actors are doing well in the US, is because the US audiences love their accents.
Having said that, there are always US actors flying in and out of UK, as many US productions are happening here. But those actors, could cost you a lot of money.

It might be worth visiting following UK websites:
https://www.castingnow.co.uk/
https://www.thestage.co.uk/jobs/
https://www.mandy.com/uk/jobs/actors
Just remember to specify that you want an US accent – and don’t get upset when they ask you whether you want East-, West-Coast or just Redneck speak… 😀

Don’t forget that you’ll get what you pay for.
If you want better, you can go through an agent, but it will cost.
Savings on expensive actors are on the back-end of production when you are spending less time with fluffed lines, and the performer not being able to retrace their steps accurately for the different framing of shot.

You could also consider using a TV presenter, of which there are many, some who would really love the footage for their show-reel.

Enjoy!

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tom,

I would suggest that you convert the spreadsheet to edl, and then import the edl file.
Obviously your spreadsheet needs to be formatted so the converter can read it accurately.

There are plenty of converters around, a quick Google search brought this one in at the top:
https://en.editingtools.io/edl/

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Gary,

Have you looked at Drive X from CoreMelt which uses Mocha for tracking?

When I got my FCPX system the first thing I invested in was the CoreMelt Everything bundle.

DriveX sounds like the one you need, but do check out the other “trackers” in that bundle:
https://coremelt.com/products/everything-bundle

(They have free trial, if you want to test it first)

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Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

The art of using sync and timecode on multi-cam shoots, seems to have been forgotten. Don’t know if it is the “new” generation of file-based cameras, lower bar of entry for people crewing the cameras, or just laziness where you fix-it in post?

In January I had a [rare] job of editing a multi-cam interview.
The job had 3 cameras and 1 separate audio recorder, and one thing that they did amazingly well was just that, making sure that everything was in sync. Which should always look like this in the PPro “info” panel:

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Lena,

Snap, I’m based in Central London, UK.
At least we are on the same time-zone.

Feel free to connect on LinkedIN or email me: madsnj [at] hotmail [dot] com

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Mads