[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Sam,

What version of Premiere Pro are you using?

There are companies offering ProRes codecs for the PC. Even though I am on a PC too, I have never tried them as my suggestion to the client is always that they will be limited in what they can do with the file if it only works on a Mac – that approach works for me, but might not for you.

However, don’t know where you are based, but I would find a local supplier with Adobe running on a Mac (in the old days a NLE dry hire company could supply it – these day you may want to speak with an office IT supplier). Transfer the project (files and all) and master out from there.

If you are on Adobe CC you should be able to do a second install for a short time only on a Mac for the purpose of mastering out – just remember to deregister the work-station at the end of project.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bryan,

[Bryan Roberts] “Well as my work load has increased over the years and file quality gone up / file sizes gone up, I’m now getting told I can no longer use my site this way and must sign up for a cloud storage like Box, DropBox, Hightail, Google Drive etc. to send files. The biggest thing I’ve found over the years is that clients want their file to play right away (stream) in their browser.”

I haven’t tried the new service yet, but I am a long-time user of Hightail (Yousendit) and they are trying their best to give this a go:
https://hightailspaces.com/

A short User guide video can be found here: https://vimeo.com/129725644

My only objection to it, is that I can’t find any pricing information before signing up for the trial.

Alternatively I would suggest looking again at Google Drive and see if Google hang-out spaces can do what you want it to do – although the danger there is, that the client might expect you to be working 25 hours a day…

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

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[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Will,

I find that if I’ve got any links to an After Effects comp, render timings goes out of the window.

[Will Grisham] “Intel i5-3210M 2.50GHz and 6 GB RAM”

Not great, but not bad either. Rather than buying a completely new computer I would suggest looking at beefing memory up to 16GB and check what hard-drives you are using. As in are you on a USB-2 external? Or internal SSD – either can make a massive difference on render times.

[Will Grisham] “I’m having troubles exporting videos in Premiere Pro. It takes a very long time (8-9 min) to export even a short video H.264 720p video. T”

What is your source footage?
Do you have Adobe Media Encoder?
And have you considered another target format for the final render? I am on a PC too, and QT H264 does not look as good as I would like it to. Maybe instead try a high-resolution Windows Media Player format to see if that speeds things up?

[Will Grisham] “I want to make a 10 hour long loop video for Youtube.”

Not usre why anyone would want to do a loop video on YouTube – would love to hear and see the purpose for it. However, 10 hours in 720P is going to be one massive file. So it might be worth considering a shorter version.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

[Todd Terry] ” is anyone else getting a sudden influx of SPAM arriving via your company websites?”

I wouldn’t call it a sudden influx, as it have been happening for some time. However, SEO companies and people selling “followers” for your twitter/Youtube/Facebook etc account seems to be the worst.

One would have thought that it is robots doing it. My opinion is that a setup in China, India or Russia can do it much more cost effectively using human beings, rather than robots – so don’t be surprised if there are an actual person on the other side.

[Todd Terry] ” (senders such as designcreativesite@gmail.com, ideawebdesignz@gmail.com, momentum4marketing@gmail.com, etc.).”

Best way of dealing with those specific examples is to ask Google to remove them from the system – hit them at the source of their business and they will soon disappear.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dan,

You are very welcome – this is what the COW exist for, to help one another.

Incidentally at same time as your last post, I received this invite from the “Business & IP Centre” at the British Library. If you based in London, then this may be the best two hours you can spend on the subject without having to pay anything (+ good networking ground for potential clients looking for videos for their companies :-)).

https://www.bl.uk/bipc/workevents/companieshouseregister.html

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dan,

You are very welcome.

[Daniel Hatton] “Another quick question, would I be able to advertise as both myself and under a business name without having to register them as separate businesses? Obviously using a business name would potentially help in gaining larger clients so it would be good to have the best of both worlds in theory.”

You can call yourself anything you like. However, the correct legal form could be as an example “Daniel Hatton T/A Hatton Video Productions” in case you need to draw up contracts etc.

You can call yourself anything you like, and in some instances you may want to split out the wedding video services, from that of your activism videos, and those using your corporate video services – as two of those entities will never like the third (Choose any two) 🙂

What you may NOT do is to call yourself a company director of, or start trading as a fictive non-registered Limited (or plc) company – that will land you in real hot water. It could even be treated in the criminal courts by the UK Department of Business.

However, if you have a great name go ahead and register the web-domains and secure “space” on Social Media Platforms – perfectly legal and normal.

You are right in observing that some bigger companies will only trade with you if you are registered Limited business. However, tendering for their business also involves a mountain of paperwork that in itself puts their business out of reach from a small upstart company – best way to get in with those companies would be through an already established supplier or word of mouth networking.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dan,

Tough call. I am currently going through the same considerations myself, based mainly in the UK market.

There is nothing wrong with outsourcing your work. However, do consider the legal frame-work for doing so. As in that you don’t want yourself suddenly becoming an employer by default – that is if the “freelancer” working for you, only works for you.

Marketing/image wise:
I would not be concerned about telling client that you are using an extra pair of hands, but that you are taking full responsibility for their product.

Legal / contracts:
Setting aside the agreement with your end client, do consider using the following legal paperwork when using a third-party supplier:

• NDA: Non-Disclosure agreement – nothing that happens on the production leaves “the room”. Could also be of interest if you are using certain processes for producing films – as in that you don’t want a freelancer to “offer” your services.
• Contract for work: If the job is longer than one day make sure to have a signed agreement that states that the supplier is not employed by you, and that they will pay all their own taxes etc. (This does not absolve you from making sure that the supplier is legally allowed to work in the UK).
• Contract for non-compete: An agreement that ensures that the supplier does not approach your client(s) for a set period of time after the last job that they did through you. Although most suppliers are honorable, the client may not be. And it is tempting “to cut out the middle man” if the middle man is no-where to be seen…

Insurance / Legal entity:
Make sure that you are insured for 3rd party suppliers. I have an insurance that includes public liability, freelancers and/or employees and production costs + equipment.

If your productions starts growing you may want to consider setting up a Limited company to keep everything at an arms length. UK is one the countries in the world where it is very easy to setup a company.

However!: You will be doing a lot more paper-work and everything suddenly become more expensive. So expect the additional costs for a UK limited company to be anywhere from £750/year, but most likely around £2,000/year – this cost should maximum be about 2% of your total costs. If it is higher than that, then only do it if you are concerned about liabilities – which may be more cost effective to mitigate through having the right insurance policy.

Do note that most limited companies in the UK cannot get any loans or credit without the personal guarantee of the company director(s) – so read the small print of any contract you sign on behalf of the company.

With regards to HMRC there is nothing that stops you from continuing as a sole trader, whilst also being an employee of your Limited company – you would need to ask an accountant about the best way of doing this (will cost you).
With my last company I held on to my “Schedule D” registration as I was also working for other people. Not sure that exists anymore.

Hope this helps.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

[Morten Ranmar] “LWKS is definitely not for me – but would really like to hear others experiences in this arena…”

Some of the most memorable edits I’ve ever made, was made on the old Lightworks. The controller (Console) itself was a dream to work on with the software (DOS!!!), and you really felt like a film editor. I used it mainly for documentary editing in the mid 1990’s at a BBC department working with new and upcoming directors – we had to turn around 10-30 minutes of final edited programs a day with audio mix – which was a real joy to do on the system. + there was many fond hours spent waging bets on which shark would make it first to the botton-left corner…

Sadly, and it is a BIG sadly, Tektronix was the first to buy them, and it has since been through a number of different owners, who each have not managed to return it to its glory days – some have IMHO helped the demise. Current owner have tried, but we gave up our paid subscription after a year as it just didn’t deliver fixes and improved functionality in comparison to for example PPro. It wasn’t helped by their online magazine being a bit too liberal about reporting on the competitions’ NLE’s…

However, if Lightworks at the time have had the same budget and marketing people that Avid had, I’m sure that the world of NLE would have looked very different today.

But sadly they didn’t – and the new owner does not appear to have the resources to break back into the market and the Lightworks Controller, even if made to work with other systems, are out of financial reach for most people + strong competition from other hard-ware and software suppliers in that field.

Nevertheless, if someone asked me to edit a feature length film tomorrow (6 months+), I would seriously consider it for the controller interface alone. Anything else to edit, no.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Jacob,

Where are you based?

Do you have money in the bank – or has anyone bestowed their inheritance on you?

[Jacob Anderson] “How long will the procedures last. Should we hire an agent for this purpose?”

I guessing that you will be better off with a lawyer and an accountant. If you ask nicely, they may work for free as many have a fund for Pro Bono work – the bigger the firm the better.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Richard,

Have you tried a reboot of the Windows system.

Alternatively uninstall – reinstall CC 2015.
Should not be necessary, but it might cure the issue sooner rather than later.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk