[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Jon,

I would add to Ned’s excellent post (without repeating myself :-)) that your issue is not necessarily about the business entities, but more importantly it is the product that you wish to offer:

1) Music videos – record companies prefers not to pay you. The line often is “You will get your video shown on channel no 8,743 and be very famous”. The musician normally have no money, and wants it for free too – the clever video producer reminds their client that without your excellent marketing video, they will make no sales. At that point you either agree a flat fee or a percentage on earnings of the track. Not forgetting all of your competitors who are silly enough to think that channel+1 no 8,744 will also make them famous.

2) Corporate videos – they have money, and they like the idea of making all their branding into one neat music promo. Except when all the execs arrives in the kitchen, you end up with the same result (minus the music, dance and promo-video).

In short, the two businesses can happily co-exist and one may even feed work to the other. But if you are doing it for the business of making a profit, then you’ll need to follow the money and not your heart…

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Oliver,

I can’t see where you are based?

However, you will loose most of your profits the second you start producing the actual DVD – unless it is just to send out as a private show-reel to interested parties?

Instead, think VoD – Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube etc.

One model could be to have freemium trailer + the 1st chapter or highlights with a link to where the viewer can purchase access to the rest of the show.

In your production also consider filming some exclusive materials such as interviews with the stars, special advanced dance move etc, in return for renting the video and giving you their email address, the viewer get the exclusive access – this information will be valuable if you want to do a second program or add books, merchandise etc.

But production, distribution and pushing a physical DVD is in comparison a much more below the line expensive activity that will benefit neither you or the customer.

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

I echo what David mentioned.

However, would add that with the CC tool-set you get access to a creative ecosystem which will allow you to play and manipulate After Effects compositions directly in the timeline. With the new software architecture promised in the new upgrade, you should see some impressive improvements in speed-to-delivery ratio.

Hopefully as you grow more confident with the platform, you will be able to push the boat out on post production in your live tv environment.

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bob,

[Bob Cole] “I’d like to find an app which would enable me to create a list of the best sound bites, simply by discreetly pressing a button. I’ve found it to be disruptive when the producer interrupts the session to ask me for the timecode after a good statement.”

I seem to remember several attempts by both Sony and Panasonic to introduce an in-camera good shot marker.

However, sadly none of those will stop the producer asking you to give them a TimeCode – as ultimately, the Producer knows what clip is best for them, and that is likely never to change 😉

A better solution, and one that could be chargeable, could be to offer a “video assist” type monitor with BITC that the producer can hold. Companies like Black Magic do them.

But if you could stream/Wifi it locally straight out of the camera to an iPad or similar, then that might be easier to manage for the producer + less cables for you.

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Sibel,

[Sibel Melik] “I have a similar problem in that the digital file of the 16mm film I’m dealing was transferred at 24 fps and the film appears to have been shot at 16 or 18 fps – so it was transferred at the wrong frame rate and appears very sped up.”

If your film was scanned at “16 or 18 fps” the 24fps should look like slow-motion, as in that you are “stretching” the frame rate to make each picture last longer on screen.

However, if the film was scanned 29.97 fps (30 fps) then it would look sped up in 24 fps playback.

My suggestion is that you set up a 29.97 fps timeline to see if the footage then runs in normal speed? (I am hoping that it wasn’t scanned at 60 fps…).

If your desired frame rate is 24 fps (23.98 fps) then you should be able to do a pull-down.

Before messing with changing the frame-rates from what it was originally scanned at, I would have a conversation with the person/people who will be doing the sound editing and mastering first. As that you can always master out in 29.97 fps and do a pull-down from the master file, rather than trying to synch sound and visuals running at different frame-rates.

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]

[Tero Ahlfors] “A single Flame is about 100K and Quantel is pretty much in the same ballpark. You need to do some serious work to break even with that”

That pretty much nails it, you need to have the work in order to maintain that kind of kit. The question is whether a single flame operator can out-perform 4-8 seats of AE (including cost of creative/operator)?

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tero,

[Tero Ahlfors] “These are neat. They also cost a metric shitton of money.”

Yep, agree, but should not be discounted when looking for serious alternatives to AE, unless one is only looking at software that are free to use…

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Pascal,

Hope that I’ve understood you correctly.

A straight “Cut” seems to be the best way to do it. This might involve you shooting the scene 8 times as you build up the new arrivals in the shot – for 30 seconds that should not take too long.

Alternatively:
If you want them all to be managed in the shot at the same time, then you will need to either film them on a Chroma key background.

Or, if nothing moves in the foreground or background. Should each of the eight separately, but make sure that their place in the frame do not overlap, and use a difference key or crop to place them in the final shot. However, with 8 people you may find that the picture is not wide enough.

If too complex, go back to using the straight forward “cut” – it will never go wrong. But you do need to follow your story board, unless the talent jumping around in the frame is a desired effect…

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Matthew,

If your studio have already brought into Adobe CC would it not be worth waiting for the upgrade announced at NAB?
Which in all fairness from your own statement seems to be fixing many of the issues that you had with the old version of AE.

[Matthew Altheim] “Fusion seems to be the best opportunity coming forward. With its $0 price tag, it has no real barrier to entry; not only that it has a well designed program, with new code (the architecture of the application is brilliantly fast), and it has native ways to use 3d models, in a quick manner.”

It sounds like you have already sold yourself to Fusion. I am curious as to why you are not also looking at Flame, Quantel and/or Nuke? (to mention a few)

Bottom line: Do remember that the value of $0: Would most likely be $0 – as in that if you the user don’t push the supplier to do better, and reward the supplier for doing so with investment in their software, then you might end up with nothing.

[Matthew Altheim] “Anyone here have their advice on what they have noticed between After Effects and Fusion? AE seems to me to be more of a consumer grade application, in a world that is wanting more and more pro-grade software (the kids are getting smart!)”

That is true, the kids will be gyrating towards the freemium software such as Fusion. Where as the adults, are most likely to use a professional integrated platform where the client(s) won’t say: “You have no overheads, so why don’t you work for free for us?”.

Fusion is tried and tested, but at the rate of $0 it won’t necessarily in the future have the same development team than that of a company that are spending North of $840 million/year on R&D (Adobe).

You have already for two years pushed Adobe to do better, so why jump now?

All the Best
Mads

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

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Daniel,

No disrespect to anyone on the Business and Marketing forum.
But you might be able to get better and faster advice in the Cow fcpx forum:
https://forums.creativecow.net/fcpxtechnique

All the Best
Mads

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