[Mark Grossardt]

It seems to me that there’s a great opportunity here. Video used to be something only big companies could afford to do, but now everyone can jump on the video bandwagon. Once video has become a part of the way these other companies do business, some are eventually going to want it done better. Keep your relationships with these companies, encourage them to use video where ever they can, and gently remind them that you’ll be there when they’re ready to do it better.

The crude analogy: Think of the Flip as the gateway drug. Encourage them to get hooked on video, and then make yourself available when they start craving the “hard” stuff.

[Mark Grossardt]

Hi Christy,
I’ve always been told that the font height must not be less than 4% of the screen height (ie. 20 scan lines of an SD image) and up for no less than 4 seconds for a political. Everything else, I generally go with a sans-serif font at about 9 pixels (9 point leading), and I’ve never had anyone complain.

[Mark Grossardt]

I think we’re going to try to downgrade to an earlier version of Episode to see if that fixes our bug. Anyone have any experience wiping Episode from the drive and installing an older version?

[Mark Grossardt]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the quick response. I should have added that we have been making QT reference movies to dump directly into Episode to get the work out the door. It’s a workaround that’s getting us by for now, but once we have more huge projects come in, we’re going to need that one-step functionality back.

We did install the Episode 5.2.1 Compressor plug.

Dumping both a QT ref or a self contained QT directly into Compressor, then applying the preset gives another weird result in that it quickly compresses an mpeg file that only plays audio when viewed with QT or VLC.

So, I’m guessing we’re looking at a Compressor to Episode plugin issue, since we can export other formats FCP>Compressor and Episode itself seems to be solid as a stand alone.

Would it then make sense to downgrade to Episode 5?

Thanks again.

[Mark Grossardt]

We just compute the DG invoice to us, tack on the standard agency percentage that we use for all other vendor services, and pass the cost on to the client.

[Mark Grossardt]

Thanks for your response and advice, bogiesan.

I actually think I’ve stumbled onto a decent AE solution. I’m using Trapcode Particular to create a grid emitter set up to my dimensions, then choosing a custom particle that points to a comp containing the video files and choose Random – Play loop. I just set a keyframe at frame one to emit 200 particles, then 0 particles at frame two, set the lifespan of the particles as long as I need it and bang, “simple” 200 unit video wall (kinda).

Thanks again, and I’ll check out those threads you linked. You never know when you’ll find a better way to do something.

[Mark Grossardt]

Hi Christian,

We had a similar situation at our post facility where the client wanted all of the source files to a commercial so that they could update it themselves without having to involve us anymore. Our account exec unwittingly agreed to supply everything to the client, so what to do?

I packaged up the project neatly, but not too neatly (ie. I didn’t prerender any elements, didn’t convert expressions to keyframes, didn’t include documentation on how everything worked together, etc.), and sent it away. Fortunately for us, this project was fairly complex and would take even a skilled AE artist quite a while to deconstruct and figure out how to modify. Couple that with the fact that it required some specific plugs (Boris, 3D Invigorator, Trapcode), and we felt pretty confident that the client would be coming back to us for their updates. Two weeks later, they did.

Could they have ripped off certain elements for their own use? I guess so, but in our case it wouldn’t be much different from an AE artist seeing something on air and deciding to recreate it himself.

Bottom line, our approach was to overwhelm the client with the project (and there really wasn’t much of an alternative if they wanted it fully modifiable) and trust that they wouldn’t have the gear/software/knowhow/time to do what we do. We also made it clear that we weren’t going to be phone tech support to someone’s high school aged nephew who couldn’t understand our AE projects.

Hopefully, when/if the client receives your source files, they’ll take one look at them and decide your services are worth paying for.