[Mark Suszko]

I think they’re trade-marking the *slogan* next to the happy face.

[Mark Suszko]

At the risk of being “that guy”, I gotta say, the sample spots did not impress me all that much. Particularly the first one, which could have been executed in a pre-made AE or Motion template. Motion VFX offers a few similar templates to this sample.

I lost patience with the first spot for not getting the name out sooner.

The second one looks complex with all the particle animation. It doesn’t convince me that the phone is any different from any other thin phone, though. A descriptive voice-over narrative could help.

[Mark Suszko]

I also suggest my friend Larry Jordan’s package, recently revised and updated, it assumes no current fluency in x and starts you from scratch building good habits.

[Mark Suszko]

“Good” methods? No. fifty bucks a shot for HD stock when and where you need it sounds pretty fair, considering the cost to go shoot it yourself.

If you don’t have the budget for the stock, but are still committed to using stock, you could try posting ads in the local craigs-type-list for each location. But I don’t know that you’ll get anything good and usable for less than fifty bucks, and the administrative hassles have got to be worse.

Find the money, or re-write the concept.

[Mark Suszko]

The first thing I’d do is get myself listed in the New York production Guide for the city and state. Next is, researching the contact info for creative directors in town, as well as the names of people running editing and compositing shops. You’re looking for someone who is temporarily swamped and needs to outsource or ramp-up some temporary comp work.

[Mark Suszko]

Thanks. I’m also interested in how it’s set up on the servers to send the various versions to their assigned platforms?

[Mark Suszko]

Flip the script for a moment: You’re the owner. You’ve booked an expensive wedding and then at the last minute your staffer flakes on you and is a no-show. The bridezilla is going to sue the pants off of you. If you don’t have some kind of insurance policy to cover this, the next place to get the money becomes the crew that left you in the lurch.

Back in the shrouded mists of time, when I did weddings, I had a network of “go-to” guys that could fill in for me or to whom I would give referrals to gigs I could not accept, and vice-a-versa, just for such situations. I shot multi-cam so that I had a hot running spare in case one camera went down. I had redundant audio capture schemes between hardwired and wireless mics. I had spare tapes, spare batteries and ran AC power where I could. I did my best not to tempt Murphy’s Law.

The only point I’d differ with regarding the contract, is that the absent or defective shooter only pays actual damages, that is, the cost of the package, plus a limited amount of any legal fees incurred. There has to be a reasonable cut-off.

As the shooter, people are trusting the most important day of their lives to you to capture, WITHOUT FAIL. That’s what you’re selling. There’s no do-overs. The barn only burns down one time. Are you fully, I mean FULLY prepared to be able to get the shots, no matter what happens? This not only means additional back-up gear, but back-up PEOPLE as well.

At my own wedding, the still photographer told us initially he would be our shooter, but later said he had a date conflict: “However, I’m sending you my BEST GUY”.

Well, his BEST GUY showed up with only one large-format camera, the (single) lens for which promptly broke as he arrived, so, no large-format wide shots of the wife in her wedding gown at the church or reception. His only back-up camera was a 35mm, which would still have worked, but he didn’t pack a wedding’s worth of 35mm film for it! Thank goodness a bunch of my guests were themselves photographers, who either took their own great shots and sent them to us, or lent MY BEST GUY some of their own personal fresh rolls, in the church, so we had *some* stills coverage.

After the honeymoon, when we found out what happened, the original photographer ( the Boss of My BEST GUY) apologized, refunded us the entire package, gave us all his negs, and offered to do a free sitting with the wife and I dressed in our wedding outfits again… but of course, without all the people who had been there that day. I was feeling too happy as a newlywed to really give it to the guy, plus a re-created photo just wouldn’t have felt the same… and his deal seemed fair, so I let him off the hook. (30-odd years later, I kinda wish I had let him do those re-takes, just because my wife deserves to have some great full-body shots of how smoking hot she looked that day)

My over-belabored point being:

Event shooting, particularly weddings, is SERIOUS BUSINESS. If you are unwilling to be over-prepared for every eventuality, you really have no business asking people to put their trust in you. This is one reason good shooters cost what seems like a lot of money; it “seems” like too much -until shiat goes down, and you find out if the guy can save the gig or not. No matter what. That’s part of what you are paying for.

[Mark Suszko]

Isn’t this something that can be largely automated as a batch job in Compressor? So, billing time for setting up the batch overnight, and the occasional check-ups during the run should be minimal. The thing to watch out for is if your machines are tied up running this process in daytime and thus unavailable for other paying jobs. If you’re having to make other clients wat or send them elsewhere, then this guy should be paying more.

[Mark Suszko]

As to battery, what about running it from a deep-cycle marine (car) battery?

[Mark Suszko]

Don’t mask the white letters: luminance key them.