[Mark Suszko]

Do you have access to rentals where you live?

[Mark Suszko]

That’s your answer. A couple of shelf brackets, some 2×4, wood, and imagination, you’re good to go.

When I made a rig related to this, I added web strapping loops that could be captured in the hinge and latch areas of the car door, or pinned by the closed window, as an extra safety/security measure. The loop gets pinched in the door, and you can add a cross piece of something like dowel rod to the end of the loop as a toggle to prevent it slipping out again.

Making these improvised rigs to suit a shot is part of the fun for me, and I never spend more tan 20 bucks but get a great result.

[Mark Suszko]

I think you just answered your own question, Greg. You are neither a bank, nor an insurance company.

If the job requires booking additional people and services, you ask those folks what *their* cancellation terms and fees are, and add them to the deposit. This business runs on trust and personal reputation, or it doesn’t run for very long, so you must cover all your subs, every time, or they won’t come back for the next gig.

Then when you’re truly up against a wall and need some mercy from these same craftspeople, you’re much more likely to get it. They all talk, they all network. You stiff one, they’re all gonna know it.

A businessman’s word is his most precious currency.

Now, could some weasel underbid you by not covering these bases? Maybe. But when things go wrong, they will go spectacularly wrong for that guy. You’ll be positioned to parachute in and save the day. Or sweep up what’s left of the weasel.

[Mark Suszko]

Every TV station or web based broadcaster is going to make their own determination on what to show from your video, and what to cut or blur out. Aside from posting very clear graphic warnings at the beginning, the rest is really out of your hands. Which argues for showing everything you’ve got, after due warning.

I’d suggest you offer a shot in the package with an expert who describes in detail what the video shows. Then the more squeamish folks can play just the verbal description told by this person, and leave individuals to go see the full footage on a separate site.

Darth Maul isn’t a good case for reference: he’s a fictional alien “monster”, his bisection showed no guts, spine, or other innards, or even blood. Apparently a lightsaber can cauterize as it cuts. Don’t doubt that some people at MPAA had a lengthy discussion about just how gory this was allowed to be.

Go see the youtube/facebook footage of the sea turtle getting a plastic straw removed from it’s face, and tell me if your footage is worse or less painful to watch than that.

[Mark Suszko]

Am I the only guy creeped out by Vimeo’s current pop-up ads on YouTube? The music and abstract imagery just turn me off for some reason.

[Mark Suszko]

Tried it, twice, sounded like it might work… but it hasn’t. Still looking for a fix. Going to try using a dfiferent browser next.

[Mark Suszko]

Brazilian Portuguese is, to my mind, the sexiest-sounding language on Earth… but I need it in English. Kinda in a hurry…

[Mark Suszko]

I still white balance and black-balance in almost every case. Especially if it’s multicam, we put all the cams side by side and balance off the exact same source, as much as possible. Just to get them all roughly matched-up. SAves time in post for sure.

I kinda miss the old days when the cameras had manually operated CCU’s attached and we had a guy who’s only job was to “paint” the camera continuously in reaction to changing light conditions. Going out to shoot single-cam, I still use a white card, but for non-news stuff I also try to bring out the Macbeth chart and shoot that under the actual lighting conditions, to get some kind of common reference starting point for the eventual grade. Internal camera bars have little relation to what came in thru the lens, so I find them less useful. I especially do the Macbeth chart for green and blue screen chromakey jobs.

I see it all the time, that people will start trying to pull keys before they’ve even first run the shot thru the scopes and used color correction to adjust the peaks, mids, and blacks. Then they wonder why their keys are difficult. Doing it my way, the keys come out perfect more or less on the first try.

[Mark Suszko]

I know I’m going to regret this, but which film school was that? Because a lot of your questions should have been addressed back there already.

[Mark Suszko]

If the AF has a “momentary” button, press it to set the focus, then leave it alone. Use iris and shutter settings that maximize depth of field and focus becomes less of an issue, and then you can add blurs in post if you want to control where the apparent focus is and make it *look* like you shot with narrow DOF…