[Mark Suszko]

As far as the quality argument, rent “Hoop Dreams” which was at least in part shot with 8mm analog video camcorders, won that year’s ACE and DGA awards, a raft of smaller awards, and just missed winning an Oscar. So, it is true that people forgive image quality *sometimes*, but the sound would have to be more than perfect, the performances, arresting, and the story, unique and expertly told. The odds against a beginner bringing all that together are steep. That said, people shoot documentary things in HDV format all the time and have them projected as video in film festivals. Modern theaters are all moving to electronic projection, slowly but surely. Whether something is good enough technically to survive transfer to optical film emulsion for traditional projection is not really a primary issue for distribution anymore.

That said, I will echo what has been said already, that if you want to make films, you should be a film maker, not a camera-owner. The two are not always the same. But when you have a solid concept for telling a great story, and the production well-planned, it is easy to rent a good high def camera for just the day or days you need it, and editing time, etc. just for the time you need that. Before the camera rental is even considered though, a film-MAKER is working on the unglamorous elements of the project: arranging the funding and the distribution. Strictly speaking, if you really want a lot of people to see the work, these two things need to be locked in before you shoot frame one, on ANY camera. Otherwise, what you are doing is only a hobby. Nothing wrong with that, but we should be honest with ourselves and not treat one like the other.

I would rather sink my own money into owning an editing system before buying a “fancy” camera, because I could make better productive use of the machine time in editing over a long period of time, I would not want to be out shooting every day of the year just to pay off the camera.

That’s part of what we call the triangle problem: cost, time, quality. You get to pick any two but only two. So when you are poor, and you want to keep the quality high, you wind up spending more time on things, in this case, pre-production planning, and post-production editing, color grading, sound design, scoring, etc etc etc. This is murder when you have to rent the time and access to someone else’s system and you may want to take most of a year to work on it. So that’s when owning the editing gear makes the most sense. But even there, you can find economies, in that you can edit in low resolution to create the final project file, then take your tapes and project file EDL lists and logs to a pro with a fancier system to have the final master conformed in high quality. This two-step approach lets you work at your own speed and low expense for the hardest, longest part, and minimizes the most expensive part of the process. So rent the cameras, the light kits, the audio gear, just for the length of time they are needed, don’t spend money on storing them on a shelf the rest of the year.

Now for the more philosophical part of the equation.

This is a hard process no matter what: projects don’t make it without the author giving their total commitment to it. It is at least as much work as bringing a child into the world and raising it, as far as commitment level. You don’t do it just to make a buck; there are easier, far more reliable ways to do that.

You do it because this thing is burning in your soul to get out and be shared and it will not let you sleep or do anything else in your life until it has been given a chance to be seen. Anything less and the effort is not worth it.

Assume you think it IS worth it. You will be told “no” many times and you’ll have to get over it and keep working away to see it through. You will need a thick skin and a lot of drive and self-confidence to see it through. You will make a bunch of mistakes and have to learn to forgive yourself and move ahead, while seeking the wise council of those more experienced.

The self-assuredness and faith in the product and your vision required for this job is often and easily mistaken by outside observers for egomania. (Sometimes the diagnosis is also coincidentally correct!) But you need that. That’s the price of commitment. But you need balance, too. You need to balance the ego that drives and leads the work where it needs to go, and keeps the flame from going out, against the need to work with others and be able to listen to criticism and praise with equal attention, in the service of the work.

After over twenty years of making and watching programs being made, I have barely begun to learn all there is to know. I come here to share what I do know but also to learn more still from those who can teach me. Marsha, best of luck to you, this place is an excellent resource, be sure to make the most of it and remember to watch that balance I talked about. Evangelize for your ideas by all means, that’s how you talk people into sharing your creative vision and helping it get realized. But they will only help and join when there is a true dialog happening, so a diplomatic approach is advised over a confrontational one. People talk about the “Auteur” theory, and I tend to approach my own work that way, but for anything more than a simple project, it can’t be a reality: you have to depend on too many other people to make your vision come true.

So becoming a film maker means learning also how to make others dream your dream along with you and WANT to become part of it. The dream grows even more rich in the sharing, and becomes more likely to make the leap to actuality. May your dream come true.

[Mark Suszko]

So you don’t want to just record it with snapzpro or camtasia? Live output?

If they do their doodling on say a laptop with a wacom tablet, you can use a scan converter on the laptop’s VGA output between it and a video projector to the room. That gets you a live output you can record to a deck with his mic audio for later purposes, while the audience sees his drawings live. Your interface on the laptop can be any paint type program from windows paint to irfanview to broderbund kidpix to adobe photoshop, just set up a large canvas in the right position and go. The scan-converted output could also run thru a switcher and be keyed over other video just like John Madden’s telestrator. Scan converters come in many prices from under a hundred bucks to many thousands. You tend to get what you pay for regarding price, in that I feel all sub-thousand-buck converters are about the same in quality. That level may be just fine for your needs as well. If you need something more high-end with more features like better scaling, image controls, flicker filters, etc. look into renting one first, as the one we bought was around six grand new.

So to recap, If I understand your needs correctly, the chain is, pen/tablet and laptop with paint program, VGA out to scan converter, where you split out a video signal to a recorder and send the image on to a video switcher for overlay or directly to a video projector.

Something I like ( from a producer’s standpoint) about this setup over an actual electronic whiteboard is, the presenter stands still facing the audience at all times, tied to the laptop and tablet, and this way is easier to light as well as shoot, compared to having to track him with cameras as he walks back and forth past a bright white board and turns his back to audience and cameras a lot. So you can light the guy in one spot way better and iso a camera on him, then another on a wide shot with the screen, presenter, and audience in it. And you won’t have crazy iris shifts.

[Mark Suszko]

Sorry you misunderstood me: that was not a value judgement of your program, Functionally, from a legal rights and permissions perspective, the two shows are close to identical: Idol is a karaoke performance show at the core. Strip away the irrelevant contest stuff and the rights issues are very similar, is my point.

[Mark Suszko]

I concur with “Perch”; even in the bigger markets, no one standard has yet emerged for FTP. You’ll have to poll each customer station individually for a while yet. It would be great if SMPTE or NAB came out with some sort of advisory that harmonized everyone’s choices and advanced a common standard.

DG- fastchannel and thenewsmarket.com are two systems I know about. Newsmarket does something I like, in that they take the file format question out of your hands for the most part: you send them whatever is good for you, tape, a sat feed, FTP, and they turn that around for you to fit what each of the stations can take. OTOH, that means you’ve put the compression of your product into someone else’s hands, and a perfectionist may not like that. Also, Newsmarket doesn’t make your feed available forever, I think it’s something like 2 weeks, then you have to pay rent to keep it up longer. DG I think only sends it once, like a blast-fax or blast-email.

Our strategy for HD distribution of spot, for now, is to have a DVCPRo HD deck and tape but more than that, to get with BluRay for hard-copy delivery of HD spots for clients that don’t or won’t do FTP. Why I like this is that BD duplicators are way cheaper than HD tape decks, have plenty of room for spot work, the media is cheaper than tape and durable and easy to mail, makes its own stand-alone archive, and most of all, you have a spectrum of play-out options, from a PS-2 game system to a computer BD drive to stand-alone players, something to let everyone see it somehow from bedroom to boardroom to newsroom. I don’t see hdv tape as being as viable for a physical format because the dubs are going to be real-time, one at a time, whereas disk dubbers can do many at a time and faster than real-time. For large runs it’s no contest. For single-tape runs to one local channel, maybe you can use HDV tape and get away with it, I dunno.

FTP is the best way to go if they can take it, but I think BD is the thing I want for all the clients that can’t FTP. Now if Apple could just get their butts in gear and add simple, reliable BD burning/authoring to FCP and DVDSP, I’d say I had the best Christmas ever.

[Mark Suszko]

Your show is essentially “American Idol”, as far as I can tell. Ever wonder why they sing so many older songs there? The rights are cheaper.

[Mark Suszko]

My standard advice is, you can always rent better than you can afford to buy. Buy first the things that are “evergreens”, that you use every time, that would quickly add up to moer than their cost if rented every time. People that buy “everything” right off the bat often find the stuff sits on a shelf or in a closet 6 days out of 7, yet they pay for that gear every day, even if it is not being productive, bringing in money. I have not owned anything but a family camcorder for decades now, because I can rent exactly what I need just when I need it, and don’t have to worry about it the rest of the time. Don’t have to worry about maintenance or depreciation or debt. The right way to be a business about this is to find the work, get some or all the money, then spend money just for the things you need to complete the work properly. Never own a steadicam or dolly or jib unless it actually gets used absolutely every time you go out.

Now, there is something to be said for owning a basic camera that you can take your time playing with and mastering all the controls and functions. But this could be a used camera, a cheaper camera, and it wouldn’t hurt you that much just starting out. Ebay is full of barely-used almost-new cams bought by “auteurs” who thought owning equals being. Their loss is your gain.

A solid, used tripod with a quality fluid head is smart to buy. A wired lav mic first is a must, rent wireless ones just when you need them until you can save up to afford to own one.

A shotgun is useful but even before the shotgun, I’d buy a wired, handheld dynamic cardioid mic for basic news type interviewing and grabbing general sound. Electrovoice mics are sometimes known as “hammers” because they are so rugged and foolproof. You should be able to pick up a satisfactory used one cheap. Get a table stand and a floor stand for it.

Light kits are definitely a good investment, and retain great resale as well. You can build up your kit a piece at a time, but start out with at least a softbox for the key and a second light like perhaps a Lowel omnipro for fill, with gel holders, diffusion sheets and other accessories, plus an extra stand to hold a cheap foam core bounce card. You can make something that looks like a million dollars with just those things, if you know what you are doing. And if you don’t yet KNOW what you’re doing, why spend more?

Beginners often want to use adapted home depot work lights and I say, well, you can do that, but I’d suggest you get away from those as fast as you can afford to. Pro lighting instruments give you reliability, repeatability, control and speed of deployment. You save money with home depot junk lights, but you trade in valuable time to position and flag them and make them do what takes a single knob twist for a pro light. A pro light can be expensive new. But divide that cost into an over 20-year lifespan (I have some lights that old and older) and it’s practically free.

What kinds of lights you need to own first depends on what you shoot most. For lots of fixed-position interviewing, a big softbox like a Lowel Rifa or chimera is great and easy to use. I like the Rifa: it gives a Vermeer-like light-wrapping quality that flatters people’s faces. Get as big a one as you can afford. I also have tips elsewhere on this site for making your own softbox attachment that works great, may tide you over until you can afford the Real Deal. The flourescent caselight by Lowel or similar array of tubes can do the same thing without heat and draw very ltitle power compared to hot halogen type lights. Whatever you choose, build up your kit over time by making sure you bill enough to buy a new piece on each job.

Get quality headphones for monitoring your field audio, and some kind of decent monitor to see if you really have what you think you have. If you will have moer than one person taking, a simple mixer will come in handy. Beachtek is one source but there are others.

Don’t buy the cheapest tape, Don’t buy the msot expensive tape, buy the medium-quality tape, if this is a tape-based camera. Buy and stick to one brand only wherever possible.

Some good cheap or free schooling for you can be obtained by joining your local cable access/ public access channel studio. You get access to free gear and facilities, training, extra crew, local production contacts,and you can use these to make some of your gallery type work for free while you learn and save up cash. It’s like an apprenticeship at a master’s studio. And you get to make programs almost right away, programs seen by people in your local area.

[Mark Suszko]

Thanks Mack, er, Mike.

😉

[Mark Suszko]

For a measly grand, you should get paid up front. The other guys are right. Read some of the previous posts in this section about setting rates for good guidance. Also read Ron’s “Grinders” piece.

[Mark Suszko]

Photoshop did the trick for me when I needed this. The wrinkled plastic bag filter makes convincing ice when applied to a jagged icicle-shaped transparent selection that’s perhaps also been treated with some emboss filtered random B&W noise to create frost. Use an overlay thru the random clouds filter to add variation to the frost buildups to make it more natural. Bluish tints add a frosty finish. Play with it, it’s fun and your hands never get cold.

A particleillusion snow generator over the top of this is killer.

[Mark Suszko]

Can you post a diagram or still photo? It would help. Do you have the projector beam flagged off so it is only hitting the screen and not spilling off anywhere else?

Do you control the studio lighting, or are you stuck with the grid as it is now? What I’m getting at is I have a suspiction your contrast ratio is just too great. This could be tweaked on the lighting side, the projector side, and you could also make set changes. Or a combination. I’d have to see it and know how you use it to have a better idea.

But one thought occurs to me: can you put grey photog paper on the smart whiteboard and still have it work? Are the pens actually drawing on the surface during the presentations, and does the presenter need to erase and re-draw a lot, or do they just keep adding to the board all thru the show? You notice TV talk show hosts tend to use non-white note cards on camera, and I think a lot of that is to reduce that hot spot in the picture.

A grey board would lower the contrast but probably still reflect enough of the projector to read okay, especially if you pick colors in the projector content that contrast well. If the presenters really draw on the surface and also erase, then this plan will not be practical. But maybe painting would.

Just an idea, it may or may not work. But you could test it with some scotch tape and about eight dollars worth of grey poster paper.