[Mark Suszko]

Does Carpel Video still take them?

[Mark Suszko]

You might also want to look at Digital Juice “jump-backs”, the older packs are going for a fraction of the original prices… the time savings on using such “canned” material might offset the cost for your needs.

I don’t usually buy them, but I like to look at Jump Backs often, mostly to try and de-construct how they are made and gain some design insights.

[Mark Suszko]

We just came across a project like this. It was being authored in Director, to act like essentially a DVD. Project had been stalled for a long time before we got it handed to us, and we think part of it was because finding somebody who is really qualified and experienced in Director these days is hard, and getting somebody GOOD at it is expensive.

Director was out there just as laser disk was waning and DVD had not yet really taken off, so it was kind of a bridge media, and THE way to do this kind of work until DVD matured. Now I think though that most customers would approach the job with a less intimidating platform, using HTML and Java and the like, or DVD authoring, or powerpoint type presentation programs. (You can actually do a lot more with powerpoint in terms of interactivity than you might suspect if all you’ve seen are slide shows)

I asked why the project could not be done as a simpler DVD. Their target audience had legacy computers that were old and slow and most did not have DVD-read-capable drives, or accompanying software, and few had net access and even fewer had fast, high data rate net access, but COULD play a CD-Rom that was entirely self-contained.

The project was a little more detailed and complicated than powerpoint should be asked to handle, though that was going to be my backup plan. I’m glad though we went another way.

We also looked at authoring as a DVD then converting the DVD to a CD-DVD, a Chinese format that crams an hour or more of somewhat lower-quality video into a CD form factor. Again though, we hit the wall of the legacy apps and gear the audience was using: we couldn’t guarantee each machine in the audience had all the drivers and plug-ins to play the hybrid format, and the audience was not going to mess around installing all manner of stuff just to play this training piece.

Bottom line is, the audience and what technology they have and are comfortable with drives the format you use to reach them. And that legacy standard may not be cutting-edge.

We actually looked at what it would cost to just BUY each site an office DVD player at around $30, and author the project as a conventional DVD, ship out a player with each disk. It might have actually worked out financially, but the procurement red tape would have taken too long. Though we got points for thinking outside the box on that one.

I guess for something to still *require* being authored in Director, it would have to be something pretty esoteric or exotic, because you have a lot more choices now. Director isn’t bad at all…. unless you’re new and see that manual for the first time, thick as a New York telephone directory… yikes!

[Mark Suszko]

Here’s the thing about that. Who’s going to air it?

Gillette made millions giving away razors but charging for the blades.

The money is not in the production, it’s in the airtime. This is why it is hard for a new guy like you to get these kinds of businesses you seek, because the local cable company has already been to them. They offer to do the entire production for free if the business buys the air time. Too often, the “free” production looks about what it is worth, but it doesn’t seem to matter to the customers.

Point is, you can make a nice spot for Joe’s Corner Muffler Shop. But you can’t give him a better deal on running it anywhere than an ad agency or cable company can, because they have a discount system that makes outsiders like you automatically cost between ten and twenty percent more for the same product. This is the “agency discount” system. TV stations give recognized agencies a better deal on the airtime than some guy off the street gets. The agencies make their entire profit inside of that discount margin, more or less.

And when Joe finds out he can pay you for your spot but then has to still go to the cable company to make his airtime buy on top of your fee, he’ll see that he can just do one-stop-shopping at the cable company and get the entire package for less, and you are out of business. Even if your spots look superior. Same for car lots, karate studios, local mom and pop restoraunts, etc. The bigger chain store operations and franchises get their ads done thru a shared pool, and don’t do anything locally except maybe buy airtime, but usually even that is coordinated out of a central office. Which uses an agency, or acts AS the agency.

To beat the system, typically you must join it, and go work for that cable company in the local sales production department.

Or try for more corporate gigs, things like trade shows, training and annual meeting events type things, as well as projects that go on the net like youtube videos and video news releases, that sort of thing. I think no matter how good you are, you’re not going to get ahead just trying to make local broadcast promos for the muffler shop.

But maybe making a point of sale video that customers watch in the waiting room of the muffler shop, on how and why Joe’s work is superior, a video that upsells Joe’s other services and explains technical stuff to non-technical people with clear, well-designed graphics and animation… now THAT is the kind of thing the cable company will not be competing with you on. Though a PR agency might. But that’s the kind of custom work that you might want to pursue, because the profit margin is better. Dental offices, eye doctor offices, demo vids to show how a procedure works, there may be some money in that.

[Mark Suszko]

My standard advice is to build a reel of spec and pro-bono work for charities or causes you support, or those supported by the people you want to work for. Then take that reel to those people you want to work for and ask for an interview, or at least a facility tour. Beginners typically get jobs on the night shift and weekends, doing the scutwork like supervisng imports, preparing and loading elements in advance for the staff editor, long, boring roto work, and babysitting renders, that sort of thing.

You might also join a site like ifreelance.com. There are others like it out there too. It lets you post samples of your work and bid on small jobs for people all over the world, (which works great for you as you can FTP your finished work anywhere) as well as recieve invitations to bid on projects.

If I understand it correctly, for some sites like this, they let members compete on a bid but even if you don’t win the bid, you get a little percentage of the winner’s fee. This supposedly helps keep people from bidding so low that nobody gets a profit, but the competition keeps the rates reasonable for the clients.

You can also try Mandy.com and even CraigsList, but I think most folks here are down on Craig’s, because it does seem to cater to the bottom-feeder charge-too-low/ get little back in exchange for “exposure” mentality.

[Mark Suszko]

Do you want to do the project or not? Sounds like you can’t decide. If you do, estimate time and materials and use your regular rate. You have to take a stand at some point and say “this is the lowest rate I can afford to do, and this is the quality level below which I don’t want to do the project”. Then it happens or it doesn’t. Guys like us want to be the hero and always say “yes, I can do that” to everything that pops up, but sometimes it is better to say no at first, if agreement leads to too many compromises and unmet expectations. Or if you just don’t want to be attached to something you don’t approve of, the rate can be what gets you off the hook. As far as that goes, we like to help our clients get the best, most effective look we can. But in the end, it’s their call, not ours, and if they want ugly, they pay for it, they can have it.

If you’re looking for a simpler and faster way (thus cheaper rate-wise) to do this “Jib-Jab” kind of thing for this client, that still looks good, maybe you need to drop the 3D CGI for 2-d flash-based stuff like ToonBoom or Lost Marble Moho or something similar. Unless you’re really good at AfterEffects and just do it all in AE. I worked on a talking animal concept for a spot once in my early days of learning Lightwave, and the time it would have taken to keyframe the lips for a good synch was going to kill me. What I did instead was keyframe a single sequence of three different mouth shapes over about a second. I hooked up a scan converter to grab the screen output of the computer live, and by putting my Wacom pen on the tablet and scrubbing back and forth on the animation timeline, I was able to puppeteer the animal’s mouth live in real time, while listening to audio tracks, laying this and the audio feed off to tape in real time. At the time, it was considered a clever work-around, since the work got done in a day instead of a week. Was it optimal, no, but it met the client criteria well enough and sometimes well enough is the best you can do.

There’s some more consumer-based PC software out there that’s custom-made to take a shot of someone’s head and automatically animate a mouth by morphing, based on a voice track, it was very cheap but has that quasi-South-Park look to it. Can’t recall the name right now, maybe it will come to me later. But it sounds cheap and simple enough that you could just have this client go get it himself and play with it.

Then, when he’s finally understood the limitations and wants to go back to higher production values, he can come back to you and pay what the job is worth. But there’s no good going to come from racing to the bottom on rates or quality. Set a standard you can live with, whatever that is, and hold the line.

[Mark Suszko]

Just to be clear, You’re asking for straight actual real-time 8-hour recording, not time-lapse of 8 hours, or paused recording that goes into record when motion is automatically detected in the camera view, and pauses again when there is no more motion detected? I’m thinking FCP might not be what you really want for this, but maybe Adobe OnLocation or something of that nature is.

If you really mean shoot 8 hours of HD, that’s a lot of battery power, not just for the camera but the laptop I imagine you’ll need to go along with it, plus a drive array. Using HDV would help reduce the drive space needs a bit. But this sounds like you’re going to need a customized solution.

I’ll be curious to see what they come up with for you.

[Mark Suszko]

[Jeremy Garchow] “This is solved, you just have to buy Encore.”

That’s not funny at all.

I need a Blu-capable FCP and DVDSP, PDQ, or TWBB, OK?

[Mark Suszko]

I’d be happy if they just got the BluRay thing squared away soon. This is hugely important to my shop’s future plans.

[Mark Suszko]

Newtek Video Toasters do this. You can also just buy the aftermarket backgrounds and do that effect in a compositor in post.