[Mark Suszko]

I learned some things here too, never heard of FastChannel before this, will check them out.

Joe, The interesting thing about car commercials is there are so many ways to do them, so your gear question is hard to answer until you pick a style and type of spot to do. For example, you could do spots all day and never use a camera once: just a lot of (and I mean a LOT) of graphics flying around and flashing and whatnot, from images supplied by the client or the co-op they belong to that furnishes great pre-shot still and motion images from the manufacturers. My friend who lives in Texas does this kind of stuff almost exclusively, it’s mostly Aftereffects work from what I can tell.

Some local dealers are more vain than others and always need to be seen IN their spots. Until we know the context of the shot, again, hard to say if you have enough gear to do it. You probably don’t have a jib for example, and to show the splendor of a car lot, the high angle jib shot is very often just the ticket. You can rent a jib if you live near a large city with a rental place. Or if this is going to be a long series of spots with a good portion pre-paid, you might build the cost of purhasing one into your rate up front and pay it off in six or so jobs. From there on out, YOU rent it out:-)

Here is a little cheap trick you can use in place of a jib: get a hi-hat, which is a mount for your tripod’s pan head that looks vaguely like Abe Lincoln’s hat. Often used to shoot very low angles like a bug’s eye view of a hot sportscar. Bolt the hi hat to a small piece of plywood, and c-clamp the board and hi hat to a 10- foot stepladder. Instant stable crane shot, looks great.

Of course it can’t do the sweeping moves of a real jib or crane, just pans and zooms, but often that’s enough. I’ve worked with real Matthews jibs on a dolly and with the stepladder, you really can’t tell the difference when the shot is just static. The hi-hat can also be adapted to ride on, say, the hood of a moving car, so it’s a flexible kind of purchase capable of multiple use, unlike a jib that only does one thing. A beanbag can be used on the ladder instead of the hi hat but is less stable and more dangerous.

Another piece of gear that will be handy for car spots is a rotateable polarizer for your lens, to remove glare from car windows and let you see people and details inside the car.

You’re probably going to need a good wireless mic if the guy wants to do standups.

The things I see wrong the most in low-budget car dealer spots are:

Bad lighting or just exisiting light, usually with a bad background choice that’s too busy or off-message. Lighting a car to look the best is a skill all by itself. There are tricks to doing it on a budget.

Too MUCH light: too much backlight from windows, or the wrong color temperature, or the light hits everything in the frame inclusing useless things, instead of being mostly on the things you want to emphasize.

Crummy audio with wind noise or off-mic. Long mic wires in the shot.

Shaky handheld camerawork with bad framing.

No extra shots at different focal lengths to allow for better editing. Do more takes.

Cue card reading that look off axis to the lens. Memorize the lines or invest in a real thru the lens prompter.

Horrific scripts written by the client. No real solution to this if he insists, since he’s paying. Try to first beat the easy to fix problems and save client relations for last in this case, because the better you make them look, the more they will start to take your opinion about other matters.

[Mark Suszko]

“Broadcast equipment” is a rather broad brush, but it’s not impossible to use the HVX200 for that. But people who throw around buzzwords like that make me nervous.

Frankly, you haven’t given enough information to make a lot of comments on, but my gut (substantial as it is) tells me your partner is being overly ambitious and optimistic at the outset. And you are right to be a little nervous about working in medical video, in the sense that it is not necessarily easy to show a lot of the things you want to depict without a substantial outlay for specialized (expensive) equipment. Shooting in an OR or lab for example takes some extra skill to get something useable. Not to mention lots more permisisons and legal hurdles…

If your product is more along the lines of interviews and lectures about a procedure or a drug or a device, that’s more familiar territory.

It’s also a territory well-travelled by a number of established providers. Not that you can’t add to their ranks, but I’m thinking your partner may not realize he has some established competition.

For something as grandiose and at the same time nebulous as this, with so many unknowns, I think what you want to do is establish benchmarks, milestones and goals with a narrow scope. Then build on that a piece at a time. By keeping the projects more manageable, you can control the amount of your risk exposure and avoid long-term debts or other problems.

Don’t try to do the 6-hour epic right out of the can. Also don’t wait till the 6 hours are all done to start getting paid. Establish a modest “pathfinder project” or “demo” pilot project first, one that will use all the techniques and equipment the biger projects will use. You’ll get real dollar figures for costs and expenses out of the pilot project that you can then extrapolate to the more ambitious ones.

This will also test and reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your partnership, and point out areas that may need work, before you get into too much trouble.

Use the principles we rehash here over and over again: establish a true budget based on ALL your actual costs of doing business. Arrange partial progress payments to pace the completion of each stage of the project. That way, if it falls apart at any stage, you have been paid up to that part and will not be left holding the bag. Pay your crew and suppliers first, so that your word in the production community is your bond. Stiff your crew or your gear suppliers, and you quickly run out of people and gear when you need them. If you’re known to be a stand-up guy, gear and people magically appear when you are in trouble and need something on short notice without advance payment. It really is a small circle we travel in and if you lose your good name, you may as well quit the business and move to another town.

Also, these things don’t just materialize in front of a lens when you hit the red button: they require research and preproduction and planning. To really get a grip on the production, end to end, you need to write a treatment. Even for “unscripted” programming, you benefit from the treatment process. If you ask, I’ll go into more detail about that in another pst, or you could just go to Amazon and find a used copy of John Morley’s book on Effective Script Writing. I’ve made my entire writing career so far out of the principles in his book. It will serve you well.

[Mark Suszko]

Export to compressor, I tried, but the preset for MP3 was not obvious to locate. I WAS pretty shagged-out form working overtime thoguht, so will look again in the morning.

Tried export via quicktime conversion, no dice. Tried export into Peak Express, into Apple’s Sound editing app as well as Garage Band. Wherever I had a drop-down for MP3-it was always gray/disabled. I tried importing a wav into itunes after setting convert to MP3 in preferences, but it would not convert and burn to Mp3 for me at work. That part steamed me because it’s easy on my older mac and itunes at home.

I must be in that forest-for-the-trees blind spot. I want to export the audio from an FCP project as MP3 files. To the point, the audio of a thirty-second spot in FCP, exported as MP3 for radio use.

Seem like cake? Should be.

Is what I said, oh, 2.5 hours ago. Been in “can’t get there-from-here”-land ever since. Tried export using quicktime conversion, tried export using compressor, tried save as, tried a novena to St. Jude and to Saint Claire, the official patron saint of TV (yes, there is one, Pope-approved. That’s a story for another time). If the option for MP3 was there, it was always grayed out. I tried importing wave and aiff files into itunes and burning to MP3 there, which works fine at home on an older version, but not on the recent version 7 at work. Tried setting preference in itunes to convert to MP3 on import and export, but the wav stayed a wav.

I tried downloading Audacity and it looked like it was going to be able to do it, but then at the last stage it said it actually uses another program, called LAME, to do the MP-3 conversion part. I downloaded that too, but can’t figure out how to install it and connect it to Audacity. Any instructions that that begin with “open TERMINAL” or “Open CONSOLE”, and I get those same PTSD symptoms I got from hearing “Pick up your number two pencils… A train leaves Chicago traveling 32.6 miles per hour…”

(shudder)

[Mark Suszko]

If they complain about the extra charge for undercoating the back side of all your luma keys, tell them they do that at the factory and you can’t take that off, but that you’ll go talk to your manager and see if you can make an “adjustment”.

More seriously, car dealerships have the rep they do regarding spots because it’s generally proved true over time. Go into this knowing you are dealing with the Devil, and everything said by them needs to be parsed and double-checked for loopholes. Others have discussed rates, I’ll add some side details. First, I’m shocked you have a chance at working for “Faustian Motors, home of the Hellishly Good Dealz” at all; usually the local cable company grinds these out at a shockingly low fee nobody else an match, if they agree to the time buy (placement) package from the cabe company. The good news for you is that their “free” productions usually LOOK like what they cost. Anyway, on to some rules….

Rule 1 is NEVER do the job for a flat fee, EVER. Always charge an hourly rate, and don’t charge half-days. Completion times are always an ESTIMATE; as in car repair, it may take longer and you will have to charge accordingly if it does. And always get at least a partial deposit in advance. Many folks here like working in thirds: a third up front, a third after the shoot or first rough cut screening, and the final third paid in full upon delivery of the approved final master. Pay your own expenses and any rentals or crew costs out of the up-front money. Adjust the amount of the first “third” to make sure this can happen. Never start the second project until the first one is all paid for, this rule must be set in stone and told to the client in advance. You are NOT a finance company, let them go to a bank to make money off the interest on someone else’s money.

Rule 2 is Never believe the proposition that if you do the first 1,2, or however many at a discount, you’ll get a lot more future biz at a higher rate. Repeat this mantra: “I am not a finance company”. My own personal rule is to walk away from clients that ever mention this proposition, but hey, you are already dealing with car salesmen, so it’s kind of too late for that… Still, any time they suggest a price “adjustment” for volume, suggest they have it happen on the “back end”, that is, no, you won’t drop your rate on these first spots, but if “we” establish a good working relationship now, you will start cutting them a volume deal on spot number five and after that.

Rule 3 is GET IT IN WRITING. What you are doing, at what rate, what deadline, what amount is paid down and when the rest is payable. What you will and won’t do if the deal is cancelled. What format and how many are you responsible to deliver. Who pays for errors and changes. How many changes allowed before a new deal must be arranged. ( My rule of thumb is, one set of free changes after the rough cut screening or first time they see the edited master, interpreted pretty liberally as long as the changes don’t require new elements. Mistakes they make like spelling, they pay for, mistakes I make, I eat. After a second screening, any more changes at that point are billed as a new job. ) Who owns the tapes shot and the shots done; will you be able to show people your spots in a demo reel. Will the client provide any stock footage, logos, or other elements.

Rule 4 is It COSTS WHAT IT COSTS. Build a reasonable profit into your rate, so that if you divide the time you spent into the money you made after expenses, you’re not working a wage that qualifies you for your own plastic name tag and spatula. While it’s right to pay attention to what others charge, don’t let that figure rule you: they can be low-balling, or have some other reason they can afford to charge too low. If you lowball first time out, it is HELL trying to get the rate raised later when it becomes apparent you have not been charging enough due to inexperience. Work out your true costs of doing business and your profit, add some margin on top for safety, see if you are somewhere AT LEAST in the upper middle range of competitors rates for similar work, then re-evaluate after the first job. Don’t take a too-low rate because its’ “good for your portfolio/demo reel”.

Rule 5 Is come back here and run things by the group mind here any time your spider-sense starts tingling or you just don’t know for sure. These guys are VERY smart and eager to let you benefit from their vast experience and avoid mistakes they’ve made. You have a HUGE resource and support team here working for you: USE IT!

[Mark Suszko]

OK, I have a project for you, one I’ve tried to get done for a couple summers now, only I can’t find anybody with visual basic skills that will spend the time on it for no money. If you do this project, I only ask you let me use a copy of it too, free of charge.

In Japan there was once a kid’s show that featured a live contest segment every week. Kids would draw pictures of wrestling monsters or robots, and mail them to the station. The station picked two of the entries each week andused them for “video sumo”. This involved digitizing the pictures and setting up a system that sampled audio VU level. The two kids picked to “fight” called into the show, and on cue, would YELL into their phones as long and as loud as possible. The longer and louder you yelled, the more your hand-drawn avatar pushed the other one off-screen/out of the circle, until a winner was declared, like sumo wrestling.

What I wanted to make was a variation on this trick, a “virtual tractor pull” contest. Using vbasic, sample an incoming audio signal from a mic coming into a laptop’s sound card. The longer the signal goes ( as long as loudness is above a user-adjustable “loudness threshold”), the farther the tractor icon travels across the screen until it crosses a finish line with a “full pull”.

Each time two entrants achieve a full pull, the threshold is re-set louder until one is eliminated and one victor remains. The variable that advances the tractor is an audio input signal that remains uninterrupted and above the threshold loudness value. Any interruption of more than a millisecond stops the “race” and sets a marker or numerical score readout on the “track”. A timed re-set engages after 60 seconds.

The fun of this program, which I was going to put in a kiosk at the state fair, was that little kids could compete with their parents to see who could “veroooommmm!” the longest without stopping for a breath.

Think you could code up something for me? You would keep your name on it, I just want the right to be able to use it at the fair as described, I’m not wanting to charge money, this would be a free attraction.

A variation of the game is a hog-calling contest: the software is the same, the graphics become a pig on the far right and a farmer on the far left, and the uninterrupted calling sound drives the pig to advance all the way to the farmer to “win”.

Most of the vbasic is already available as prewritten modules, they just need hooking together into a functional program as described. What’cha think?

[Mark Suszko]

Generally, I have found Panasonic DVC pro25 machines and Sony DVCam machines can play back DVCPRo25, DVCAM, and consumer mini-DV tapes (assuming they are not in LP recording mode).

You are right in that these are all flavors of the same DV 25 format. Typically, all the station would need to play that mini tape is the special cassette adapter that lets it fit their deck. These adapters are not ubiquitous, some stations may run on such a tight shoestring as to not have one handy. Perhaps you should own one just in case of that.

The newer Panasonic DVC pro decks that handle DV50 are backwards-compatible to play your DV25 flavored DVCAM and DVCPro25, but may not be able to play it off a consumer DV tape any more, even though that too is DV25. It seems that when every new generation of deck that comes out, as they add a new format compatibility on the front, they drop one step of backwards compatibility on the back end. So keeping some older DVCPro decks around could be a smart move, if you are in the position to be getting assets on consumer mini Dv sometimes (like newstip footage at a tv news station coming in off civilian home movie cameras).

BetaSP is an obsolete format, but remains a staple especially at news stations until the cost of the tape stock and repair parts (decks are no longer being made AFAIK) becomes prohibitive. There was just such total market penetration of the format for so long, it will be years before it is weeded out of all stations and even then will live on in archives.

I think if you want your guy to have the best shot at getting on air, you want to go to some dub house or rental shop and make copies onto “real” DVCPro25 or DVCAM as well as BetaSP. Give the stations what they want. You can buy used but clean beta tape from places like Carpel.

You might also consider saving the footage off to DVD as MPEG-2 and as pure data on a data DVD, for shops that have better computer editing systems and infrastructure. You want to be able to leave-behind whatever you bring, so make more copies than you expect to need.

I would not ask them to download it from somewhere. Number one; it’s extra work and extra time and that makes it likely your guy will be eliminated as too much hassle. You HAVE to make it EASY for stations to take your material, do as much of the work for them in advance as you can. Number two, they may not have sufficient data infrastructure to pull things off the net and get them into a production flow easily. Again, hassle factor.

One other way to get footage to stations nationwide or statewide is to book a 15-minute satellite window thru a vendor, and uplink your footage. This can cost just a few hundred dollars for a simple squirt of SD analog on the Ku band with perhaps a “turn-around” on C-band to maximize possible reception.

Before the day of the uplink, you send faxes and emails and snailmails to the assignment editors or news managers telling them at what time and on what bird and what transponder they can pull down this footage. (pick a time slot that’s not during their actual newscast, or they will be too tied-up to take the feed much less use it, 9AM-11, 1:15-4PM, or 7-9PM can work, though the earlier in the day the better)

You send a press release with coordinates and details along at the same time as the notice. If they decide your stuff might be useful, they’ll downlink a copy of it and use the footage in a story they create. You don’t know who uses it until you see it used.

A variation of this technique is called an SMT, Satellite Media Tour. Your guy sits in a studio for a live shot in one town, connected to the uplink dish, and each station that wants to interview him takes turns in 10 or 15-minute “windows”. He wears an earpiece that connects him by phone to each station that calls the special IFB number. Doing one of these takes some organization and advance planning, but is very cost-effective spread over multiple market hits when it’s a hot topic and everybody wants a piece of your guy.

[Mark Suszko]

If you don’t want the job, send the assets back immediately under registered and insured mail with signature receipt and tracking numbers. Better yet, hand-deliver them and demand a signature for them on some memo you can write up that basically says “Here’s everything that was yours, I’m out of it”. If they want you to stay and have a chat, politely tell them you have something scheduled right now and have to run, but to call and make an appointment for another time “real soon”. Then split. Politely.

If you want the job and are just holding out for more money, say nothing until asked. Just bundle and store away everything securely and for the love of God don’t lose anything.

Grinders LIVE to find some legit fault they can hold over your head indefinitely.

[Mark Suszko]

For someone finishing their fourth year studying a subject, you don’t sound at all sure what you’re going for or why. What school is this?

After four years working with the concepts, ideas should be popping out like weeds. Whether they are practical or not is immaterial at this stage. But you should certainly have SOME idea of what you want to do/show/say by now. Don’t be shy: share it, let’s see if it’s something that can be made to work.

[Mark Suszko]

Two things occur to me:

Build a massive comp in AfterEffects that places all your elements in the respective screen areas and hope somehow the video cards figure out how to show that…

or use one of the specialized machines used in live/stage to multiplex video over multiple screens. Guys in the COW live/stage forum would be the ones to answer that one, it’s one of the main things they do.

[Mark Suszko]

First, it’s not always evil that you supply a service to someone who then charges a markup on it. That’s just business. How *much* of a markup is a delicate balance between what is reasonable yet competitive with others vying for the account, and what is reasonable for your time on the job. So just because he’s marking up your work to the final customer and pocketing a profit is not of itself a basis for the decision you want to make.

The fact that he’s charged 4 times what he’s paying you, WHILE grinding on you to hold your costs down while doing more work, IS a huge problem. HE’s in the wrong there.

Myself, I would decide if this is really a friend and one I want to keep. If yes, I’d confront him directly about this. If not, go ahead and bid, but if it was me, I think I would tell them I was the guy that was working for them all along, only now we’re cutting out the middle man and finding a rate that works well for both sides. I usually ask my wife for a second opinion about these kinds of things, she’s a great moral compass.

It does sound like he’s going to lose the account anyway, and all you need to do is underbid what he was charging by 25% and you are still going to be getting your raise you wanted, and more. You should, as was suggested earlier, make sure however that the extra money doesn’t come with surprise extra expectations not budgeted. As far as hurting other business contacts, well, what is the guy going to say to blackball you? “He stopped being my underpaid and exploited wage slave and started charging what he was worth, the NERVE of that guy!” 🙂

Whatever you decide, don’t do it just to get some kind of revenge on the friend. Do it because it is a good, ethical business decision.