[Mark Suszko]

Well, if you break the project into smaller chunks, you can work to a set price yet protect yourself. Bid for the shoot by itself and the edit by itself and the initial consulting/treatment-script phase by itself. Or since they want to do three different pieces, bid just on one.

If they are unwilling to bend at all, and it looks like they want a full 3-ring circus priced for just the peanuts, without any well-defined direction, then maybe you should take the opportunity to refer these guys to your worst rival, and not take it on yourself. It’s hard to turn down work when you are hungry and have bills to pay, but the few times I’ve turned down work I have not been sorry in the end.

In the end, they will discover, the easy way or the hard way, what something good costs to put together right. You could wait the thing out until they get a clue and come back to deal with you on better terms.

[Mark Suszko]

We like the Frezzis, but also use Anton Baur Ultralights. Saw the LED lightpanel in use recently, makes a nice light but is expensive. You could use a halogen light and make a diffusing rig like the mini-chimera for it and get a similar look for less money.

[Mark Suszko]

I have done large projects with less info to start with. One of the commercials I did, the client just drew me three stick figures on a bar napkin, and that was the script AND storyboard. They adored the final product, said it exceeded their vision and was the best they’d ever had. Witht he right people, there’s a level of trust that they are creative and capable of fleshing out a skeletal proposal.

You need to decide if you are up for the uncertainty and confusion you will get during production from such ill-prepared and inarticulate clients. If you are charging by the hour, their disorganization is your gain. Frankly, one reason the description is sketchy is they just want to know what time is is, they don’t want or need to know how the clock is built. That’s your job, educating and guiding them thru the process. If you feel they are worth the work, that is. Somebody needs to come up with a creative treatment and script, and if that is you, you need to bill apropriately for it. Walking them thru the treatment process saves everyone a lot of time, money, and grief, and makes it more likely the final product is exactly what they said and meant they wanted.

One guiding principle I go by is, no matter how many people give you “input”, you only have to listen to one person; the guy what signs the checks. The “contact” or “liason” or whatever they call themselves that works with you directly comes with many agendas, some of which have nothing to do with you making a good product. You can bust your tail trying to please this rep, and all the other folks giving you “input” and critiques only to find out the finished work is nothing like what the Guy That Signs The Checks wants or likes. Be sure you know who you are working for, because it’s not always the guy or gal sitting in the suite with you.

You should bill at least a third up front no matter what their stated policy is. Speaking of policy, one way to make this work for you is to write in an early-payment discount. Many governments have a rule that says vendors that offer a prompt payment discounts get paid first. Specify final delivery is contingent upon payment in full, without exceptions. Until then, all they get are dubs with time code window burns on them, or a screening at your shop. Do NOT hand over the finished masters until paid. Yes, they will scream and kick. Then they will go to the line item in their budget for emergency payments for things of this sort, and pay you.

[Mark Suszko]

Open up a “store” on Ebay or Amazon.com

Replicate and ship discs only as orders come in. No overhead.

Get a deal with a car culture magazine: they will include one of your DVD’s free with a new subscription. You take a taste off all the new subscriptions, plus get prominent ad placement in the magazine for your Ebay Motors or Amazon portal. It’s synergistic.

[Mark Suszko]

While it is tempting, I would say stay away from making and giving out CD-Roms in biz card size. Just a regular card with apropriate contact information is all you really need. If your graphic arts skills are really good, make a nice design on the card, as if it was a title CG page for a show, but keep it tasteful, less is more.

For a short while, I printed my biz cards on clear acetate sheets just to make them stand out a bit, but that was for only a short time. They weren’t as rugged as a paper card and a little harder to read. Some folks like to put a small poem or favorite quotation or something like that on the back of their cards to make them memorable. Something that speaks to who you are or are trying to represent yourself as. Like a sig file. Some potential clients may find that corny or too weird. More conservative is generaly safer. Cards are cheap, a few bucks for a thousand of them. Just go make some and hand them out a lot. Don’t hoard them, they do no good in a box at home. If they indicate a web site with samples of your work, concentrate on making that site really zing.

[Mark Suszko]

Well, the biggest thing you can do to save money is hire an actual broadcast consulting engineer to spec everything out. There are just so many variables to weigh and so many factors, the expense of the pro advice is offset by the savings from not doing it wrong and then having to do it over. He or she will also know where you can effectively cut corners to save money without sacrificing quality or capability.

In the area of lighting, I work in a government production facility and we are very happy with our grid of Videssence flouros. They use little power, don’t make heat, which means less power used to cool the studio and less noise from fans results, and the tubes, while pricy at the beginning, run seemingly forever compared to tungsten halogen lighting. Long term, they save a LOT of money thru reduced electricty usage and HVAC support.

[Mark Suszko]

You guys know how I feel about that thousand per finished minute ballpark estimate being wildly inaccurate. But to the issues:

For the shoot, you bill a day rate plus whatever it costs you to get there. If you have to rent a car, charge for that. If you use your own car, about 25 cets per mile is the last figure I recall charging. You bill from the time you leave the driveway, what’s called “portal to portal”. Track the miles driven to the shoot and double it to account for the return trip. You can choose whether you bill a lower hourly rate for the driving versus actual on-location time.

As to the DVD’s, what you’re really doing here if you’re smart is editing four sets of clips into one nice video, then taking that program and chopping it into segments, then customizing the titles to fit. You likely have a lot of shared assets between the four pieces, (graphics and music wise) so it’s not like you’re doing each one completely from scratch, more like working to a template. If you make the master program in this fashion, what remains is to break-out the segments and drag-drop each of these into the DVD authoring program and adding the apropriate menus and rendering it all out. Not a huge deal, so treat ths as a single editing job and bill at your hourly editing rate. Figure eight hours travel toal, two hours to shoot, six to edit, another three to author, maybe you don’t charge for rendering time unless you are sitting there babysitting it. With those time estimates times your rate, you have a ballpark figure, ask for one third of that amount up-front, the rest on approval of the master. When you give them an approval copy, put a watermark like a time-code window or your logo over a portion of it so it can’t be used as-is, only evaluated. This prevents them using it before thye pay you to give them a clean copy.

Don’t know what your rate is?

Short version: if this is what you do for a living, total up all your costs for the year: utilities, expenses, insurance, gear, software, maintenance, expendables, etc. Add an amount you want to put away in savings towards more or better gear. Total that figure. Divide it into 350-some working days (leave out vacations). From this you get a daily amount you need to be bringing in just to BREAK EVEN. Next add a mark-up for your actual PROFIT. Compare this figure to others in your area, try to keep yours near the middle range of those rates. Now, you know what you need to be charging per day and per hour.

I’m going to an awesome indoor RC plane event this weekend in Champaign, Illinois. Check out the e-fest (google search).

[Mark Suszko]

The video would not open for me, but I imagine it is the same light-table looking thing I saw in a clip from the TED conference. In that one, besides making interactive lava-lamp “art”, and creating interactive stick-man animations with hand-drawn parameters, the inventor showed how you could work with photos in photoshop or a similar setup, quickly scaling and positioning many photos, to thunderous applause from the crowd.

You know, had I knowsn how much of it I would eb doing in adult life, I would have concentrated WAY more on coloring inside the lines and finger painting in kindergarten!:-)

[Mark Suszko]

Trademarking buildings is a new one on me, I have to admit. Any pointers to articles on that specific issue? It’s not like I’m going to photoshop-out the Sears Tower and John Hancock tower from my Chicago panorama establishing shots on just anybody’s say-so.

[Mark Suszko]

You are really talking about two very different things here.

I will suggest on the dolly side that the kit from cinekinetic (Australian)with the small board and skate wheels can be used in an incredible number of ways. The pvc water pipe commonly used with skatewheels is easy to get and buy most anywhere, and is even cheap enough to abandon locally after the shoot. The only downside is you can’t make curved track out of that pipe. You can imitate these skateboard dolies by making them yourself if you are mechanically handy. The only hard part is fabricating the angled brackets that hold the skateboard axle bolts. If you have some metalworking tools, it’s cake.

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, they sell nice wheels and parts for making your own Western Dolly, if you’re looking for something bigger you can ride on along with the tripod. Those can be made steerable to run in a nice curve.

There are dozens and dozens of steadicam imitators for every size of camera and budget. Unless you really plan to use them every week, I’d rather rent than buy one. If you’re planning to use them at wedding receptions, I’d be wary. While it looks cool to wear and use, it is such a huge distraction at an event like that, where you’re trying to not be noticed so you cna get the prety candid shots, I just think it causes more troubles than it solves.

For high mobility at receptions, I would personally prefer a monopod; stable, quick to use, mobile, gets you high-angle overhead “crane” shots in a second by just raising it over your head. And it doesn’t call massive attention to itself. You can get a fold-out foot plate attachment that makes it almost as stable as a tripod. Move, shoot, move, shoot. Instead of moving WHILE shooting. That’s what I like.