[Mark Suszko]

In addition to what’s been said, sounds like a head clog happened. If the clog happened prior to the recorded part of the tape, nothing much will be recoverable, because it never got recorded properly in the first place. If the clog is something that happened on playback, you should get picture and sound back after a deep cleaning of the deck’s heads and tape path. I have found the best chance of recovering a shakey mini-Dv tape is to play it back in a Panasonic DVC Pro deck, because it has a slightly wider head that may get just that little bit more amount of signal to make a difference in playability. But that’s still a long shot.

Most DV type camcorders have or should have a error light that warns you of a clog during recording. The cheaper units may not. For those once in a lifetime events like weddings and the like, this is a good argument for having a redundant camera or at the least, an external hard drive capturing the same video direct off the camera. If you’d have had a Firestore or Citidisk or something like that hanging off the camera, you’d have your backup there. Stopping the camera in mid-event just to do a “tech check” playback is not often practical due to the nature of what you’re covering, and in any event, while it may let you discover you have a clog and bad recording in time to do something about it right there, almost as often, you could also CREATE a clog where there wasn’t one by shuttling tape back and forth in the camcorder in the first place, not to mention disrupting the control and time code track, and possibly accidentally over-recording over precious shots because you didn’t re-cue the tape to the end properly for some reason.

Worrying over stuff like this is one of the reasons I got out of the event biz, just made me too nervous, not having enough backups for everything to suit my paranoia.:-)

[Mark Suszko]

So, Steve, I have Apple DVD Studio Pro too, and I was wondering if you could show me the spigot or menu where I can input live video on the fly direct to a DVD there…

Uh huh.

I think what you meant to say there was, you can import live footage into a mac tower or laptop using FCP, then export from there into Compressor or direct into DVD Studio, THEN “make” and burn your DVD. That’s not very “live” or “real-time” now, is it? Not everything needs to be or should be “authored”, there are plenty of legit boradcast as well as non-broadcast users doing it with stand-alones all the time. If I had to author every little thing that came thru the shop needing a DVD dub, I could never get all my work done.

Your answering a different question from the original poster’s one.

[Mark Suszko]

If you find one, let me know. Our stand-alone Panasonics force a menu as well. Other than that, we like ’em. What you all should do is make a letter-writing campaign to the makers asking for a no-menu, first-play option when recording. We’d buy those in a heartbeat.

[Mark Suszko]

I go by the first rule of Catholic Gradeschool: Anything that’s not mandatory is forbidden.

More seriously, I’d say use a more generic car design. Yes, for legal/copyright reasons. You may have the right, but can you afford the time and money to defend that right, is the question. And do your clients need the potential hassles? Are you solving their problems or creating a new one?

Also, the point of your animation is to illustrate the trip and time. Anything distracting from that concept is bad. Putting in something too recognizeable for the car adds a distraction you don’t need as the storyteller. That’s the issue that’s even bigger than the possible legal hurdles, to me.

[Mark Suszko]

The freest one is to shoot it off an LCD with your camera:-)

On the PC side, the popular choice in screen recorders is Camtasia or Snagit, on macs it’s SnapzPro from Ambrosia. Not free, but not very expensive.

You can also go with a scan converter recording to tape. These range from 99 bucks to over six grand. I have access to converters on both ends of that spectrum. The cost relates almost directly to the quality and features you get. The more expensive ones have better flicker reduction, the ability to zoom in tight as a handfull of pixels with clarity, to color-correct, freeze-frame, position and scale, and save various closeups of the different target areas of the screen as pre-sets like a multicam switcher.
The cheap one just gives you the whole screen, clearly, and maybe one level of somewhat steerable zoom view. Good enough to transfer a powerpoint slideshow with. They plug in between the computer and an external monitor, or from the VGA port on the laptop.

Often you can rent one of these scan converters for the day, ask around.

One reason you might pick a scan converter over a software based grab utility is if you want to observe the screen activity without ANY interference with the target machine’s processes or settings. Also, these grab programs make pretty large file sizes that take up hardware space and sometimes slow the drive’s access time. Scan-converting to tape avoids that and puts it in a video format of your choice, ready to edit.

The choice depends on your specific needs and situation.

[Mark Suszko]

Steve has it exactly right here. Unless we are talking about one of those domed-stadium mega-churches with their own satellite- distributed syndicated show. Bill them at or close to cost, with your time discounted. Give them an invoice that shows the amount you’d have charged a non-church client for the same work, and circle the discount they are getting.

You can either take it as karma, as the rewards of tithing, or simple agnostic human networking. It all comes out as Steve says. The word of mouth advertising you get out of this will offset the lesser amount you bill.

There’s also the chance you can write the thing off as a tax deduction for the higher amount, ask an accountant about that.

This is a different case than the issue of “grinders” as Ron calls them. Unless they have already approached you with the classic phrase, “if you can give us a break on this one, you’ll get all our future business”. But my impression was not that they have already it you with that “magic phrase”.

In this case I’m looking at it from the reverse perspective, where you are suggesting the discount yourself, up-front as a one-time- only example of your quality and commitment. It is important you don’t waver from that one-time-only stance. You want the buzz about you in the church congregation and the people they know to be that you have the mad skillz, not that you’re talented but a pushover on billing.

So “cast your bread upon the waters” with this one, and see if you can hook a bigger fish out of it.

[Mark Suszko]

That last post reminds me of something.

My bad luck has always been, when researching a potential client often I call a place, just to get the name and details of the head person who I want to eventually talk to some other day, (when I have my stuff together) the $%#% receptionist just immediately connects me right then and there and leaves me hanging with the ringing phone. YIPE!

Then I have to decide in a microsecond if I should hang-up because I’m no where NEAR prepared to pitch right then, or should I bluff it out, come up with a legitimate reason to be bothering this person and try my best generic approach. I’m just saying that you need to have a plan in the back of your mind if that happens to you, so your first impression you give over the phone is a good one.

To me, the hard thing is walking into a place you’ve never been, to talk to someone you’ve never met, about their business which you know next to zero about. “Salesmen” are always coming at me like this, a premade non-custom solution looking for a problem I don’t have. I know they don’t know or care about my real needs and I show them the door.

You don’t wan’t to come in being a “salesman”, Roy, you want to come in being a consultant, i.e. a problem solver with expertise to lend. Cultivate the attitude that you are a tremendous resource, and pretend like asking for the money is something that can be worked out later. First, you come with ideas and perspective, ready to apply to solving their need. You’ve seen it all, you have seen how things can go wrong, you know the tricks to get things done right and done efficiently without unneccessary expenses. Be the consultant first. Talk money later, if they decide you are what you say you are: The Answer Man.

[Mark Suszko]

I think in part this is the reason a lot of the prosumer users load up their little cameras with oversized matte boxes, French Flags, focus-pulling attachments and extra external monitors with suede sunshade eyecups, etc. none of which they usually actually NEED to use. It’s “pimp my camera” to make it look more “pro”.

When I see one of these outfits being used to shoot something that requires none of the accessory stuff, I wanna ask the guy where his spinning rims are.

Don’t fetishize the camera: it is your TOOL, not the Goal.

I think if the clients are looking to be impressed by the prop usage of the camera, you’ve already lost the gig or never had it. People that shallow and gullible, you don’t want for clients anyway. It’s not what the camera looks like, but the pictures that you make come OUT of it that matter. That’s the professional difference you bring to the job.

[Mark Suszko]

A technique I really like is to project the 2-d photo or footage onto a 3-d scene. This is a handy way to make something more “artistic” when you’ve been handed a locked-down close-up of a talking head with zero cutaway material. You build a little tabletop still life of items related to the theme of what the guy is talking about, then project that so part of it laps over onto some of the objects. To this scene you then can add real or virtual dolly and crane moves.

You can do the projection thing completely in AE if you have the skills, or you can do it physically with a video projector on a darkened set. That way is a little cruder, but becuase the effects are all done “in camera”, it can be faster. Long as you don’t need to re-shoot to cover changes.

You can get really crazy and Dadaist with where the projections go. Take the guy for a walk, projecting him on buildings, vehicles, floors, doors, what-have-you.

[Mark Suszko]

“They are just going to be working the day of the shoot…”

Wrong.

They have been working at what they do for years, perhaps decades, to be capable and available for what you want to shoot. And that’s what you’re paying for. Can’t minimize the importance of that. You’re not just paying for the guy to talk; you are in a sense paying for everything he knows and all the work he did to learn it. You really can’t afford to pay THAT amount, of course, so what you ARE paying is a symbolic recognition of his expertise. And reimbursement for his inconvenience.

My own experience tells me that you don’t want to get into a residuals or points situation with everybody you tape, where you’ll have to constantly get back to them every month to tell them how many units sold and how much from that is their cut… all on your word. Not that your word isn’t good, but why should anybody have to take it.

No. Go with a flat fee and be done with it, in this case, based on what they charge for a day of instruction, plus a little bonus. Either you can afford to pay them a reasonable fee for what they will do, or you can’t. In the case of “can’t”, perhaps they have an altruistic reason for appearing, like a doctor with a message about people’s health, who might forego a fee because it’s part of his oath to help people this way.

Rest assured, if that same doctor is asked to be an expert witness in a courtroom, he ain’t doing that for free, even if it’s the same exact information he gave away publicly.

At least go for an honorarium and plenty of screen credit, but establish that it’s a one-time amount up front. Always remembering that without the guy, you HAVE no show.