[Mark Suszko]

“Kali-mera, Philos!” (sorry, except for swear words, that’s about the limit of my Greek vocabulary:-)

Your list seems fairly comprehensive already. The carpet on the walls will also help quiet the room.

Will the computer and drives be isolated somehow to keep their noise low? Have you figured adequate cooling and ventilation, as well as a technically clean power distribution source? (UPS battery and filter systems).

[Mark Suszko]

???? The whole reason for buying those two is that they are very well integrated to work together.

[Mark Suszko]

Yes, it’s easy: pre-sales, with a minimum order number and deadline to make them. Below minimum orders, you do not release a single copy, but instead refund the deposits. Everybody has to be very aware of this up-front. This is near-foolproof when combined with a basic fee from the school up-front at booking time. It turns the moms and dads and faculty from pirates and bootleg buyers into your personal sales force and security enforcement staff, goading each other into coughing up the minimum number of pre-orders, and tracking down and stopping anybody that might mess with the program and ruin it for everybody. Leaving you free to do the actual WORK.

Or… you price the DVD’s so low it doesn’t pay to pirate or copy. I can’t give you a hard and fast figure, but it might be between $7 and $20. If you can’t make the money on the dubs that way, you would need to add a fee from the school up-front for your main expenses and profit, then the DVD fee would just cover duplication expenses with a little margin left over. Or, you can subsidize the DVD thrugh sponsorships from national or local businesses, like the Yearbook does. “Your recital, brought to you by your Anytown Coca-Cola Bottlers… and try VAULT!!!” You have space to sell on the printed jacket and disc, you can put an actual commercial on the opening menu, or between chapters, you can put additional stuff like URL’s to a web page that prints out discount coupons on there… there are many possibilities. The money from that lets you make your nut, yet keeps the DVD dubs cheap enough to discourage anybody from a profit motive.

Those are Sociology-oriented solutions.

Every other technical means someone offers you is either cumbersome to you to employ, or costly, or renders too many of the honestly-bought discs unplayable by even authorized users. And they can still be circumvented without too much difficulty, particularly by the parent’s tech-savvy kids. Some folks are so desperate to not pay, they will settle for taping off the LCD screen of someone’s portable DVD player or computer, rather than pay.

You can’t defeat them all, you can make them work for it, and discourage the casual thieves, but it only takes one, more “dedicated” pirate to kill your margin. The kind of DRM that itunes can attach to your MP-3’s is not yet easily available for DVD short runs. Macrovision for small runs is not a good ROI in my opinion, as it is too easily defeated these days. My $30 imported DVD player lets me make VHS copies of anything I care to play, Macrovision or not.

So I say don’t try for a technical soultion; bank on human nature, it never fails.

[Mark Suszko]

Actually, a lot of editing places that have multiple seats still keep one around with Premiere on it. One thing Adobe did that was smart was practically give premiere away in the old days; you could get it bundled with a lot of video cards, particularly with Pinnacle products. At one point I swear you could get a copy of Premiere inside a box of breakfast cereal (well,almost. You got it free if you bought a certain make of firewire card at one time.)

Because of this liberal policy, (and a lot of cracked warez versions on top of the legit distribution) Premiere got a LOT of market penetration. Once you have a lot of copies of the NLE out, you generate a lot of people who are able to edit on it, and so if you have edit suites to rent out, it makes a kind of sense to have a copy of Premiere handy for all the people who like to use it. And you can find people almost everywhere who are familiar with it, if you need to hire someone on a temp basis.

Is it (premiere) something I would suggest to use in a fast-paced ENG environment? Well, no, but lots of TV stations keep a seat of it somewhere anyhow. They likely use it for making spots, or special sweeps packages that are not as time-sensitive as daily news and need more complicated effects. This is not going to be the case forever though; large to mid-market stations will continue to get tighter and tighter integration, as they move to central servers and SAN’s and custom unified solutions. This will be mostly Avid territory. Small market stations that can’t afford a massive rebuild of the entire plant will tend to keep whatever they have as long as it is working and paid for. Such places will tend to keep their copy of premiere going, and if the upgrade to the new version is cheap enough, will upgrade to that rather than switch to something like Avid. For the time being.

As far as non-news editing, really, the situation is quite open and fluid at this time. For corporate stuff, or private work like documentaries, event video, etc., even for making commercials, the platform doesn’t matter in the least, only the results that come out of it, and that’s as much a function of the operator’s skills these days as what nameplate is on the box. If you want to work at a specific shop, and they use brand “x”, then obviously it is an advantage to be already fluent on that platform. However, if you are good on platform “y”, and they like your reel based on what you did using “Y”, it’s no big stretch to get you cross-trained on “X” in a short time. So very much is common to all the platforms these days, converting the person from one to the other is a relatively minor deal.

For film, and for commercial TV drama, etc. the entrenched NLE’s of choice are mostly Avids with FCP coming on strong as an alternative. Walter Murch, the Oscar-winning editor, pioneered using Avids to cut film, but has become an FCP evangelist over the past decade. Typically (and thios is only opinion) you might see FCP adopted by those shows working on a tighter budget, or those that may not need the depth of clip management features Avid touts as their strength. The two rival platforms are racing towards a convergence of features though, and many folks are questioning why pay so much more for the cachet of the Avid name if you can get the same work done cheaper on FCP. This puts a downward pressure on the prices Avid can charge, and also forces Apple to improve FCP to match Avid feature for feature. Everybody who edits, wins.

With the recent strides in digital film making and HD, things are in flux again and the main decision point these days seems to be: will this software be able to work with the (insert format flavor of the week here) footage from my (insert camera name of the week here)? And will it be compatible with next week’s “new hotness”?

I use FCP as well as “Autodescreet” Edit here at work, and we still do linear here as well with a grass 200 and a 141 controller.

[Mark Suszko]

Here we get into that old saying: “it doesn’t have to BE real, just look real”. You are trying to actually shoot in the dark, and just because a camera says it can shoot in .5 lux, doesn’t mean you should. The pros set up lighting that “looks” darker than it really is. You have seen this all you life on stage and on TV and in the movies and when it’s done right, you accept it as natural and don’t give it another thought.

Here’s my poor attempt at mindreding based on what you posted: You may also be asking, without using the exact terms, how to shoot Film Noir style or chiaroscuro. Shoot it, hell who can even SPELL it?!?! 🙂 Seriously, look up these terms on wikipedia or google and you should find some links to how to shoot high-contrast shots, day for night shots, and nighttime interiors. You will be AMAZED at how many lights it takes to properly convey DARK on a set.

Some of those ‘dogma99’ type guys live by rules to use only existing practical lights and unmodified daylight, so as to not unduly alter the “truth” of the performance. I laugh at this myself, nothing about what we do with images is that honest on a philosophical level, if you take it to the extreme conclusion. We’d have to give up editing for one thing. Anyway, I don’t think this kind of look is what you were after from your first post…

More likely the noir or the curio…um, chorizo… eh, whatevertheheckyoucallit.

[Mark Suszko]

We switched to Sachtlers, as have many ENG shooters we know, after having bad experiences with Vinten legs (I think Vinten heads are great but the sticks are always a hassle, useless if you are in a hurry, OK if they only sit in a studio most of the time).

These Sachtlers have an integral handle and a one-touch deployment control on the center column, lets you deploy and collapse very quickly but does require two hands, so you have to put the camera down, if only briefly.

Before these and the Vintens, I was very partial to a certain O’Connor model. It has no center column, and the spreader is aircraft cable with a spring-tension retractor. Three identical red levers near the head let you drop or retract the legs one-handed, individually or in concert, even with the camera on top. Without an elevator column, you need to adjust overall height using the leg controls. I liked this one because it was THE fastest deploying tripod in the world, literally done, leveled, and shooting in seven seconds, with the camera still on it. And the retracting-cable-type locking spreader allows it to get down to the height of a High-hat for low angle shots, or to fit the most uneven terrain or stairs or whatever… It is like three sets of sticks in one. All-metal aluminum construction. I think these are out of production now.

We don’t use the O’Connor as much now, pretty much I’m the only one in the shop who will still use “Christine”, as she was dubbed (as in the Steven King horror story about the killer car) after she took off the fingertip of one of our shooters out in the field one day a year ago.

He was adjusting the tripod with the weight of the camera still on the head, and can’t remember where he had the other hand on the tripod, but as he collapsed the legs, something went wrong and it neatly guillotined his index finger just around the first knuckle.
Once a tripod tastes human blood, you have to be very wary. We spent hours trying to figure out how it could happen, never did come to a unanimous conclusion, except to note that adjusting sticks with the camera on makes it all more dangerous. The weight and momentum of the descending betacam and brick was a contributing factor. Some tripods, like the gas-filled sachtlers, you NEED to keep the weight on when playing with the elevator column, or you could knock a person out if their chin was in the path of the rising piston. Anyway, you can bet I’m even more careful when working with “Christine” now.

The sachtlers are slower, but safer, very stable, and their integral boosted elevator columns get the camera up much higher, maybe eight feet, very handy in ENG situations to shoot over the top of a crowd, or to get the camera lens up over an obstructing chain link fence, etc. They are carbon fiber so they are light, but this makes them expensive too.

[Mark Suszko]

Why are we even talking about the earlier, shorter versions? I feel like you should only be negotiating over the current full-length project, which was 100 percent your work. Let the girlfriend or whatever have her credit on the shorter version(s). She did not work on this long version at all, did she?

Yes, you should have had a deal memo in place first, but there’s no use complaining about that now.

Seems to me all the confusion is because everyone is considering the three programs to be one identical program. But the only information I’m working from is what you posted. Good luck with it.

[Mark Suszko]

The fact the client is now proposing a “first payment” is a good sign you have him by the short hairs as long as you hold on to the tapes and elements. He’s now trying to gauge just how smart you are. If you take the “first payment” and give him the goods, it is really the “last payment” you will get. Not smart!

Hold out for payment in full, in advance, and you don’t hand over the goods until the check clears. Time is on your side; past a certain point, this guy’s footage will be worthless if he misses his deadlines. You are under no such pressure. Some bank to this day, must be 40 years later, is holding the master reels for Jerry Lewis’s “the Day The Clown Cried” because of non-payment issues and related stuff.

I would file the mechanic’s lein right away, it’s probably cheaper and less hassle to file, and only start organizing for small claims but not dropping any money on filing or the process server yet.

I won a case in small claims once against a guy much like this. I was unemployed at the time, and could afford to make it my career for a couple weeks to pursue this. (You might want to keep working for someone else depending on your financial situation) At some point you have to decide if the diminishing returns are worth the effort on your part, doing it just for spite is not enough, nor is it businesslike.

After we won, we got the sheriff’s office to help us collect by garnishing his bank accounts, but he didn’t have enough in there to cover the full amount the judge awarded. We got about 80 percent of what he owed us and decided the effort of getting the rest was not worth it, though we let him know the next step would be to have the sherriff auction off some of his personal property for the remainder. It’s unchristian, I know, but we did get some pleasure out of monkeywrenching his finances thru the garnishing: after weeks of not talking to us or the court, he called the very night we tapped his accounts to complain he was out of money for food, rent, utilities, gas, etc. and in danger of being thrown in the street. We said he should have taken us up on the offer to pay 10-20 bucks a week, no interest, to cover his debts back when we were playing nice. “Sorry, bud, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business”.

You should thank your weasel for giving you all this business education in one easy, unforgettable lesson! 🙂

[Mark Suszko]

I agree with Ron. One thing about choosing the passion over the pocketbook though is this: don’t let your love of the material blind you to the real marketability of the idea. That is, something that’s too far out will never be successful, no matter how much you dig it personally.

I would add that the classic approach is to find an unserved or underserved niche market and exploit it. Find what is being done badly, then do it better, put a fresh spin on an old trope. That’s what Alton Brown did, and his “Good Eats” show is probably the best cooking show out there. He started much like you or I; a video producer. He thought existing cooking shows were appalling. So he went to cooking school, learned his facts and technique, then made his own show his own way. Big success, I’m a huge fan.

You never know what the local market will go for. MST3K was once just another cheesy local monster movie presentation on a local TV affiliate. But it was so inspired and clever it took off big time.

I have a soft spot for programs about local color, history, culture, as well as locally produced original drama. One that is pretty good produceed by my PBS affiliate is called “Prarie Fire”. I wind up learning somethign aboutt he local towns and history I never knew every time I watch. There are some great playwrights and actors in my town and I’d love to produce videos of their plays a la Playhouse 90.

Something else I’d like to work on is a science fiction radio drama podcast; low expenses, high production values and good writing and performances. Eventually, maybe I’d lay computer animations over the audio and send them out again.

These days broadcast may not be the cutting edge anymore; seems all the cool, relevant, avant garde stuff is all happening online with video blogs and video podcast sites. Partly because it’s way cheaper. But also because it’s more accessible to a wider audience. Your local cable access show a la Wayne’s World would hit a few thousand homes and only a fraction of those would watch it. But when the audience is worldwide and distributed by internet, even a point-one-percent market share is millions of eyeballs. While most of the stuff is really just old fashioned broadcasting on a newer platform, the advantages of pointcasting, asynchronous serving up of the shows on demand, and the interactivity with the audience are all making this into it’s own medium as it progresses.

[Mark Suszko]

B&H also shows an Edirol video switcher for under a grand; if it’s clean, this would be a bargain.