[Mark Suszko]

Search archives here and google for “wedding stories”.

There’s a cable series called “A Wedding Story” that created quite a craze the last couple years, brides seem to go ga-ga for it… now many high-end producers are raking in the bucks imitating or further developing this more “documentarian” approach. It’s much more time-intensive than straight wedding shooting, you are going to have to shoot a lot of location interviews and b-roll and panned stills and etc. to describe the entire relationship from before first meeting to the day of the ceremony. So expect a prolonged edit.

[Mark Suszko]

I wish you luck with it, but have to say, I have already seen one or more shows like this, it was either on Nick, Discovery Kids, or maybe Disney Channel. There are also numerous books and web sites covering the same grotty territory.;-)

So, be prepared to answer the criticism that “it’s been done”.

You’ll want to find the “prior art”, see what kind of success it had, partly to avoid straight rip-offs or accusations of same, also so you can make intelligent comparisons and arguments why your take on the idea is better in some way.

That could be an economic argument, (we can do it cheaper, or we have a way to leverage sponsorships from Waste Management inc. or etc.) or based on content and approach, (we have a health awareness hook with a doctor’s input on each episode) or a combination of things.

Good luck with it.

[Mark Suszko]

They just shot it twice, (well, to be accurate, they picked two favorite takes out of probably many tries) then did rapid cuts between the two versions. It’s important the body positions are relatively close together, but not identical, to make this work aesthetically. The slightly different body positions made the effect. You could shoot it with two cameras locked together, slightly offset in position, or shoot one camera and do two takes. Because they sing to a lipsynch track, their timing is usually pretty close between takes.

For a creepier effect, you can morph between the two views. Ever see the Rollign Stones “How Does It Feel?”. Much of that was high-rez stills, morphed from one shot to the next.

[Mark Suszko]

For simple storyboarding, there are various dedicated programs out there, I have an old copy of Poser I can use to generate stills of various setups in conjunction with photoshop to make storyboards.

Menus can me mocked-up in photoshop, as far as the “look”. Visio can be used to diagram links.

But before you get all high-tech and “dog-and-pony”…
Consider that a strong, well-developed concept should be easy to convey in one, not-too-packed page of simple text. After all, you only get a log-line in TV guide. I would concentrate first on generating the best possible description of the concept using just words.

If you start with that, the other features you seek are going to be an additional booster to your effort. I wouldn’t try leading with the glitz stuff though, unless this is truly something that could not be described accurately in words.

[Mark Suszko]

A very common system is to structure the payment in thirds: one third up front, one third after the first rough cut, one third on completion/signoff of the master. There are variations.

The theory is to cover costs as they are incurred, and not make the person shooting and editing the video be a de facto “bank”. You want some money up front so you are not working for free until the end of the project: some projects become like Zeno’s Paradox: the final distance to completion becomes infinite. On the customer side, completion payments in thirds offers some control and protection as well: if you just hate the direction the thing is going in, or plans change, you can stop the process at one of the three parts and walk away with the remainder of the money, and no harm done. As a rule, I always use the first and maybe second payments to make sure ALL of my sub-contractors, suppliers, rentals, crew, etc. are completely paid off; I will forego any profit until those accounts are settled, because reputation is everything in a closed production community. If you get a rep as a slow payer or welsher, your resources dry up and you can’t get credit (monetary or metaphysical) with anybody – you can’t do good business in that climate.

Another key issue beginners forget to cover is plainly defining, up-front, the ownership of the raw materials and the final finished work. There is a lot of case law to cover this stuff after the fact, when a question comes up and a conflict occurs because of a misunderstanding of who owns what – trust me, you don’t want to have to settle the issue in court, nobody wins then. There are different “rules” for still photogs and video. So, establish from the beginning, on paper, if this is formally understood to be a “work for hire” or not. Do you retain the rights to the physical shooting tapes, but not what’s on them? Or do you retain the right to use what you shot for some other project, not necessarily with your friend? Do you split any money made from “re-purposing” the footage? Do you retain the right to show clips or the entire work as part of your own demo reel, on tape, disk and maybe theinternet, to other possible clients, or is it to be protected with a non-disclosure agreement? Who owns the rights to the master tape? Is the master tape theirs only after final payment? How many re-edits are part of the contract, and at what point are additional revisions going to be considered a new project, billed separately?

Those questions need to be answered and agreed to on paper and signed. Don’t necessarily call it a contract, maybe a “memo of understanding”.

If you are certain about these issues up front, it makes for a more friendly and relaxing relationship for the project, with good prospects for continued happy collaborations.

[Mark Suszko]

Pop over to NOLO.com, I think that’s the right URL, for some initial free legal advice and direction.

[Mark Suszko]

Yep. Anything by Murch would be a great start. “The Conversations” is one such. You know there are more great editors out there than Murch; I feel like he predominates in our awareness because he’s taken the time to put out more books and better P.R. This takes nothing at all away from his genius, it’s just that we could stand to have more books out by pros on this subject, but Murch is all you ever hear about because it’s right there in your face.

I don’t know if Michael C. ever wrote a book about editing “Raging Bull” or “Casino”, that would be a good book. Spielberg is a very good editor, or at least was. Reading about JAWS and DUEL is always a treat. People like Tarantino or they don’t, I like him more than not, and a book on the ediitng and structure of “Pulp Fiction” would be useful.

[Mark Suszko]

I think showing the made-up spot in your public reel is ethically and legally shaky, except maybe if you submit it to the actual company as a “pitch”. Their trademarks are copyrighted: if Pepsi wants to mock Coke in a commercial, they still need Coke’s permission, and they pay substantially to get it.

If it was me, I’d make it an imaginary product that looked close enough to an existing one, but not exactly like it, that even someone without much imagination would be able to make a fair comparison.

[Mark Suszko]

Is this your hobby, or is it your business?

If the former, you have no problem.

If it’s the latter, your enjoyment is no longer the first concern. The idea that you only charge more for work you hate leads to you working on stuff you hate all the time, only making money from things you hate, and chasing away the fun projects to someone else.

I can tell you that as long as you keep this “I’m not worthy” attitude, you WILL fail at the business end of this. You have to have the stones to turn down a gig that’s too low, if you are in business.

It’s like baseball: if you just indescriminately swing at every pitch they throw, you will strike out fast. If you let a few outside ones go by, the pitcher has to work harder…

Translation: you are being measured at every negotiation, and if you don’t demand a minimum amount, they sure aren’t motivated to pay you more just because you have an honest face. You will either not get the job, or get too much work for the rate you quoted, to the point you will be LOSING money. Or, to add insult to injury, they will subconract work out to you, while charging some other client for you PLUS a big markup for THEM. THEY will get more business for giving good quality at what is PERCEIVED by their customer to be a fair rate; you will be slaving away for nothing by comparison.

Yes, it is hard to turn down ANY work if you need the money. But you are not going to grow if you stick with minimum-wage rates, and the longer you stay a “lowball”, the more likely it is that clients will pigeonhole you as only worthy of their lowest-level, cheapest work. I see people and companies doing really poor work sometimes, yet they are charging high rates, and not losing any business over it.

If nothing really challenging or high-profile is coming in, stick with the day job, save up whatever it takes, and make your own productions that are more ambitious. If you can’t find a place to sell them, at least they become part of your portfolio, and future clients can see you are more than they expected. Then you are not beholden to low-paying clients just to generate examples for your demo reel.

So, what is a FAIR rate to ask? That is the big question! It’s calculated from many factors. You could search the past posts here with the words ‘rate’ in the title, and get a book’s worth of good, detailed advice. The digest version: understand ALL the *true* costs of doing buisness before you set a rate, or you will always be charging too little.

[Mark Suszko]

You may be over-thinking this one: a luma key using a white or black background may be plenty good for this. That’s what they seem to use a lot for flame and smoke stock. Dropping the blood onto a sheet of glass with the green material under it, you could shoot that from above or below the glass.