[Mark Suszko]

Yes, it depends on how the van is going to be used and where. Large stations with multiple vans keep some of them very plain, and they save the fancy ones for high-profile work like sports, parades, etc. Unless your style of operating means one guy is almost always in or next to the vehicle, I would suggest not using big giveaway graphics. If your vehicles have big masts and dishes on top, the jig is up anyway, so you might as well have fun with it.

You might consider getting magnetic signage that’s removeable when you don’t want to attract attention.

The experienced ENG guys all have some sort of scheme to protect their most vital gear from theft. Typically this would involve some kind of steel lock box bolted into the floor of the van. One slick one I saw used a spare tripod quick-release plate as part of the floor of the box so you could keep your camera all set to go inside the lockbox, but it was secured from shifting around while you drove. I think I would keep mine in a padded case at least, within the lockbox.

If there’s no room for a box, they often go with a steel bar and/or chains thru the grip handles and tripod frames, and heavy duty motorcycle locks.

Of course you want to use a van without windows if you can, or tint them so as to avoid temptation. In regular vehicles or in states where heavy, inpenetrable window tints are illegal, a black blanket or piece of curtain cloth across the back, covering everything, works with the existing factory tinting to make the interior look empty. Five bucks at walmart.Black works universally, but if you can find a color that matches the existing interior, that’s even better. Spare aftermarket automotive carpeting from the auto parts store is also good for making such a camoflage: you can make it work almost like a roll-up shade if it’s attached to the seat backs in the forward section. If they don’t see it, they won’t steal it.

Be very aware of theft teams when you’re at locations where TV trucks are often parked.Keep the vehicle doors closed and locked, consistently. Even if you’re standing nearby. NEVER take your eyes or hand off the camera, not for a second. These guys (and gals) are very good; one distracts you while another sneaks up and lifts the gear, it’s over in ten seconds.

[Mark Suszko]

Lots of great answers about “paying it forward”. I understand the frustration about the proportion of newbie questions… The COWpokes have also responded to this need already, by recently creating creativecalf.net as a place for the more entry-level questions. I expect that will take off gradually. If you feel you are particularly expert at any certain aspect, you might take some time to visit there looking for people to help, because the better job they do there, the fewer “annoying” questions will wind up over HERE.

[Mark Suszko]

Well, it sounds like a nifty but practically useless trick until you can get the transcoding and what-all down to at least near real-time. You probably could have just edited the wedding in the time it took to transfer the raw footage to the ipod for review. I see a market for an ipod-add-on gizmo to do the transcoding on the fly from a DV input. That would be popular with consumers as well as producers. Also, a version of the coder box with a built-in video camera on it, to make the ipod an icamcorder.

[Mark Suszko]

Yeah, I call that having a “real good day”, when things all fall so tightly into place, you’re yelling at your screen: “WHO’s your daddy NOW?”

OTOH, let that tape age a year or so on the shelf and revisit it, for a whole ‘nuther kind of feeling.

Client just asked me to update a program from six years ago. Watching it again now, I’m at once amazed an appalled. Amazed at how good some of it was, how I had really pushed the edge of what I knew how to do, adding in 3-d Lightwave animations and compositing it with graphics and intense layering. I loved the topic and like Grinner, was very much one with the material, I threw everything I had into it the first time, for love… and I’m appalled now.

Appalled, among other things, that since that high point, few of my edits have been as technically demanding, meaning my clientele has trended down-market, and some of that stuff I did ten years ago, I have to scratch my head and try to remember just how I DID those, and what tools I could use to match or improve on them today. I have gotten so rusty on Lightwave from lack of opportunity to use it, I might as well be starting from scratch on it, yet again. Also p.o.’d I didn’t save out the elements back then, because a lot of stuff needs new v.o. and music, and the source tapes and original separate tracks are long gone. I hadn’t consistently picked up the trick of saving out separate audio tracks on the back of the master yet. Bet your mouse I do these days, though. Even for the ephemeral stuff, like this was supposed to be. It’s maddening how it always seems to be, that the little throw-away projects you do for people suddenly take on lives of their own all out of proportion to your expectations, while the stuff you thought was going to be big and important just sits on shelves unwatched.

I now am trying to reconcile mashing up a number of varying visual and narrative styles between three versions of the old show while sythesizing a new one out of it. I might just wind up trashing 90 percent of it and taking a fresh direction, just to escape the limitations of the old materials. The office is dark all week, I’m the only one working, so this will also be a good time to brush up on my FCP skills without clients breathing over my shoulder while I hash this out.

[Mark Suszko]

Hey, don’t infringe my copyright on the “fat belly” camera stabilizer.

[Mark Suszko]

Found it!

Google 3-d plus the product names
“Crazy Talk” and “It’s Me”.

[Mark Suszko]

I once came upon an animation application for pc that would probably fit in with a request like this. It lets you grab a head shot of someone off tape or a scanner, and attach it to an animated 3-d tiny body, much like a bobblehead doll. The program gave you a bunch of funny canned moves and bodies to work with, and let you make their mouths mnove while dialog files played. I think it was mostly meant for web pages, but also output avi files. Wish I could remember the name of it… sorry, but you’ll just have to try some google-fu to locate it.

[Mark Suszko]

I’m going to say “Shane” the famous western. Particularly for the barfight sequence; the continuity is all over the map, the cameras cross the line of action without reference, it’s just horrible.

I like to think I learn even more from bad movie editing than from watching the good stuff. great edits are so transparent, you feel them, not notice them. bad edits are blatant lessons in what not to do. I look at brilliant editing and despair that i could have done as well; I look at horrible editing and say to myself “I know exactly how they could have fixed that, made it better”.

[Mark Suszko]

A book’s worth of great stuff has been posted on this topic here and in the other forums, you might want to do a search on them.

There is no set rate for making a commercial. I believe the right way to go about it is to start with a creative treatment and script; using those as a guide to plan the shoot, figure a rate for the shooting, then calculate all true obvious and hidden expenses to arrive at a sensible rate for the edit. Then it’s rate x time spent + profit margin + expenses = fee. You make adjustments to be somewhere in the middle of the range your competition charges, or if you’re good enough and demand is high, you charge whatever the market will bear. I have worked on award-wining 50-dollar spots, and I have seen real junk produced for thousands.

I see a lot of local cable spots like the one you describe, and most of them look horrible because they were done on too low of a budget and they cut corners on good lighting & composition,
(especially deadly on food product shots for local eateries)
really atrocious audio, and derivative, uncreative editing with cheesy graphics and music.

Not to mention the script was inept and not done using a proper process. I’m not saying yours will necessarily make all the same mistakes, but these are things to watch out for. To do it right, it costs what it costs.

[Mark Suszko]

More seriously, my biggest problem with clients for a while now has been an over-reliance on powerpoint as not only their source of graphics, but their “script”, derived from the “speaker’s notes” part of PPT. It’s really the exact reverse of the ideal situation; you want to create the best script you can first.

Not a day goes by here in the shop where the editors aren’t going nuts trying to find or create b-roll elements to cover what the client put in the script as narration. So I would say: clients, understand that it costs more in time and work to create or re-create elements you never shot in the first place.