[Matt Hall]

Here’s a link to the making of the halftime show…

https://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/meet-the-team-behind-katy-perrys-halftime-show

[Matt Hall]

Hi Christian-

I don’t know that there really is any industry standard anymore. At least that’s not the experience I have had. I’ve seen that different companies have different structures and so have different needs. But for one example, at my agency, junior responsibilities include doing the encodes for video postings, being a PA on smaller video shoots, doing simple editing, maybe some after effects work on templated projects. People that have started off doing that have move into fulltime animation and editing positions once they have shown they can deliver.

ultimately, how much you learn and grow on a job will all dependent on your performance. if you show you are capable, follow direction, and do (or better yet – exceed) at what you’ve been asked to do, you’ll be given more. If you are a pain the butt to work with, then see ya later.

i’d be interested to hear what others thought about it.

[Matt Hall]

Hi Christian-

I run the post production department at an ad agency in NY. My advice on finding work is to try to find people like producers, editors, motion designers, creative directors at ad agencies, post houses, production shops, etc. In my experience, personal contacts have been the best way to get work. Linkedin is a good tool for this. Ask your professors for contacts. Find those people and send them an e-mail. (don’t call! they are busy and a call is annoying)

In your e-mail, pitch yourself as a recent graduate with a wide range of capabilities. Don’t try to pitch yourself as a pro. You’re not yet and you won’t get the jobs people need pros for. Keep your e-mail very short: who you are, how you just graduated, a brief list of capabilities. Include a link to a reel of your work, preferably on a simple classy website. (warning – a badly designed site is worse than no site at all. your site demonstrates your taste, as a creative person it’s important to have good taste) When you pitch yourself to these people, the most important thing you can show is enthusiasm. From reading your post it seems like that is no problem. But also you need to show people that you will be willing to tackle whatever they need and then ask for more. You will probably be given the boring stuff, because that’s what junior people are used for. But if you prove you can tackle it as requested more interesting stuff will come along.

You also might want to look beyond the traditional video production world into the interactive world, branding agencies, etc. These other companies are playing more into the video world, but are sometimes look for that junior (ie – cheap) one man band approach.

In terms of a suggested career path? it’s way to early to decide on that. get out there, try a lot and see where it leads you. best of luck.

[Matt Hall]

I agree with Simon. The agency will most likely want a budget number beyond the hourly rate. My typical approach is to provide an estimate based on a an assumed amount of hours it will take. For example:

The quote is $XXXX. This is based on an assumed time of X hours at $X per hour to produce (description of video content and tech specs).

It also may make sense for you to include the rounds of revisions that are included in your estimate. Speaking as someone who works at an agency, rounds of revisions can sometimes go on forever. Language you could use could be like this:

This estimate is based on 2 rounds of agency revisions plus 2 rounds of client revisions. Work beyond this will be additional and charged hourly.

Depending on the agency you are working with, you should also ask about payment terms – it is not uncommon for payments to take 4 months or longer to process. You might want to bill part up front and part at completion of the job.

[Matt Hall]

here’s a good article about it…

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/business/in-food-commercials-flying-doughnuts-and-big-budgets.html?pagewanted=all

[Matt Hall]

old topic – but wanted to give another technique: using a screencap program to capture final cut as you scrub. i do this often and it works great. i use screenflow https://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview-m.htm

[Matt Hall]

here’s a sample from a pharma advertising company:

https://www.celldivision.com/

features profiles of the folks at the company.

[Matt Hall]

Another option is brightcove.com

[Matt Hall]

We have good luck with Hello World:

https://www.hwc.tv/video_equipment_rentals_nyc_canon_5d_7d.html

[Matt Hall]

Great. I’ll give that a shot. Thanks!