Michael Hendrix
Forum Replies Created
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Under your file export settings, choose MPEG2-DVD. This will produce a .m2v file and a .wav file. DVD Studio Pro will not take a .wav file so you will have to convert that in Compressor to a .ac3 file.
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Honestly, it’s just something you will have to decide on. Most of us take jobs for whatever reason for lower pay.
In your meeting, just think before you agree and leave yourself as many options as posible. Try to set up sort of ‘ground rules’. Like, ‘if I do this, I expect this’. That way, if the parameters change, you have grounds to re-negotiate.
Unfortunately, you will never know if it is the right decision unless you take the job. If you turn it down, you will always wonder. As far as money, only you know if this meets your needs. The one point I have read into your post is, you would turn this work down on grounds that you MAY get other work in the future. What if you don’t get the other work? Then you would have wished you took this job. What if you turned the job down, and a job paying twice the rate came along, you would be glad you turned it down.
So many what ifs!
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I think $50/hour on their gear, $100-150 on yours. Anything else is low with your experience.
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First off, just remember, once you accept that rate, that is what you will always get paid from this company.
As for pointers, depending on your After Effects skills and reel, explain that no only are you getting an editor, you are getting a fx artist. Also, depending on your experience, put on the table say your coloring skills and sell them on your skills. Just make sure you can deliver because if they accept your rate, you will be under a microscope.
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We use schedulebook.com. Customizable and online.
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I think Mike’s assessment is right on. You could even write a day rate into the cost of goods for the “expert”.
The problem I see with your second scenario is two-fold:
1. Your asking the expert for a financial investment.
and
2. Once he buys the DVD’s, then he has to do the sales/marketing which would probably turn them off to the idea because if for instance it is a doctor, when would they have time to sell.”
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The other thing to consider is the investment. This business is really the new “Dub House” which brings the serious question of what formats do you need to support. More than likely someone would want to sent you a tape, and having every flavor of tape in-house would get very expensive.
The only way I could see this working somewhat is to build your business around a specific need, say MPEG-2 conversion and then figure out who your clients are and fulfill their need. One possible scenario is Digital Signage, hook up with a company that does this and doesn’t want to fool with the conversion, then that company can set a standard, say ‘Media has to be deliverable on X,Y, Z format”. Then you have just narrowed the equipment needed from hundreds to three.
The biggest mistake would be to try and accomodate everybody from day one, buy a bunch of equipment, put a open sign up on your door and wait for the phone calls.
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Ah, I see, this is for the Cox Cable operation. I work for a ABC affiliate which is under another arm of the vast, Cox Empire.
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Mike, I am not sure what they are us for Traffic although I don’t think it is Traffic Manager. Flip Factory is up and running, it is just not integrated with our traffic system so we are not operational.
Interesting memo from COX as I work for a Cox Station. I haven’t heard anything about not accepting dubs but I do know that we get a lot of stuff from DG systems.
I still think accepting spots in HD will not be soon as not all Cox stations are HD capable. We have only run a few promos HD internally so still working on that. The sad thing is, in the commercial world, we have been shooting and editing HD for 3 years. I could spit out a HD spot right now from Avid, master control just can’t handle it yet.
Todd, I agree with the format deal. I think H.264 will win out as I sit in capital meetings and see alot of new H.264 encoders and decoders showing up for purchase. I think that format will also provide us with a good file delivery as a HD spot encoded in H.264 is very managable.
The key is for the manufacturers to adopt this format and make their systems compatible. I know little to nothing about play-to-air servers so I don’t know what options their are but as history has shown, manufacturers tend to stray into their own formats to make their systems proprietary.
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Mike, your findings are right on. As someone who works in a televison station in a top 30 market I see your problem first hand. Right now, stations are struggling just to air HD.
The variables are to great, not just on tape format, but add the 720p vs. 1080i factor and it makes your head spin.
The way I think it will shake out is the tapeless route. The big push in television is to go tapeless… acquiring, airing and archiving.
Right now we are working on running FlipFactory so that anything edited or that goes through our edit rooms (I am talking commercials) will be exported to a folder in which the software will flip it to the format for air. So the next step I see, is accepting a file from the outside, posting it for the flip factory to flip, and going to air.
Time frame…. who knows… I do think tape is nudging closer and closer to being dead. Especially with tapeless acquisition (P2, Red, etc) being accepted more and more.
Personally, I can’t wait until stations will accept data files for air. When that happens, the era of video player/recorder will be ‘antique’.