Michael Munkittrick
Forum Replies Created
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Unless I get a few very intuitive investors involved…my lighting design days will eventually wind down. But I am not omplaining. I am content to have done what was supposed to be nearly impossible…but then most of the guys here at the Creative COW are people pushing the envelope doing what was impossible yesterday. I’m proud to be in their midst most days and humbled by their acheivements the next. I hope that there are other people out there not letting obstacles keep their ideas from reality.
On another note, I am desperately tring to find a product rep for a “track dolly” that I think will make a pretty good splash. Do any of you guys have a name that comes to mind? I keep thinking LA, but more and more the best representation is coming from and going to NYC and even Miami. What’s the chatter about agents?
Michael Munkittrick
Managing Creative Director
Evolve Media SolutionsForum COWmunity leader for:
Sony DV
Magic Bullet -
[Mitch Gross] “I had no idea that these lights are the same as yours.”
You’re not the first to hear it. Truthfully, I’d never had known if I didn’t pick up a copy of DV Magazine and see it for myself. The fact that there are very minor differences between the two are clearly not far enough outside of the original to merit a almost 95% knock-off. Then again, I should have read the on-line info about the builders before I sent over an item that has still not received its offical US Patent information.
[Mitch Gross] “I never did get that promotional material from you that you were going to send out last Fall.”
Yes, unfortunately at the time, I was working with my “series one” system which was a compact fluorescent model that was also blatantly ripped off. That mistake cost me more than a year of research and prototyping not to mention the potential for a fair profit margin. I suppose that the bright side, if there can be one would be that I was successful in negotiating a small residual/royalties check one each unit sold over the next 5 years. That sacrifice was in exchange for the rights to the design. I’d NEVER had done this at the time except I simply had already invested so much that there was very little for promotion and proper marketing. I am putting a news kit together that should be ready for delivery shortly, but I’d prefer not to make any promises considering the delivery of that kit based on pending litigation that will most likely follow suit with the previous ruling.
[Mitch Gross] “I personally can’t use a light with a CRI in the 80s, but that’s my usage.”
Our testing has shown that the CRI is consistently above 90 in approximately 8 out of 10 fixtures. I simply use the “worst case” information so that there is no implied guarantee that every product performs precisely the same with the same photometrics. The overall quality and clarity of the light is pretty high and the overall difference with other like products is simply not that wide of a gulf to consider them unsuitable for all but the lowest end of the production spectrum. I wish that there some way of boosting the CRI artificially with more dense gas in the tubes, thiner tube thicknesses and more closely regulated power consumption and absorbtion, but I’m sitting on the edge of what technology has to offer with consideration for the costs involved with those changes.
[Mitch Gross] “Even a metal sheet to go into the scrim slot to protect the bulbs would be helpful.”
It’s curious that you would say that. The new design comes with a light guage steel “sheath” as it were to do just that. However, the need for a shipping case with these lights is more than protecting the bulbs themselves, but also keeping the unit structurally in tact. As with any light of any design, even a small misalignment with the mounting connections or the ballast getting a whack could potentially lower the life expectancy of the units not to metion impact the specs so the need for a padded case to provide the best protection possible. There’s nothing worse for a new product than meeting the user with problematic performance…so I’m right there with you.
And by the way, if you’re interested in giving these a test drive in return for an honest evaluation, yours is an opinion that I feel confident with as considering honest. Your reputation is well respected on the lighting and DP sets and knowing that you’re a straight shooter, I would be most interested in your personal thoughts. I’m in the process of assembling a demo video for them that will include a pretty good assortment of specs in real world use. I’ve also got a new, actually I should say incredible new dolly that will be like nothing that came before it…and that project is getting a lot of my attention right now because of the nature of competition and getting to market first. Being that the dolly will cause heads to turn in larger numbers, and the lights, while very interesting on their own, will garner more media coverage thereby making the fact that the lights are created under the same banner more of an interesting issue.
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Sorry for the confusion. It
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Rob Katz just posted the link to the FloLight line in the post that started this thread. I am not going to be selling them directly anymore due to a pending agreement with a distributor, but they are still very nicely priced and they offer very consistently good lighting solutions.
Enjoy,
Michael Munkittrick
Managing Creative Director
Evolve Media SolutionsForum COWmunity leader for:
Sony DV
Magic Bullet -
Being that I
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I am the owner of the infiniFLO
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My company’s name is Spiral Design Studios/DieselVFX/Evolve Media Solutions and our lighting line is manufactured as FLO-lights and infiniFLO Lighting Solutions. We have a distribution deal with two or three places online, but as of today there is no official website because we’ve not been able to keep up with the demand and having a website for a product that isn’t available to sell is kind of like waving a red flag in a bull’s face.
Unfortunately, the pace of manufacture is the weak link and we’re trying to get it corrected without having to send the work overseas, but it seems like a constant uphill battle. I have a bit of literature in the form of a folder and two or three one-page licks, but we’ve been too far behind to dedicate much time to the promotion, and considering the fact that the lights are generating only a modest profit I anticipate the need for a lot of word-of-mouth to be our main means of information.
Our goal is to keep the overall cost to performance ratio balanced and the per unit cost under $250 total. Without drastically altering that idea, we’re going to have to keep the additional expenses to a minimum until I have secured enough pieces to actually get a few in stock for wider distribution. I’ll do my best to get you a PDF when I get in the office on Wednesday.
Michael Munkittrick
Managing Creative Director
Evolve Media SolutionsForum COWmunity leader for:
Sony DV
Magic Bullet -
As a side note, if you have either a firewall or a network traffic monitor, you can inhibit the data sent by QT7 when you access iTunes. It’s not a big deal, but some people are nuts about security.
I am not certain what is being accessed or sent, but it was posted at the Adobe.com forums as a solution if you were concerned. Just FYI.
Michael Munkittrick
Managing Creative Director
Evolve Media SolutionsForum COWmunity leader for:
Sony DV
Magic Bullet -
Technically there is no “perfect” white but it is generally accepted that 230-235 is as bright as you can go with a solid screen and simple overlay text of minimal contrast, or maybe 220-225 if you have a higher contrasting overlay color like black or deep blues and browns. Venturing outside of this has been shown to cause some problems with standard NTSC sets, especially those with built-in contrast enhancement.
On the other hand, many of the new plasma and LCD screen sets are impervious to both super-black and 255 white allowing for a far greater contrast within an image. Thankfully, HDTV will do away with a great deal of these limitations.Michael Munkittrick
Managing Creative Director
Evolve Media SolutionsForum COWmunity leader for:
Sony DV
Magic Bullet -
I had this dilemma a few years ago an here’s what I ended up doing.
We had to do three things to create the environment during production. First, we used a density-based fog machine to create the generic mysticism that it commonplace in films