[Mike Cohen]

Since Adobe makes AE and PP, I would not think they would put better chroma keying into PP. Premiere is after all an editing app, not an effects app.

[Mike Cohen]

We are getting ready to renovate our offices, keeping in mind some of the things mentioned already. We’ll have a smaller but better meeting room, with a small kitchen area, and we’ll have bigger more private offices, especially for the editors, whose edit suites are also our offices.
One issue we have is a need for storage, so two big storage closets for camera gear, shipping supplies and inventory and tape library is important and keeps the rest of the office free of clutter.
I have been watching Mad Men, but I don’t think we’ll have an open bar any time soon!
As far as studio space, we usually use our conference room for any pickup shots, but we just rent a studio in Hartford if we need it.
Mike

[Mike Cohen]

while I use Premiere, the concept is the same. I have a piece of gaffer tape over the volume knobs on my speakers so no one touches the optimal levels. I also have gaffer tape over the trim pots on the inputs to my Mackie, calibrated so tone from Premiere timelines hits the right mark on my DVCAM deck. Then, like Shane, I use the volume control for either speakers or headphones. Most of the time it is headphones, since our office has an open floor plan with no walls!
Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

background rendering in my mind is worth the upgrade price alone.

[Mike Cohen]

I have had a few clients over the years who take ages to be happy with a project. These are usually clients who keep coming back with more work, so I accommodate their edits in almost all cases.

The worst examples are when they come back a few months after approval with some new request, which was never discussed, and then expect you to make the edits and quick too. One client e-mailed to say the DVD we just finished would now be translated into 10 languages, and could I send a master with no supers and separate audio channels for music and narration to their service provider.

Then I get a call from the service provider saying they cannot download the DVD menu from the DVD to change it – obviously.

Again, set your rules for changes and timeframes at the outset, and decide on a client by client basis what is worth doing for a good client.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

can you LEGO program export something like a sequence of frames, or an AVI using the Animation codec? KNowing consumer products designed for kids, it is probably some proprietary version of AVI.
Try the open source mediacoder and see if that will convert your file to a better codec.

[Mike Cohen]

Premiere is probably not the best thing for this level of compositing – After Effects comes to mind, but I am no expert in that.
If you have a clean key in Premiere, animation can be ok, but motion tracking is not something to try in Premiere.

[Mike Cohen]

Todd,
Cine-Med, as you may know from reading my blog, attends numerous medical meetings every year. Actually we both attend and organize a few small meetings. I’ll give you a few pieces of knowledge:

Meetings for Physicians

Doctors/dentists tend to buy their own video-based materials. If you do custom work for individual practices, show a great demo, but something eye catching and quick – people don’t spend more than a few seconds walking past your booth. Think of it like the non-broadcast area of NAB. you can walk past 50 CD printer and video card booths in a few minutes.

You might pass out some DVDs, although they often get filed accordingly. Have a one-sheet brochure to hand out listing your services and approximate prices. If the show has a badge reader, try to scan as many badges as you can and then consider these leads and send some customized letters with followup by phone, within a week of the show.

Meetings for Nurses

Nurses, in general, fall into two categories. Nurses who work for educational hospitals, thus they have nurse educators, and the individual nurses won’t buy anything themselves. Most of our nursing sales are by purchase order, not credit card. Then there are nurses who are essentially free agents or freelancers, who still won’t buy anything at a show. We sell most of our products by direct mail marketing.

Dentists – I have only worked with one dentist, via a dental implant manufacturer.

Remember that convention halls are loud, so make sure the visuals in your promo tell the story. Your narration may be lost on the passer-by, although the DVD if watched sounds nice.

I probably have more insight, feel free to ask some more questions. Trade shows can be hit or miss. We have been to some duds, and some spectacular ones as well. The duds may not have resulted in many leads, but they are a good way to learn about the industry and potential customers. For example, we went to ASMBS last year, the organization of bariatric surgeons. We did not sell much product and most of the people who inquired about our services were looking for products we did not at the time offer. So your thousand bucks can help educate you about your market, beyond what you have been successful doing thus far.

All of the above being said, our business is threefold. One, we have a large selection of pre-made educational videos and books, marketed to particular segments of individual medical people. Second, we do custom production work, but usually as a result of pounding the pavement and doing sales calls, although you can make contacts at shows like this. And thirdly, we do CME, which is a lot of word of mouth, although shows can be a good place to make contact. It does not hurt to make nicey-nice with some doctors at your area hospitals, in the hopes that your grass roots contacts will trickle up the chain to the marketeers. But you knew that!
Good luck.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

looks correct

so you are exporting to DV, then importing the DV file into Encore? Make sure you right click on the filename of your video in Encore, and interpret pixel aspect ratio to 16:9 widescreen, or something like that.

[Mike Cohen]

Speaking of vans, I hired a company last year that had plain white cargo vans, but remote controlled hydraulic panels on the sides for their tripods, tape stock and lighting gear, plus the padded drawers in the back for the cameras.