[Mike Cohen]

mmm, Panera muffin tops…

[Mike Cohen]

to equate market size with value of your services is inaccurate. Given the fragmentation of tv audiences in local markets (local advertising is usually on the local cable system, even on afilitates) a market of 125,000 people may only realistically be multiples of a thousand potential viewers on a given channel.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

walk away – or ask for a LOT of money 🙂

[Mike Cohen]

{david roth weiss} my time on the job begins as soon as that job takes me away from my ability to work on other jobs.

One can never of course say this to a client – every client is the number one priority 🙂

Our prices reflect the expertise of our personnel, as well as the time spent out of the office (this out of office cost is implied, although generally not questioned by a client – if they don’t like the quoted rate they will say so).

Don’t ask, don’t tell. If a client does not say “justify your $3000/day rate” then you needn’t justify it.

[Mike Cohen]

Back in the mid-90’s when I was occasionally involved with taking an offline AVID edit to online, the edit bays for hire were either in the FOX affiliate in Hartford or the studios of various insurance companies, or production houses.
In other words, these outfits have an income whether or not they get the outside post work.
If you are not in a top market (LA, NY, Dallas, Chicago, Austin?, etc) where film and video production is hot, is there a palpable need for the service you are proposing to invest in?
You often read in Film magazines and here on the COW that film productions will rent AVID or FCP systems to have on-set or for post in general, however those rental systems are likely to be sourced locally to the production.

Just a few thoughts for you before you mortgage your house.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

being reimbursed for travel expenses is not greed, it is generally standard practice.

If a client balks at paying $1000 travel, but they are ok with the other $20,000 or so of your proposed budget, then they are nickel and diming you.

Better not try to bill them for a backup drive. “I can get a hard drive at OfficeStapleMaxDepot for $59 – why should I pay you $250?” and so forth.

I had one client ask for my travel expenses before the shoot. I told him it is just mileage from me to another town in my state. Still he wanted the exact mileage charge. Everyone reacts differently.

[Mike Cohen]

Having hired someone from New Jersey, the client understands you have to get to them and back. They hired you because of your expertise. Anyone certainly has the option to look in the yellow pages for local talent, but you never know what you are going to get. It is not your job to recommend they use local talent to save money, it is your job to do the job they hired you for.

If it was not in your original quote, I would send them an email saying, Looks like I left travel expenses out of my proposal. Sorry about that. I estimate it will take $750 for me to travel to your location and back home, plus $350 for hotel and meals. Will you be able to cover this?”

When we write proposals, we include + T&L at the end, but do not give an amount, since that cannot always be predicted.

[Mike Cohen]

I use the 2″ speaker in my Sony 14″ CRT for the exact purpose Todd mentions. It may temporarily be annoying for others in the office, but 90%+ of people do not listen to television through external speakers. I even stopped using my surround sound system at home when I got a newer tv with decent sound.

Stick to the CRT+LCD principle:

CRT = Common Regular Television
LCD = Lowest Common Denominator

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Lately I have noticed a lot more commercials using multiple PIP – I too use a lot more multiple videos in one frame, which I attribute to the ease with which you can do this in FCP/Premiere etc.
Not a new effect however (cue Brady Bunch music…).

Thankfully the Richard Linklater animation/live video effect has not become too overused, because it gets old fast. It is cool, but a little goes a long way.

I think the “fake dramatic music effect” has gone on a bit too long. No offense to the thousands of people making a living off reality game show programming, but introducing long 10-15 second dramatic music cues for seemingly easy decision-making is a bit absurd. Seems to indicate they are taking 10 minutes of interesting material and stretching it out to fill the time slot.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

If I see something I like on tv – often in a commercial, I will pause the TiVo, make some notes, then try to duplicate what i have seen, usually using Premiere and Photoshop. Even if it does not look the same, the exercise works to motivate me creatively, and adds one or more new tricks to my bag.
News opens are usually pretty slick.

Mike Cohen