[Mike Cohen]

Todd,

Since there is no McGyverisms forum, I would say this is absolutely a business topic. Protecting your investment from damage or loss is in fact one of the cores of your business.

Since we have a order fulfillment department, we have several giant rolls of foam sheeting on hand at all times. In the event we need to ship something valuable, and if we do not have the original box with foam inserts, we wrap the heck out of things, pack them in a plastic case of some sort, and if shipping via FedUpsDhlEx place that case into a cardboard box or Anvil shipping case.

One thing we routinely ship are 19″ LCD monitors for various demo computer setups. We have Anvil style cases designed for such a monitor, but we add sheets of foam to fill in the gaps.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

Obscuring the private parts of statues is a bit absurd. The ultra prudes in question do not seem to understand the intent of the artist. Janet Jackson’s intent was to cause controversy and indirectly to titillate 13 year old boys. The intent of greco-roman artists was to depict life and/or deities in the form of sculpture. Failure to discern a difference and to publicly demonstrate such ignorance is an embarrassment.
Not trying to be political, just calling upon supposedly forgotten learnings from communication theory classes gone by!
Mike

[Mike Cohen]

I notice vignetting even with the simple wide angle adapter that came with my PD170. You might be right.

Mike

PS – Aside from the video in question, this website is one of only a few places online to see HD content other than movie trailers and promos. There is some great stuff, and of course the usual not so great stuff.

[Mike Cohen]

about 5 years ago we bought a 2 TB server (big for 5 years ago) thinking we would be all set. However we kept filling drives, so we wound up having closer to 4 TB, meaning only half was online at any time.
As it turned out, we did not actually need instant access to most of what we were archiving, so we switched to swappable SATA external drives, which we now have close to 100 of in various desk drawers.
So now each man is an island. Each person keeps track of what is on what drive, using either an Excel document or lined paper. One has to be good about keeping these lists updated.
For assets we use more often, like graphics, music files and stock photos, we keep these in redundant locations around the network.
I guess it depends upon your business – for broadcast work you probably want more available online, same for episodic work.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

clients who do not know exactly what they want are frustrating and quite common.
Start with an informal meeting, conference call or one on one interviews with the key players. You need to learn all about what they want to say, although they may not know what they want to say.
Once you have educated yourself, write a treatment, a 1-3 page outline of the key messages and selling points of the project. Then send this to them for review and revision.

They may ask “What did you mean by x,y and z. We don’t want that.” This is part of getting them to focus on what they want – don’t take offense since you are basically guessing at what they want. With their comments, make a new leaner treatment. If they like that, then either make a rough storyboard (beware using specific images in a storyboard – we have had people say “why do you show a picture of a person wearing such and such outfit – that’s not what we wear.” they tend to focus on minor things that they find not right, rather than looking at the big picture. Again, your job is to help them focus and narrow down their ideas.

Now you need to spell out the process for them:
First we will write a draft of the script for review.
Next a 2nd draft of the script with suggested visuals, for approval.
Next we will line up the participants.
Monday – we will shoot interviews with Bob and Jim and ask them these questions.
Tuesday we will shoot Jim in his office and Bob out on the campus doing his thing.
Wednesday we will review the footage with you the client and decide what else we want to shoot on Thursday.
After that we will log all the footage and produce a rough cut.
Client will view rough cut with editor, and editor will make revisions until approved.

So you are getting them to tell you what they want, even if they don’t know what they want. Then you figure out what you think they want and tell them that. Then they tell you what they really think they want, until you are on the same page. Then you tell them how you will do it, before you actually do it. This way everyone knows their roles ahead of time.

I am going through such a process currently and it is a challenge, but potentially a rewarding challenge.

Good luck and let us know how things progress.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

This describes many of my job duties, most of them in fact. The American College of Cardiology is not a college, but a medical society, like ACS or AMA – it is an accrediting body for cardiologists. As such, hiring one or more in-house specialists for media production is the norm. We work with such organizations all the time.
If we professionals are worth the salaries we are paid, then we mustn’t feel threatened by job postings like this.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

It’s all Janet Jackson’s fault. Before the wardrobe malfunction incident you could watch a documentary about art and actually see the art. Today any nudity, even the Venus de Milo, has the potential to offend someone. If the FCC gets one letter from some offended person, the broadcaster may face steep fines.
Last year people actually complained to the FCC about Saving Private Ryan, despite a disclaimer before and during the broadcast that is contains language and violence.
What is the broadcast world coming to?
Oh yeah, we now have the internet, which thus far has remained somewhat censor free…give it time however.

[Mike Cohen]

a couple of other examples – watch most MTV reality shows, they blur out logos on peoples’ hats and tshirts. Watch the news and very little except offending anatomy is blurred out. Have you noticed that the genitals on ancient statues and in classical paintings is being blurred out – this is absurd in my opinion.

In the NBC show Heroes, a character sticks her hand in the garbage disposal, mangling her fingers, only to magically heal. Apparently the Insinkerator company forced NBC to digitally remove their logo from the scene – not sure if this is true, but companies generally do not want their products or names used in a negative way.

I agree with the others, talk to a lawyer – better to be safe than sorry.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

I find old tube video cameras make great doorstops.
Old rack mount terminal equipment is useful as a monitor stand.
We keep our 1″ machine out because it looks cool, like an old tv.
Mike

[Mike Cohen]

Many moons ago we offered stock footage from surgical procedures for sale, however the time needed to find just what a client was looking for made it unprofitable. We sold a few clips to Strong Medicine on Lifetime and to some museums, but our time is better spent making money for production jobs.
It seems there are many many stock footage websites. Have production jobs dried up in your area?

Mike