[Mike Cohen]

I suspect Cameron is free and clear thanks to things like True Lies, Titanic and that one with all the fighting robot thingies.

Lucasfilm opened their animation studio is Singapore – so much for American Grafitti. I’ve read some articles about how a 3D conversion is about 1/4 the cost and twice as fast in India vs Santa Monica.

Yep, even the creative industry is leaving our shores.

Sad.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

Late to the party here.

What was the original post that Chen Wu Xin was responding to?

As for the overall theme of the thread, I agree you get what you pay for. Although sometimes you can pay the appropriate amount and still get the occasional person who is asleep at the wheel. As a producer it is my job to manage the crew, to ensure that my client is getting what they are paying for. Usually the client is paying me and I am paying the crew so it is a double safety check to make sure you get what you think you are getting.

Measure twice, cut once – you can apply this truism to any situation.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

When figuring out your pricing, be sure to account for stuff you can’t actually charge for directly (electricity, phone, gas – in other words, overhead).

Your price may be a day rate or a project price. In either case make sure you are covering the three buckets: your labor, your overhead and profit.

You need to eat.
You need to pay for your rent and equipment.
And you need profit either to put away for a rainy day, to reinvest in the company or to pay your shareholders.

You see some young people charging say $400 for a shoot. Seems like good money but they are not making enough to sustain the business.

But no, there is no universal budgeting tool. Too many variables and specific situations. Talk to your accountant to figure out how much you actually need to charge to cover your 3 buckets.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Wonder how James made out with this project..?

Check out the Live from Abbey Road series scattered around YouTube. Granted they shot these with many cameras and dolly tracks and it’s Abbey Road, but it is good for inspiration.

Also most music videos have some non-performance video interspersed – need to know what the band expects.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

@ Pat

Add to the fact that in a joint replacement the surgeons are wearing those space suits from ET, so it can get really difficult to see, and they are not aware of the position of the camera because their peripheral vision is diminished.

If an HD laparoscope and a reliable person to operate it are available, that can sometimes get you shots that are impossible to get otherwise. You need a sterile team member to handle the scope and to HOLD STILL or even use an “iron intern”. And getting a recording in HD from a scope is still a challenge in 2012.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

adding weight to a stabilization apparatus may destabilize your perfectly balanced setup. Also the Fig Rig will get heavier the more stuff you add. If you are trying to operate the audio levels and shoot and hold this two handed rig, you might want to get a helper.

Otherwise clip the receivers to your belt and run a coiled XLR cable to the Beachtek which I assume is mounted under the camera.

When you hire an audio person, they provide you with an XLR cable and headphone cable to plug into the camera, or a wireless receiver depending upon how far from the audio person you are going to be.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Since you are a musician already, you are thinking of using all of your limbs, like a street musician playing guitar and drum pedals and a tambourine on your knee. However since you are concentrating on playing your guitar and teaching, it is a lot to think you can also be watching a video monitor and live switching with your feet.
You need a 2nd person minimum to do this successfully.

If you have 3 cameras going into a switcher, you can record the ISO on each camera for safety, and record the live switch directly to your computer or to an external recording unit such as a KiPro, PIX240 or whatever, depending upon the outputs of the switcher.

You might consider renting various setups to test this out before jumping in with your credit card. B+H will be more than happy to have your money, but test, test, test.

ISO is short for isolated recording – basically you record in each camera as you currently do. But you only use that video to cover an edit. Sometimes when doing a live switch, you have a bad edit, or you want to edit out a mistake, so you cover an edit with an alternate angle to avoid a jump cut.

TD = technical director. In broadcasting that’s the person who operates the switcher and other video processing devices. In your case it could be your neighbor Fred or your cousin Wilma.

SDI = serial digital interface – in the HD world, HD video signals travel either by component (3 wires), HDMI or SDI (looks like a coaxial cable and generally not found on consumer level equipment).

This new-ish product from BMD might suit your needs
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemtelevisionstudio/

The price is right

If money is no object:
check out the Tricaster
https://www.newtek.com/

There are numerous other options. A simple hardware switcher separate from any recording device might be a good place to start if you want to stick with SD – you’ll need to pass the video and audio through a deck, camera or analog to digital box to capture:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/307324-REG/Edirol_Roland_V_4_V_4_Four_Channel_Video.html

Datavideo makes some affordable gear. It is a bit clunky to operate but cheap:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/439147-REG/Datavideo_SE_500_KIT_NTSC_SE_500KIT_Video_Mixer_Kit.html

Lots of options here. Let us know your results, or if you have more questions we are standing by to help.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

We use SKB rolling golf club cases. They ship well as checked luggage and because they look like golf clubs the baggage handlers don’t beat them up like they do with production cases. However they fall apart after about 2 years, so we salvage handles and clasps as spare parts and replace. For us it is important to have something with wheels because most shoots are one guy, and you need to be mobile without an equipment cart.

For just a tripod there is some extra room inside so we’ll throw in some extension cords or just some sheets of acoustic foam as padding. And if we have a local shoot, we’ll just carry the tripod raw or in the canvas bag, but I agree, those things just don’t hold up.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Simple answer – charge enough to cover your costs.
Some clients will want an itemized list of charges, others just need a price for the job.

When hiring a crew, I’d rather see $20,000 for the shoot (including travel and lodging) rather than $10,000 for the shoot, $3,000 for the flight, $1,500 for hotel, $2,200 for meals, $1,100 for rental car, etc.

In other words, your day rate is for local work, but for non-local shooting you set a price that covers your whole package (gear, personnel, travel).

MC

[Mike Cohen]

[Mike Cohen] “In any case, just like when you throw a odor. Do the math.”

This should have been:

In any case, just like when you throw a burger on a hot grill:

protein + heat = smoke + odor

Do the math.