Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I think it may have been a wrinkle in time. I am feeling much older than I did a few days ago. Must be my 39th birthday approaching!
Welcome to Creative COW where the answers to your questions are often both useful and fun.
Mike Cohen
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Based upon limited experience with MXO2 mini with CS4 on a PC – you get good external monitoring of native Matrox codecs (ie, captured with the MXO) but if you try to play non-native video out on a Matrox sequence you get problems (I got system crashes galore trying this) – basically the MXO is a capture/playback device, not a real time transcoding card like the Kona. So if you have P2 or XDCAM, I think you would need to capture as a Matrox codec or use another solution, or use Cineform.
The situation may have changed since I last used it however, and I suspect a lot of the users are on the Mac.
Just my two cents.
Mike Cohen
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I’d like to see the footage from the camera.
Mike Cohen
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I think this is a hypothetical similar situatio:
Ford releases the new F150 – the workhorse of construction crews – and the invent a new way of steering with a stick instead of a wheel. They also reduce the horsepower and eliminate the ability to tow anything. Sure you could get a 3rd party hitch. But the price is reduced making a whole lot of new customers buy one. Quantity over quality.
Apologies to Ford – could be any product from any company.
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Most customers want a video and don’t care how you get there. Check out the panic over Flip cams from a year ago. The sky is falling only if enough chickens run around saying it is.
Do your job…the best job you can.
Just because a new version of XYZ software is out doesn’t mean you are suddenly out of business. We made good money for years after our online bays stopped being the latest technology because we focused on our specialities.
Relax.
Mike Cohen -
All the google hits on that forum must be terrible 🙂
Seriously, it is interesting reading to an outsider who has always used Premiere Pro since before it was “Pro.”
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in Cupertino. Something tells me there have been a few meetings going on – or not if they have everything planned out and this first wave is simply designed to generate demand for FCP X 2.0.
Mike Cohen
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If you are seriously on a budget, look at the Cowboy Studio products. Yes the name makes it sound like cheap junk. I got for personal use (photographing my wife’s hand made jewelry) a softbox that uses compact fluorescent bulbs and puts out the equivalent of 1000 incadescent watts, for $140. It is clunky in construction and assembly, but you get what you pay for. On a recent shoot that was not a shoot at all but a quick interview during the lunch break of a meeting, I took this softbox, a 150W arri fresnel for a backlight and a reflector, and got a decently lit interview. The arri 105 is of course part of our arri fresnel kit that was big bucks – but who’s counting. It is daylight balanced so I got a sheet of CTO.
Don’t discount the usefulness of a reflector with a silver and a gold surface. I have one that unzips to reveal a white and black surface on the other side plus a scrim in the middle. Very handy especially in tight spaces.
I would avoid Home Depot lights only because they get very hot and are not very directional and are in my opinion a fire hazard in non-construction zones.
In my local market I can rent an Arri softbank kit for $75/day or a Kino Flo 3-light kit for $150. We rent both of these kits on a regular basis to supplement our own lights. If you are doing freelance gigs, build the cost of a good kit rental into your price. Companies like VER or MP&E will ship things to you.
Mike Cohen
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Just read an article in a B2B trade suggesting that while 80%+ of businesses are using social most have trouble determining ROI. In other words everyone is doing it because everyone is doing it. Links seem to be one of the primary reasons. If you have valid links from social to you corporate site Google takes notice.
So while there is a ton of buzz about social being the second coming a lot of that buzz is comung from people in the business of social media. Look at your own business and see if it is right for you. You can spend a lot of time and resources and find you get nothing for it. We spent good money on pay per click advertising. Then we stopped and our sales stayed the same. You need to look at the big picture. Social is just obe part of marketing.
Mike -
We just came back from a shoot with 48 hours of hdv. Much of it is 3 cameras rolling on the same scenes so we have to capture it al. Since we need to sync up cameras we lig on the timeline. Once on a timeline you can hit L a few times and watch faster than real time.
Hopefully you have a 2nd computer so you have something to do during capture or a 2nd deck so you cut your capture time in half.
I suppose you could scan the tapes in the deck looking for ling shots of the floor or of rolling during setup. Just hit FF and let go every few minutes and make notes.
I believe CS5 has scene detection so that might help as far as when the camera starts and stops.
I would charge your client a producer fee since they clearly did not have one.
Mike Cohen -
I think I was the 4th video guy working this system. Are you working at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx in sunny xxxxxxxxxx?
No? Well, your situation is a common one. You inherit someone else’s mistakes. Sure the shows happen and your McGyver skills help, and the client can sell their poorly made DVD copies to their customers who don’t seem to care about whatever level of quality you care about.
I hate to say this phrase, but think about doing a SWOT analysis and presenting this to your bosses. SWOT is popular in the corporate world and it shows a fairly objective view of a situation. If you can show that some modest investments can improve workflow, thus improving the customer experience and perceived value, you might get some agreement.
What you can’t do is go to the boss and say “your system is a piece of rubbish. I wouldn’t be caught dead working here if my wife wasn’t going to law school.” Well guess what, you work there, they have clearly replaced many who came before you and can replace you in an economy in which people should be happy with whatever jobs are available.
So tough it out, be diplomatic (ie “Mr Jones, I have assessed the reliability of the system, and making a few minor improvements could increase the overall quality of the programming and streamline the operation” vs “Mr Jones, there isn’t enough duct tape and zip ties in central Missouri to hold this system together. I’d rather flip burgers than operate your video system. Why, if this video system were a US President it would be Woodrow Wilson..” etc)
So moral of the story – be diplomatic and be thankful for the work – it is hard to come by these days. Built in a day, Dagobah was not.
Mike Cohen