Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Just a few weeks ago we made a new brochure to hand out at a trade show we were attending. We printed 30 copies and they all disappeared. We got a few leads, and now we use this brochure as a leave-behind as well as to send someone by mail along with samples if requested.
What we also got out of this exercise was a chance to work as a group to hone our message. If you can summarize your key services as some bullet points and some text, rather than a long video or long blocks of text, you have your proverbial foot in the door. Once you get someone’s attention, that’s when you can get to the details of not only what you offer, but how you do it.
As we prepare to launch our new website, this message will be there as well. We have not really advertised our services online before, since our website has always been a shopping website. But we like shoppers of production services too!
Mike Cohen
Medical Education / Multimedia Producer
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Oddly, but maybe not so odd given our economy, one of my former internship supervisors recently called me up looking for work.
You never know where the roads in life may lead.
Mike Cohen
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An intern is expected to learn, to demonstrate professional behavior, the ability to work as part of a team as well as independently and to have some aptitude for the business.
An intern is not expected to be a superstar in any area of the business – this is the purpose of an internship, to teach you about a particular business and skill set. If you have some skills and talent, this shows an employer that you can learn things and maybe even help out with projects. But as Mark has suggested, you are not applying for a career position – you are being humble and asking for an opportunity to learn in a professional environment.
When I applied for my interships, I brought my reel of student work, and was generally made fun of for presenting student work on my reel.
What my supervisor was impressed by was the fact that I knew how to use a waveform and vectorscope, how to backfocus a camera and that I knew about white balance.
What I learned on this particular internship directly related to the actual job I got a few months later.
Be honest about what skills you have, but don’t be too sure of yourself. Nobody likes a know-it-all or a showoff. You may have some awesome video work, but an internship is for learning and admitting that you don’t know everything. And even if you know all the technical skills you think you need, you can always learn about how a real business operates.
Good luck.
Mike Cohen
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If you do not have a payroll, then you need to make sure your paid employee knows that he or she is obligated to file quarterly taxes, which could be a burden for a 17 year old with no work experience.
As a business owner, you are obligated to file a W9 for any contractor who is not setup for billing.
You might consult your accountant for their opinion as related to your state’s labor laws.
Mike Cohen
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The few times we have licensed footage it has been a lot of effort for a small payoff. I always found it odd that the networks I heard from didn’t have a source for what they were seeking. Then once I located what they were looking for, they asked if they really had to pay, because their budgets were so low.
As David said, if it is something rare, they will pay. But for typical stock footage, there are so many sources it is a buyer’s market.
And make sure you have the right to sell your footage. If you have shot something for a client, it may not be yours to sell.
We have a huge library of surgery video, but we can only sell it in selected ways, as specified by the contract we have in place.
Mike Cohen
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Funny, since this thread was started, I have received at least two emails from new users looking for specific help. I referred them back to the forums. I am not sure why people find a forum and then can’t figure out how to ask a question, so they email someone offline.
That would be like going to the ER with a sprained ankle, looking at a list of doctors on the board and then going home and calling one of the ER docs at home after hours asking him if you have a sprained ankle.
Mike Cohen
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the last 1/2 second was cut off – I re-uploaded from an AVI and it is OK
ThanksMike
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perhaps this explains why a video I uploaded was cut off at the end – I deleted it but will try uploading again.
Always exciting to see improvements!
Mike Cohen
Medical Education / Multimedia Producer
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That’s amazing.
Mike Cohen
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Another idea is to take your images into Photoshop and make different objects into their own layers, and then animate some zooms and pans within a canvas smaller than the master image. If you simulate a zoom, you can defocus the background to give the illusion of depth of field. Time consuming but possibly a way to add some visual interest to static images.
Mike Cohen
Medical Education / Multimedia Producer