Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Jensen,
Great to see that you are taking some initiative as a student to find out how to have a career when you get your degree. This is certainly a good place to learn.
First, check out the enhanced COW search
https://forums.creativecow.net/search.phptype local commercial or commercial or whatever and you might find some threads that have discussed this issue already.
It is common knowledge among video folks, especially video folks who want in on the local commercial market, that local cable commercials are not very lucrative. They tend to be included with the local cable advertising rates, thus not much effort or expense is put into them. Occasionally you see a local commercial that actually has some production value, but local businesses want customers immediately – they are not very interested in showing you how classy they are with a classy commercial. And most do not want to pay much more than they pay currently, which is not much.
Sounds quite cynical, doesn’t it?
When I was in college I did a Summer internship with a local cable advertising department. The office was mostly sales guys and a small office in the back with the edit bay which was an old Chyron and some tape to tape editing machines plus a Sony tube camera and portapak deck. This is the 1992 equivalent of a camcorder and iMovie on a low end Macbook. We did weekly spots for the local supermarket, and the occasional new commercial. We were told, “Don’t spend more than 2 hours on this” because that’s as far as their $250 credit for a commercial would go.
We have had numerous threads here about this exact situation. Sure you as a student have done some great work, but the local businesses are not generally interested in great work – they are interested in selling pizzas on a Friday night.
But it is good to know the truth about this part of the industry before you go out there wondering why nobody is interested in your services.
but there are a few customers out there for better quality work – you just need to find them.
Mike Cohen
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We went through a number of autoloaders over the years – but they just don’t hold up to constant use.
We use a Primera printer – takes about 1-2 min/disc with a 50 disc capacity – nice glossy labels.For disc duplication we have a 15 disc manual load unit – much more efficient than duping 3 at a time with a robotic unit.
So the printing is the weak link.
Also be aware that the Primera printers will not match a silkscreen print you get from a dupe house – some customers may be discerning enough to tell the difference. Make sure the colors on the disc printer match the colors on the DVD slipart.
Mike Cohen
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I feel a bit sick to my stomach. There are so many things wrong with what happens after the jump. The website follows the format of your typical MLM scheme or conspiracy nutjob – lots of text on a very long page, glowing testimonials from people who don’t know any better, promises and talk about reselling some product.
That being said, there is a subset of consumers who are wowed by 10 minutes of the same composite and likely buyers of his system.
A sucker is born every minute. Some suckers figure out how to make money from other suckers.
Don’t be a sucker.
Mike Cohen
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Like most new technology, there are the early adopters who buy the latest gizmos regardless of price. Leo Laporte and the Digg or Gizmodo folks fall into this category – they write about these wonderful devices but leave out the fact that only a fraction of 1% of people will own them in the near future. So the media hype makes it seem like we will all get our daily newspaper on an ipad and watch our local news in 3D any day now.
Seeing my local crusty news anchors in HD is bad enough – seeing their face wrinkles in 3D sounds nauseating. I think I know why the local NBC guy shaved his signature moustache.
Mike
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[Craig Seeman] “So for the folks who were touting the large number of compatible TV sets out there, it seems not. One must buy a new 3D TV set.”
I noticed best Buy now sells 3D LCD televisions – the price is roughly what you would pay for the same sized LCD a few years ago.
Mike Cohen
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mmm, sausages…
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Size matters not. Judge me by my size do you?
Your company is as lean as you make it. Whether you are 1 person or 100, you need to analyze your business operations so that you maximize your use of resources and stay in the black.
1 person can possibly charge less, but don’t undersell your services, and always think of the big picture. Sure, a larger crew needs more money overall, but you need to know how much to charge to account for the big picture.
Part of maximizing resource usage is being diverse enough so that your crew has enough to do even when new work is sparse. Also, you need to have operating procedures and business practices so that you can stay afloat between new jobs.
There is no standard answer for a question like this.
Mike Cohen
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That Kunaki is interesting. 1 to 10 discs, cost is $1/disc. 11 or more discs, cost is 75 cents to $1.75/disc. Generally when quantities go up, costs go down, not up. And is the shipping price per disc the same with multiple discs? Seems it is a good service for drop shipping orders, not for mass duplication.
Have you looked at Discmakers?
Mark is right, if you only need to do small quantities, buy a CD printer and disc to disc duplicator.
Mike Cohen
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One must assume that George Carlin gets more hits than…hmm, better not.
Google auto completes are amusing – try just about any person’s name, followed by “is” and you get some surprises.
But we are getting away from talking about the COW.
More COW please.
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The new search can be entertaining, kind of like google autocomplete.
So if you type “Premiere is” one assumes that the first suggestion, “premiere is running very low on system memory” is the most common phrase involving premiere.
Likewise, “hdv is” results in “hdv is dead”
Most exciting is if you type “mike” you get “mike cohen” – how could that not be a cool new feature?