Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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We keep everything – or at least a trimmed project. Only problem is drives you have not used in a while tend to die. This has actually happened twice with seagate drives – Seagate will replace the drive but not the data.
Just last week a client asked for an AVI of the final edit from a 2007 project. Thanks to my handy excel I knew just where to go.
Mike Cohen
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Looks like 3D may bring Kodak back to the front of the imaging industry:
https://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Stereo
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[Chris Blair] “3D in sports? Yeah..that could be cool…but again…how many people will that affect on these forums? Not many.”
Well, I think discussion of 3D tv in the home is like discussing the 1st generation iPad, HTML5 video streaming and questions why the adoption of brain implants for video playback has been so slow.
In other words, the tech industry loves talking up the next big thing, even if that next big thing is years away. Early adopters always pay a lot and have to wait for a big payoff.
Back in 1992 Cine-Med produced one of the first HD videos in the US. It was on a now defunct 1″ HD tape format. It would be 15 years before we would touch an HD camera again, and by then it was a viable tool for makin’ money.
Back in 1995 Cine-Med produced a 3D video – we had a specially made Zeiss lens adapted to a stereoscopic video endoscope – I think we managed to mount it to a tripod. The audience all needed to wear Crystal Eyes LCD glasses at $250/unit to see the result. Only now in 2010 are people actually talking about 3D being a viable tool for mainstream imaging.
We bought a CD-R burner around 1996 for something like $2500 – it took 30+ minutes to burn a CD. But we actually started selling CD-ROM products almost immediately – the market was asking for it.
The 3D and HD projects were contract jobs.Shall I talk about our foray into virtual reality? I think you see my point.
It is fun learning about new technology, but like the DVD player, until your grandma has one attached to her Zenith, or until it costs the same as the current technology demanded by the market, or both, it is not yet mainstream!
But the outliers are having a blast no doubt.
I recently had an e-mail dialogue with a distant relative who is heavily involved in 3D – he believes it is the future of entertainment and that Avatar was the kick in the Navi that the industry needed.
Mike Cohen
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[Brian Louis] “Gee! I can’t see why you are having a problem, converting to Matrox’s I-frame codec will fix anything.”
I can’t tell if that is sarcasm or not.
Mike Cohen
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As a follow up to my own post – I had mentioned dragging HDV onto a Matrox sequence to check the HDMI signal. The main thought behind this is although we recorded HDV in the field, and captured the firewire to HDM mpeg, the HDMI signal going to the 1080 LCD looks overall better than on the computer monitor.
However playing back HDV in a Matrox sequence caused Premiere to crash – not sure if it is getting bogged down in the attempted real-time transcoding or another reason.
However to check the image quality for a few seconds may in fact be worth the crash.
Mike
PS – FWIW, using Win 7 64, 8 gig ram, decent NVIDIA card, eSATA storage. RAID test coming soon.
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Can you deliver a finished product that meets the client’s requirements? This applies whether you are an editor, shooter, bricklayer or pastry chef.
And do you have the confidence in your own abilities to get the job done?Certifications may have some meaning but I have yet to see that they make a difference in media production.
I call myself a project manager, and my certification is my experience. But when I listen to podcasts and search for books on the subject, many have to do with passing the PMI exam. In fact preparing people for the PMI exam is a business unto itself, so the PMI is important for those people, much like certifications in software is good for the people teaching the classes.
But if I had $2500 to spend on either a class or a computer with software and some books, I would choose the latter and just get to work learning what I don’t know.
You can’t teach someone to be creative – you can teach someone what buttons to push. Creativity is developed over time from being challenged.
I once knew a computer technician who actually hung his certification diplomas on his office wall. But ask him a question that fell outside of the precise facts and skills he learned and he was utterly useless.Mike
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I think the sample project is a great idea. $2000 to edit anything is not a lot of money so make sure you know what you are potentially getting into.
Likewise, when you put together a proposal, make sure you account for your own costs and build in some profit margin, otherwise you are doing a lot of work with no net gain for yourself.
Mike Cohen
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Do you charge for FTP, rendering, blank tapes, etc?
Depends upon how you charge for work.
Do you charge by the hour or by the project?
If you charge by the project, then build these costs into your project cost. You should be charging enough to cover profit, overhead and your own or employee’s salary.
Most clients likely don’t want or need an itemized list of charges – they want their project completed.
Mike Cohen
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We just spent big money on a product, partially due to seeing their ad on this site, and then further investigating, researching and reading some helpful posts from the Zelinator.
Mike Cohen
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[Mark Dannunzio] “I am thinking of relocating to Wilmington NC, and am having a hard time finding full-time opportunities.”
What does pay scale have to do with finding opportunities in a particular area?
Not sure you have heard but now is a bad time to be looking for a job, or so they say – whoever “they” are.
I agree with the others – judge not a job by the salary…judge a salary by the job.
Mike Cohen