Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Who is this Colbert guy? I have heard of him on the republican blogs, but did not know it was a comedy show. Interesting.
Mike Cohen
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https://www.amazon.com/When-Shooting-Stops-Cutting-Begins/dp/0306802724
While mostly about film editing, there are some interesting stories about how Woody Allen and other young directors got their start, and in the opinion of the writers, how the editor saved their careers.
I agree that there is not a cheat sheet for where to cut, what you can glean from all of these books is the theory of good storytelling, and use this background to develop your own style.
Mike Cohen
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Asking to read “case studies” seems to indicate someone who recently got their MBA, or someone who has read a lot of business books but not actually worked in the business in question.
If you have worked in post-production, you probably know what factors you need to consider before expanding or creating a business. Regardless of the type of business, you need to know the same facts: is there a market and demand for what you are selling, and how much do you think you can make (based upon overhead, cost of doing business etc).
As the others have so eloquently put it – ask a specific question and you’ll get specific answers, or opinions, or both.
Mike Cohen
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This comes down to how you do business. This has been discussed countless times here. Do you charge by the hour, by the day or by the project? That determines everything. If you book your time as a button pusher then an hour spent not working is not billing and you get more stress than you really need. If you charge by the project, you charge enough that the client can work on their schedule and you are compensated enough to not worry about cancellations. If a client cancels on me, I get to spend that time doing something for myself (learning), for my business (marketing) or for another customer who will be happy to see their next deliverable a day sooner.
If you are charging enough for your work, nickel and diming does not come into the picture. If clients nickel and dime you that’s another story.
Mike Cohen -
When a paying client asks you to meet about a potential new project, you go.
Very often I have walked out of a meeting saying to myself or my colleague “we could NOT have done that over the phone.”A few years ago a new lead asked me up to their office in an adjacent state. 3 hour drive each way. But we got a lot more info than we could get from a conference call or website. Meet and greet with principals, tour of office and R+D department – learned what a CNC machine does – and learned about the company.
Only from such an experience can you know intimately enough about a company so that you yourself become an evangelist of their products. And that is what a client wants in a contractor. If they want a guy to push buttons they can open the yellow pages. But if they want someone to help them bring their product to market and to share the vision, you meet them, you dine with them and you get to know them.
And of course you do all this on your dime – this is an investment in future business. Sometimes you don’t get the business, or at least not right away. But you now have a budding relationship with someone. Eventually you will score!
Mike Cohen
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Sunday went to Rosebud on Rush – good Italian.
Monday busy 1st day of conference. Wall to wall people. If there is a recession, it seems to have stayed in the NY Times.
Had a chance to walk around the show a bit, in addition to helping make sure the video sessions went off without a hitch. I checked in with a few clients, made some new contacts, and checked out the current state of the HD imaging industry for healthcare. Sony is showing a new 3D HD system.
Most of the HD vendors are using a proprietary HD recording box – h.264 video all around. More about this in an upcoming blog post on the subject. Stay tuned.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program – eating!
Monday went to Spiaggia. Hidden upstairs in an office building with a lake view (in the day time) this fancy shmancy restaurant, also Italian, was really fancy and extra shmancy. For pasta I had gnocchi with a ricotta cream sauce and truffle. This restaurant is all about the truffle, not a bad thing. The meat was duck – don’t know the preparation but it was good. A trio of gelati and decaf capuccino wrapped up the day. On adjacent tables were no less than 3 of the top surgeons in the business. If surgeons are filmmakers, then Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh and Michel Gondry were in the house. Scorsese asked me what to have for dessert. I hope he tried the banana gelati.
Tuesday is open, Wed on my own so Bin 36 is on the agenda. Hopefully I will be able to stumble back to the hotel without falling in the Chicago River!
Stay tuned for further reports. Same COW time. Same COW channel.
Mike Cohen
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Richard,
The others are correct – always look at your work with a critical eye. Think to yourself, “if I were the client, would i be happy with this product?”
Sometimes “good enough” if great to the end user. Which is not to say you should not strive for “better than good enough” but sometimes in reality those extra 20 hours you spend may make the project better, in your opinion, but won’t necessarily make or break the project. Is this to say you should not go above and beyond every time? No, but be your own best judge of how great is appropriate for the client.
You could spend 6 hours on an animation that is all but ignored by the viewer, but it sure makes you feel good, right? Just don’t set yourself up for disappointment by expecting praise for something that is not considered going above and beyond by the client.
A couple of years ago we started cutting our standard teaching videos differently, using more of particular effects and better titles. Simple things really, but now those extra efforts are the expectation of clients and are a signature of our work. Takes an extra pass on the final edit to make sure it is consistent with our “look” but worth the effort.
I agree that you look at work you did weeks, months, years ago and think “man, I could have done that better.” Just yesterday I dug a DVCPRO tape out of cold storage (think of that warehouse from Raiders) and thought “this looks pretty good, but if I could re-cut this today…” That, hopefully is a sign that I have grown creatively, as one should do every year.
Do I read particular books to stay sharp? Not intentionally, I read a lot in general. Online tutorials, even for software I don’t have – anything can offer inspiration. I don’t have Mocha or Magic Bullet, but seeing what those programs can do give me ideas. By the same token, look at other people’s video work and look for things you like.
Did you know the COW now offers free video hosting? You want inspiration, check out some of those videos!
Mike Cohen
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For many years we had a fractional T1 – we paid for how much bandwidth we used. But during this time we were running our own website and several for clients out of our office. We also offered internet access to other tenants in the building.
Once we switched all sites to leased dedicated servers off-site, we switched to Cable. not sure of the actual bandwidth, but the uploading we do does not seem to be affected. And the downloads are not as frequent as the uploads.
We maintain an FTP server on our network, so uploads to the server are simply a network file transfer. Most files are graphics/Quark, InDesign stuff between us and our off-site workers, and the outside folks’ connections are more of an issue. Of course if someone is up- or downloading big files it can freeze up our whole network, so we need to keep an eye on activity.
Useful tip: You can use the free Filezilla FTP server software to make any computer an FTP server.
The bandwidth is also fine for limited Skype use (my parents, incidentally, get giddy when they ring me on my laptop and can have brief face to face chats – just like Heywood Floyd wishing his daughter a happy birthday back on Earth.)
Internal server operations as others have mentioned are not affected by internet connection.
If you are uploading film or HD dailies on a..er..daily basis, then everything changes. Faster is better if time is an issue. But the subject line’s “film prod company” likely does not mean an actual “film prod studio” but it simply a figure of speech.
Mike Cohen
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regarding exercise – walking is good. I was only on my mountain bike twice this past Summer, partially due to the bad weather. A good walk at a leisurely pace is the best thing. Keeping the body moving is more important than running for your life on a treadmill. In nice weather I walk around the parking lot or down to the corner and back.
A little trivia for you. The corner in question, known as Canfield Corner, has an old pharmacy with a disused soda fountain from the 50’s. When she lived in town with her husband Arthur Miller, young Marilyn Monroe used to ride her bike to this spot for an ice cream soda.
https://www.ctmuseumquest.com/?page_id=5937
Too bad she didn’t stick around – that would get me on my bike too.
Mike Cohen
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Love the wine tasting menus. Will try to get to Bin 36. Also have a planned dinner at Rosebud on Rush. Even those Corner Bakeries are good and convenient for breakfast or lunch.
Went to a similar type of place Il Sole in Dallas – appetizer, meat, fish, dessert – full glass with each – could barely walk afterwards but worth the headache and made up for the Anatole hotel’s weirdness!
Ron – I think maybe we need a Food forum. What do you think?
Mike