[Mike Smith]

I guess it turns on just what your role is, how you are engaged, and whether there is any documentation.

Some of the current US law on this is at
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html
https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html

As I understand it, the default position as far as moving image work is concerned is that the body or person who makes the arrangements for the work to be produced – typically the producer – is regarded as its author and first copyright holder. If you are engaged as a producer to produce a piece, likely the body commissioning you will want an agreement on transfer of rights on completion or payment. As producer, you might well retain original copyright in the unedited source footage, unless your contract specifically transfers this right.

If you are engaged as video crew to film, it seem likely that the producer / author is the body or producer who hires you, and you are much more likely to be regarded as engaged in “work for hire”. The rights in the footage would belong to the producer. If they hire and pay talent or front-of-camera stuff, or if they organize the travel / permissions etc, their claim to be author and copyright holder would be very strong. You’d need their permission to use what is their copyright material.

But if you are engaged as producer and handle the talent, permissions, dates, crewing and everything else, then your client would be likely wanting to make sure they get an assigment of rights, or else the footage could be deemed to be your copyright.

Or if your customer simply called you and commissioned you on a “we need some shots of xxxx – can we have them by Friday please” basis, then you might be able to argue that the sequence of shots you (organized, created and) supplied was your initial copyright.

This might be a little different from a stills photography, where the photographer may well act as the producer, organizing the shoot, props and settings, models and costume – and then may well own the rights until / unless otherwise assigned / licensed as part of the commissioning contract.

Of course this isn’t legal advice – you’d have to seek an opinion on that.

What would be the plus in making the customer unhappy by seeking to use the stuff they paid you to film for some other purposes?

[Mike Smith]

It’s not in a widescreen comp, is it ..?

[Mike Smith]

Yup, you’d definitely have lost them!

Over here in the UK there’s an “incidental inclusion” defence against copyright claims.

It seems there may be something similar in the US ..
https://www.out-law.com/page-4098

[Mike Smith]

In a perfect world with large budget you’d film on a motion control rig that can export motion data that AE can import .. quite a of options if you search the NYPG at http://www.nypg.com (sorry – couldn’t get it to link!)

[Mike Smith]

I can’t see any basis for agreeing to a fixed fee rather than a weekly rate for this one …

[Mike Smith]

What codec did you render to ..?

[Mike Smith]

I’d be in the customer market for this too.

It most likely wouldn’t be a cheaper option – my guess is there would be a software price premium, but a performance gain. Autodesk doesn’t appear to have much trouble making its prices stick.

It would be good to see budget professional software on this platform – Adobe suite in 64 bit version? Could be great for dedicated production machines. Apple won’t go there, no doubt, and Avid has its own strategy needs in protecting its higher-end offerings, so might not be keen.

Software project wise, I guess they must anyway be breaking the code up so far as possible into core logic and interface: not that adding a third interface would be a small task, but once written it might be able to spread quickly over the product family.

[Mike Smith]

Firewire capture just takes what’s on the tape into the computer, unaltered. You can tell your edit software to treat it as something else (“interpret”), but that doesn’t change what you have.

Some domestic camcorders offer a simulated widescreen mode, capturing 4×3 footage with letterbox black bars applied … which sounds like it could be the situation you are in.

If that is the case, there’s no really good way out.

Dropping the quality of your better source by rendering it out as 4×3, scaled down to match the other footage, black bars and all, would keep all the footage consistent – but at the price of being 4×3 with bars.

Scaling up your 4×3+bars footage and rendering it into widescreen keeps the quality of the better stuff, but will probably make the worse stuff look even worse by comparison.

Good luck …

[Mike Smith]

If providing such materials was not part of your original agreement, you are under no obligation to do so. My inclination would be just to say no.

Is your contract / agreement with the client completed – i.e. have you done what you agreed to do, and have they paid for it? If so, an additional request for extra materials can be treated as just that, an extra: you could respond with an offer to supply files you deem appropriate to supply, along with a price and timescale.

you are still mid-contract – you have not completed / delivered, they have not paid – then this sounds like an emergency. You might want to treat the request as, potentially, notice to terminate your current contract (verbal or written, contested or accepted). Then you might want to face-to-face or at worst telephone with the client to get clarity on what extra they want, and what this means for your current work / payment.

All in all, it doesn’t sound promising: time to advance other projects up the priority list or to look for new work?

[Mike Smith]

Or, if it’s deep in the background, getting some 3D graphics for the game, or partnering with a computer game company that has an (NFL) football game to generate / get the rights for what you need . Might be a cross-promotion opportunity for the game company …