[Ned Miller]

I’ve listened to a few in-depth stories on this on NPR and the poor man’s way of prepping for this is to back up nightly, in my case Time Machine. Then the worst case scenario would be wiping my drive and reinstalling, which is a PITA but at least I don’t have to pay many hundreds in Bitcoins to some bastard. Anything wrong with this technique?

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

OK, I will ask around. My wife is a master level weaver and knitter and I know that she belongs to a lot of sites like your sister is proposing. Basically how-tos but what brings them in is a sense of community, kindred hearts.

I can’t imagine people wanting to pay per video, most business models I’ve seen is you submit your credit card for a monthly/annual membership and have total access to the videos. Your sister must prepare herself that a certain percentage of scum bags will rip the video, perhaps pass it around to friends. In sum, I’ll ask my wife and then forward you the links.

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

Are you talking about a paid portal to view the videos, ala Lynda? Monetizing the video?

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

Yes, I have shot many cruises, what we call “candids”, a fun time was had by all videos, usually incentive rewards vacations for the top producers and salesmen. If they met or exceeded their goals they and their spouse got to go on incredibly lavish trips. My videos were used to create buzz and incentive for the next year’s contest. Bali, Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Europe, etc. GoPros will be very valuable, cruises mean water. Unfortunately it’s salt water. Ports often have sight seeing helicopters and I would rent a hour to film the ship (never call it a boat to their face) but I suppose now a drone can do that. Time is of the essence and the big problem is when a ship comes into port there’s a dozen or more activities called Excursions and you have to figure out how you can cover a few, so you often have to hire a local jeep and driver, never drive yourself! Depending which country and continent there’s often Banditos in the hills. Duty free shopping is a BIG deal with the cruise ship crowd. Your cell phone may not work there so perhaps bring Old School walkie talkies.

Many ships are too large to dock so they will have small boats called tenders which ferry passengers back and forth and they will have a schedule or run every hour etc. That will be extremely important for you since you will be going back and forth a lot. You need to pare down your package so you can jump in one of these little boats and that’s why I say a couple of water proof backpacks, monopod and camera. Billy Goat shooting, lots of walking, hiking, leap frogging the group. You may want to start working out now to get ready. Fortunately you’re at sea level!

I consider these kind of gigs to be “backpack jobs”, go monopod instead of big heavy tripod. Ships are painted white so in bright daylight it’s as if everyone is being bounced. Yet they will all be in hats and sunglasses so it’s hard to see faces on deck. Your radio mic frequencies may be the same as the host country’s Secret Service so you better research open freqs before you go.

Tell me what you need to know, there’s a zillion issues. You need a very wide lens! Outlets are scarce so go battery powered LED. Interior areas are dark, dark, dark. The room they will give you as a vendor is incredibly small. The latitudes that cruise ships like to troll tend to rain a LOT. Rain gear and trash can liners for when it pours. Bring more batteries and back up gear than you usually do. You’ll need a gimble for boat-to-ship shooting. Some lines are party boats and are going 24/7. Don’t wear leather shoes of any kind, go with Keen type sandals so you can walk through (not on) water. Gamblers don’t like to be shot. Don’t aim your cameras at women in bathing suits. If it’s choppy seas your efficiency will go down 70% from sea sickness, we found patches don’t work. Some guys are not with their wives and will threaten to punch you out if you aim your camera at them. Great food though. I can go on and on. You can PM me if you’d like but I am busy this Sat-Wed so do it tomorrow. Since you will be working for the line you have to be more circumspect than I was, since I was always surrounded by happy people on vacation, usually drunk.

However, I have done similar work for many resorts and what I would do so I would not impinge on the paying customers, many of whom do NOT want to be shot, is I’d find out the day off schedule of the (attractive) employees for my slice of life scenes, such as holding hands at sunset, dining, dancing, lounging by the pool, etc. This is very important to stack the deck in your favor because the average person on an expensive vacation does not want to help you, and may have a very hairy back. I would pay them something. The problem you face is that the employees like to time their days off with the port landing so they can enjoy the local scene.

Unlike doing corporate videos, when a ship heads out all the staff are extremely busy, stressed and it is very hard to find someone. There are a few folks in very small offices like the pursor but most are running around a humongous ship of many levels. THAT’S WHY YOU SHOULD BRING PRO LEVEL WALKIE TALKIES. You will definitely be getting a work out, lots of stairs or what they call gangways. If possible, if you are going to hire some crew to go with you, get strong young kids. But it’s imperative that every person on your crew is able to SHOOT.

As to paperwork I’d need to know what countries you’re going to and what main camera you’re using. Often the excursions are to national parks, historic sites, etc., so if you can strip it down so you look like a wealthy tourist you’re better off. Permission takes forever and many places you’re expected to bribe the guard, so just walk in whistling as a tourist. Every time you get off the ship in a different country you’re in the middle of a crowd so your gear should not stick out.

There’s a very good chance that your insurance policy does not cover loss in water. That’s usually a rider for more money. After all, a cameraman needing a new camera would simply throw his rig overboard. So check that. In fact, you may not even be covered for out of the US! Check that with your agent and you may need a rider. Many ports that the lines go to are surrounded by poor areas, such as Belize City. Although the cops come down draconian style on local thieves because they will hurt the tourist business, you need to beware of snatch and grabs ALL the time. They know you’re not coming back for a trial. Plus, your insurance won’t kick in if you don’t get a local police report and you probably won’t have time for that. So do some crime research before you go. Extreme poverty and video gear don’t mix.

As to coming back into the US, what I have always done is several days before I leave I go to the US Customs at the O’Hare office at the airport with every piece of expensive electronic gear and register the serial numbers with them. They keep a copy and give me one with their stamp. If they hassle you upon return, as in you’re trying to sneak in video gear without paying a duty, you show them your form and there’s no problem. I don’t think you need a Carnet for this. Since you’re working for the cruise line, especially if they have one of their “shore people” with you, ESPECIALLY if they’d give you a laminated lanyard from their company to wear around your neck, you’re golden. The local ports LOVE the business the cruise lines bring and they will kiss your hand if they think you’re making them look good.

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

I’ve done the exact same thing with lottery tickets that have six chances of winning and they would receive the ticket as soon as their scene was completed. Depending on the Lotto jackpot that weekend I’d approach and say, “I’d like to offer you $92 million dollars.” They’d respond positively and then I would rephrase it, “Rather, the chance to win this weekend’s lottery jackpot of $92,000,000 if you could be a background extra for 15 minutes or so.”

Everyone loves lottery tickets! But the real bonus is I may have a dozen or so left over tickets that I did not tell the client about and it’s quite exciting to watch the Saturday night drawing with the wife. Like “Waking Ned Devine”. But as you can surmise, we haven’t won yet!

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

I’m the OP and here’s my new theories on this:

• They are targeting the video industry because they MUST have had some previous successes. Perhaps they are also hitting up other industries but ours is ripe for prospects holding out a carrot, we respond, they make a deposit and book us. They’re probably trolling similar industries, probably in the live event sphere I bet. It is rare for freelance communities to share information but we have this forum! Yippee!

• We all know that our banks want 3-5 business days to clear the checks we deposit. So, someone in our biz saw their deposit check had cleared and decided to “keep” the scammers money but send a portion back. My theory is that someone thought they were scamming the scammer. However, when a check bounces on the bank they route it again before declaring it non-sufficient funds and this takes more days. When I brought in Allen’s worthless $4900 check to see if it was legit the banker told me they could take up to two weeks before declaring it rubber. But if I did deposit this worthless check they would immediately give me $400, however, I’d have to pay it back when the check bounced.

All of this is in the fine print on the forms we sign and don’t understand when we open a checking account. So it is plausible that an otherwise intelligent person in the video production industry deposited a check that didn’t smell quite right, yet when they saw it “cleared” in their deposit ledger online they felt they could send part of the money back to the scammer because after all, it did clear. That’s my theory.

I don’t believe anyone making a living in the hyper competitive world of video production could be so dumb as to fall for this scam but I do believe that if they thought erroneously that the check had really cleared and the funds were in their account, they may have sent a portion back figuring they put one over on the scammer.

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

I got another scam letter just yesterday. From the wording it seems like the same operation. See below. Also, about 90% of my clients send a paper check although most foreigners pay electronically. Here is the scam email from yesterday, but I get legit requests all the time that are similar:

We are Taylor Baldwin llc Romania looking for professional Video
Production Company to Film Our incoming event which 26th of
April in Illinois United State

Description

Project: To produce a short behind the scene style event
highlight video of the 2 day event. To possibly include Vox Pop style
interviews with either

delegates and or key speakers.

Project Detail,

Details of the Project

1,A full day Crew for 8 hours with 2 Camera

2.full production inclusive of editing

3.Promotional Event

4.] finished video going to be used for point of sale video, cable tv,

Waiting to read from you soon

Taylor

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

You have to get a real live lawyer to write it so it will stand up in court. We tend to do cut-and-pastes. Otherwise there’s giant loop holes in it. Once you have a true contract written you can adapt it for future clients, but there are points that need to be made that those of us who did not suffer through law school do not understand. I learned this with a custom IC Agreement I had made. However, a real contract does look scary to the signee.

When I did have issues over the years and went in and showed my home made agreement to an attorney during a free consultation, they usually chuckled. I also learned that for the amounts of money we are talking about for today’s video scene, the cost of getting an attorney involved to enforce the contract is prohibitive, plus you don’t know if you’ll win until the end. So, if you don’t trust the client with a handshake don’t even start. I use a Letter-of-Agreement just so each side knows what they are responsible for, when, payment, etc. However, it would never stand up in court, it’s just to avoid misunderstandings.

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

Well, in that case bill him for the time suck, couple of hours.

When I run into prospects with an unrealistic schedule I tell them I am the fastest cameraman they will ever meet, they have me for ten hours, if they can’t schedule it all in that time frame then, “It is what it is”, they have to go to Day 2.

This industry sucks as a business but sure is fun to do!

Later,

Ned

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com

[Ned Miller]

Hi Greg,

It’s hard to say what you should do now but I would have handled the front end differently. I would have “buried” the cost of my driving and meeting time, gas & tolls or put in a minimal looking charge and jacked up a different category. Clients with staff jobs can’t relate to us slicing our day up. What I really want to do is give a good meeting: get a haircut, new shoes, dog and pony show. I once filmed a sales trainer named Bob Berg, he wrote Endless Referrals. I remember his take away was: “People hire who they Know, Like and Trust.” I want them to feel comfortable with me and only if I can meet them in person is this possible. So since we can’t go golfing, meet them for drinks, etc. I kill for the chance to have decision makers in one room and sell them, even though it could have been “done on the phone”. I love meetings! Once I’m in a meeting I can brainstorm, offer better ways of achieving their objective, give success stories, etc. If it’s a small project I can try to escalate the scope by pointing out how we can gather material that will multi purpose the media, make more versions, etc. I just want my foot in the door.

My goal is to impress but a secondary goal is to worm may way around the corp, meaning once I meet the players of Project 1, I want to pivot and find out who else in the corp may need video such as HR, PR, Corp Comm, Safety, etc. Many of my bigger clients started with a small project, they wanted to check me out. It sounds like this boss took personal offense by you rejecting his offer of a meeting. Perhaps he wanted to get to “know” who he was hiring?

If all you have into them is perhaps an hour of making an estimate I’d keep an even $100 and send the rest back. Makes you look like an honorable mensch and if the new guy screws up perhaps they’ll call you again. But if he seems to be a PITA from the start then it could be a mixed blessing the job didn’t come tthrough. But I specialize in PITA clients.

P.S. In regards to contracts, the few times I spoke with attorneys for a “free consultation” they laid out the minimum and maximum range of their fees to go to court and there is no guarantee of winning. So when I read on this forum about contracts I remember those meetings. It takes deep pockets to enforce a contract since there’s the possibility the judge woke up on the wrong side of bed that day.

Good luck!

Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com