[Neil Weaver]

Well, the good news is I had a meeting with the client this morning, and I’m starting a new project for them. The guy who asked for the footage is off on leave so I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer to find out what he wants it for. Watch this space…

Just wanted to pick up on a few points made earlier in the thread though.

Walter, I disagree with you 100% about client owning the footage. We didn’t just turn up with a camera, point it at something and hit record. The shots were thought about, directed and represent the culmination of many hours of hard work in pre-production.

It’s a fairly common misconception amongst clients who don’t understand that what we do doesn’t just happen. Sometimes it looks effortless because the best videos make you forget you’re watching a video. Non-professionals don’t notice good camera work, but bad camera work sticks out like a sore thumb. So my main beef is why should the client get to exploit my hard work, skill and creativity as many times as they like, but only pay for it once?

Conversely, why shouldn’t I get to maximize the return on my time and investment by being able to use, reuse and even sell that footage on as I please – some of it is great generic material of people using leisure facilities, cops on the beat etc, that has definite potential for being sold on as stock footage or re-appearing in future projects. And I’m certainly not in business to hand over work I’ve done to a competitor – is there a single production company out there that would?

To Mike Haensler – I can assure you we have done everything in our power to keep this client happy – they’ve had approximately $3000 worth of work this past year that we’ve not charged them for! What I can’t legislate for is being undercut. As I’m sure everyone here knows only too well, there are a lot of hacks out there, flogging appalling productions and production values, but getting away with it because the price is right. It appears that’s what’s happened in this case. I’ve no doubt that when the client sees the difference in what we give them to what ‘Company X’ has given them, they’ll call us back. However, in the meantime we are in an economic meltdown and money talks.

Anyway, thanks for the input all. Plenty of food for thought.

Merry xmas!

[Neil Weaver]

Thanks Mike,
There’s plenty of emails and I give each client a production pack outlining the video concept, costs, timescales etc so as you say, there’s enough there almost not to warrant a contract. What it doesn’t contain and what hasn’t come up until now is who owns the raw footage and they ain’t gonna like being told no!

Well, the conversation about it is tomorrow, so I’ll let you know how it goes…

[Neil Weaver]

Dang. well at least it’s not me doing something wrong then!
Thanks for your help, I’ll let yous know if I come up with a workaround.

[Neil Weaver]

Could be worth a go – but I’m assuming the smaller frame size is gonna look pretty grim at full-screen?

[Neil Weaver]

Ah that could be it – I’m using 768×576

[Neil Weaver]

Hi settings are

FlashCS3 version 8>High Quality>700kbps>frame rate same as source(25fps)>On2 vp6>frame placement automatic

Thanks

[Neil Weaver]

This post got moved here from the FCP forum, (didn’t spot there was a separate compression board), so workflow probably didn’t make much sense at all.
It goes: DV PAL source material>FCP>Export using compressor with DVPAL settings so the end result is a mov. Then I convert the mov into flv, and publish to the web. My issue is, that although the quality ain’t bad at all, I want to know if anyone can give me a recommendation about another format or codec I could export to that converts into flash really well.
Effusive thanks will of course be given to anyone with a constructive response.