[Nick Griffin]

Emma-
You should cross post this to the Business & Marketing COW where this kind of thing is frequently discussed. Probably wouldn’t hurt to read down through the 10 years of archived posts there to see how similar questions have been answered in the past.

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] ” This technique Nick Describes was used in the TV series: “Twin Peaks”.”

So you’re telling me that something we were playing around with in radio in the late 1970s ended up being used in a 1990-91 TV show… Where’s my royalty check? (OK, not really my technique per se, my buddy Charlie showed it to me and chances are somebody showed it to him.)

[Nick Griffin]

Good answer, Greg. What I would add is that this can be written in the form of a letter and then referred to as your “standard” “Letter of Agreement.”

I would also include language to the effect that once you’ve provided X number of revisions within the price you’ve set, additional revisions will be billed at Y per hour. For what it’s worth I consider X to be ONE revision but usually give away minor changes as long as they are minor and reasonable.

[Nick Griffin]

[Prl Jay] “my fees were based on the fact that it was an NGO, not a for profit company.”

OK, this I get and am sympathetic. But, at this stage, and without at the very least an invoice clearly stating a “not for profit” discount, IMHO you have to let this go, learn the lesson and move on. Sorry.

[Nick Griffin]

Erin-
You should post this on the Business & Marketing COW. Read through some of archives there and you may even find exactly what you’re looking for.

[Nick Griffin]

Let me be up front about this. I’ve NOT shot (moving) film or or video underwater. But I have literally hundreds of hours, as well as a fair amount of published work, of U/W still photography.

So here’s a few thoughts:

– Clear, blue water (my personal favorite) absolutely affects color temperature more than you would ever imagine. I don’t remember the exact filtration formula, but I believe it’s about a full stop or more of red for every 25 to 30 feet — and not just down, 20 to 30 feet horizontally too, if you are providing a light source. Depth also affects the rest of the spectrum, but not as much as it does red.

– That’s why a common technique is to use your lighting for the foreground to provide some color and let things in the distance go blu-ish. The trick here becomes metering well enough, and having enough experience with your instruments, that you find a natural looking balance between the two. This is helped greatly by the fact that the majority of U/W photography is done with very wide lenses.

– Yes there are U/W lights. They are NOT inexpensive and when flooded can be ruined or cost a great deal to repair. I have no personal experience with this, but for a constant light source consider LEDs. Lots of light, not much power drawn and virtually no heat to melt the housing which would make them able to go underwater. However, I may be completely off base here as you’re talking about a camera in the hundreds of dollars and I’m talking about a lighting solution that would easily be in the thousands, per unit. So perhaps what you just want to do is get a red filter and/or color correct after the fact.

-And finally… let me pause here while I get out my soap box… the only way to be a SAFE underwater videographer is to be a VERY EXPERIENCED diver. Cameras and lights can be very distracting so you damn well better be a very good diver — WITH A BUDDY watching and helping you — to be safe. Not to put to fine a point on this but dumb mistakes can cripple or even kill you working in that environment. Pool practice can help with developing your camera skills but a fair amount of open water diving WITHOUT a camera, before you do so with a camera, is an EXCELLENT idea.

[Nick Griffin]

[Prl Jacob] “A young film maker”

First, they’re not asking you to remove your credit and replace it with someone else’s so I really don’t see what you have to object to, unless the new corporate entity has a negative image attached to it. If not, get over it and make the change. It will be better for your prospects of future work from both parties going forward.

Second, did you have anything in writing that would say whether or not this could be done?

Third, yes, by all means you should charge for the time to make this change. That’s a no brainer — they asked for something after completion, they pay to have it done.

[Nick Griffin]

[Isaac Brillant] “Do I need to buy transformers…”

Probably not a good idea as 1) they will add expense and 2) they themselves will consume a small amount of power and create heat. Buy the new lowel cables.

BTW, can’t say for sure but I expect that you may find the replacement cables cheaper in Israel than B&H. At B&H they will likely be a special order item, hence not discounted the way so many other things are. At the appropriate Lowel reseller in Israel they should be a stock item. At least that was my experience with having to get Lowell cables for Europe.

[Isaac Brillant] “Do I need to buy… special bulbs?”
Probably yes. While 110 volt bulbs may work, for a while, you’ll greatly increase the risk of bulbs exploding or burning out prematurely. They’re bulbs. Not a lot of money.

[Nick Griffin]

[Patrick Ortman] “Of course, sociopaths often do. :-)”

Patrick –
That is such a stone-cold accurate statement. Sociopaths can be highly believable because they themselves often don’t know that they are lying. All the more reason to embrace a service the hell out of the good clients.

[Nick Griffin]

John-
You may want to cross-post this to the Cinematography forum. But given that this was from a 1992 film — 20 years ago — you’re likely to have a hard time finding much. You have however detailed how the effect was done, just not the fine-tuning of maximizing it. That takes experimentation, even with detailed information on how someone else did it.

This does however remind me of a trick used sparingly in my radio production days. (Considerably more than 20 years ago.) The “alien voice” technique involved recording a short piece, then flipping the tape over to play it backwards, carefully memorizing the phonetics of the backward recording, voicing those sounds to a new piece of tape, then flipping that tape to play backward. With care and practice the new version is quite intelligible but the reversal of the attacks and decay provides an extremely other-worldly sound.

Best of luck with your experiments.