[Nick Griffin]

I agree with the others. HIGHLY unlikely for you to get through. That’s not the way it works and frankly not the way virtually any agency or client would allow it to work. I refer you to one of the very first things I wrote 10 years ago for a very young CreativeCOW:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/griffin_nick/how_tv_spots_happen.php

If you’re not part of this process then you’re… well frankly, not part of their process. It’s the difference between having a good idea versus being able to have dozens of good to great ideas a week which begin with a specific marketing process and the creative is providing the end step to that process. Sorry, but that’s the reality.

The only time when something like what you’re describing happens for real is the annual (well at least for the past 2-3 years) Doritos competition for the best SuperBowl spot. But with that you have to submit a finished production and take the chance that yours is one that will be used and therefore bought.

[Nick Griffin]

“[Aaron Cadieux] “I am not really into either of those things (especially web), and I am worried that I might hate it.”

“[Tim Wilson] This is why they call it “work” my son.”

It’s unusual that I disagree with my friend Tim, but this is one of the few times. Aaron, I believe that you have already identified a serious issue: you don’t know too much about print and web development and therefore would possibly be putting yourself under too much pressure and therefore likely would hate it.

I also have doubts that the macro view that jobs are [Tim Wilson] “IMploding now.” What’s happening to large numbers of job seekers and recent graduates may (repeat MAY) have little relevance to Aaron’s situation if he already has a base of clients onto which he can build.

Which brings up one of the most critical issues to consider, how solid is that base? Should one or two current projects head south, will your business be able to survive? What are your reserves? Got enough to keep paying the rent/mortgage should things slow down? Are there any large capital outlays required to go fully freelance?

BTW- While none of us know any more about this situation than what’s posted here, I really like the idea of pitching for the video work alone, even if it’s on a long-term, discounted basis. The key of course being long-term and that they’re not just using you to teach the print/web guy how to add video to his skill set so they can replace you.

These are my opinions. Not to be taken as too much more than adding a few more ideas to the conversation.

[Nick Griffin]

Maybe I’m being overly simplistic here, and maybe it’s too late to go down this road, but…

Dylan, why not simply pitch the charity on giving you the job instead of the other production company? Can we assume that the other company isn’t working pro bono, and therefore there is some money to be made? Approaching the problem this way would allow you to be polite, frame your argument of ownership in a business-like manner and throw the decision of what to do back into the laps of the people running the charity. It’s up to them to choose you and get to use the footage or choose the other company and have to pay a lot for the footage or not have it at all.

Oh, and Todd is right about if there’s a long term relationship involved. They’re worth more than just about any single project.

[Nick Griffin]

I agree with Richard and especially with Steve. You and your production really need to protect yourself from having this person deemed an employee. That will end up being a much bigger financial hit than the cost of some plug-ins.

If he’s off-site and providing work on his own schedule, even if it’s to a set deadline, than you should be able to argue that he’s a legitimate freelancer. If he’s using your tools probably less so. If you’re telling him that he needs to work on your project Monday to Friday and turn in his work product every Friday afternoon, you have an employee — along with all the withholding, Social Security, etc. payments that go along with that.

And let me add… in addition to not being a lawyer, I’m also not an accountant. (But I’ll bet that the majority of them would agree with the above.)

[Nick Griffin]

Obviously the Flash part does not with iDevices. But virtually all clients at desktops have no problems with the Flash files. They can still see the QT ones however.

[Nick Griffin]

I certainly wouldn’t claim any expertise in this area and have done no exhaustive research. But it’s mostly because we’ve been so happy for the past couple of years with Marco Solorio’s MediaBatch. No, it’s not quite as simple as the drag and drop approach John wants but there are any number of things it does quite well.

When videos are converted to Flash the player enables you — or your client — to set markers at various points, attach lengthy notes to the markers and even draw on screen with a rudimentary set of drawing tools. It’s an extremely convenient way of communicating. It’s also possible to upload other formats of video and audio, but I don’t believe they offer the draw-on feature.

There’s also a separate notes area for each video and a “pass” button which brings up a “Pending / Approved / Needs Revision / Declined” window also with a spot for notes.

MediaBatch enables you as Administrator to allow or disallow viewing, saving and client uploading with a single click for each. Also quite cool (and quite useful for checking up on clients) is the ability to allow users to see or NOT see a hits counter. We routinely leave it’s visibility off so only we know when a client has actually looked at something or not, or has had a few dozen people look at at.

If something better comes along, I might consider it. But for now I’m happy enough with MediaBatch that I’m not looking.

[Nick Griffin]

[Steve Martin] “I like the flat bid idea and have been using it here more and more often.”

Yea, we have too, but usually for the projects we really want, knowing that when we go over the amount of estimated time (especially for editing and all the little touches at the end) we’ll end up eating some, if not most, of the overage. How strict we are on changes and overages is in direct inverse proportion to how interesting or important the job is.

We’re also going to cut more slack for people who are easy to work with and just the opposite for those who aren’t.

About a year ago we had a referral who started showing all the danger signs from the start. He was an hour late for the start, didn’t want to pay any attention during the shoot — constantly leaving the area to make cell calls, to then complaining when showed some rough dailies that we didn’t exactly get the angles that he (and his absent partner) had in mind. He paid full boat and the final check had to be FedEx’d before anything was released.

On the smaller, and therefore more straightforward jobs, it’s much easier to say 1 day shoot is X and 4 hours of editing is Y, so the price with expenses will be Z.

[Nick Griffin]

At the risk of quoting myself, here’s part of an intro to a COW article I wrote last year directed at people who seldom upgrade their software and suffer the consequences.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Let me throw a little perspective into the subject for anyone under 35. When non linear editing systems first came on the scene in the early nineties they were replacing three conventional ways of working: on-line/ broadcast quality editing (done in rooms using hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear), off-line editing (usually done as a less expensive way to work out in advance what you would be doing in an on-line session, but many times used for a non-broadcast products like industrials), and third of course was traditional flatbed editing which involved splicing together lengths of film. All three were expensive and the latter two were, out of necessity, almost always cuts only.

Early non linear systems we’re in the low to mid tens of thousands of dollars. Media 100 was one of the first capable of working at high enough quality that for most things there was no need to take an edit decision list (EDL) from it over to an on-line system for “finishing.” The picture I’m painting for you is a world in which several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of decks, controllers, switchers, audio consoles, DVE and other specialty boxes, etc. — along with the people needed to run them — were replaced by off the shelf computers housing a few specialized cards, some big and fast (for the time) hard drive arrays, a single record/playback deck and a monitor all brought together for as little as $20,000 or so. What a revolution! Real work for a fraction of what it used to cost.

Jump ahead to today and we’ve almost taken another decimal point off the cost. In fact with many flavors of DV and with file-based rather than tape-based cameras, functional NLE systems can be assembled in the low thousands of dollars. To simplify, in twenty years the cost of being in the video editing business has gone from $400,000 to $20,000 to $2,000, or one half of one percent of what it used to cost. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the fact that 1990’s $400,000 facility was SD and 2010’s NLE, with the right storage, is likely capable of glorious high definition.

What’s my point and why have I offered a three paragraph history lesson? Because it makes me nuts that some people and some businesses are frozen in time, not updating their software for years and years when it is so unbelievably inexpensive to do so. Different production facilities have different cost structures and therefore different abilities to absorb operating expenses. I get it. But at my company the cost of a version upgrade or even a one year service agreement routinely gets earned in part of an afternoon. So why would we, or anyone else for that matter NOT want the multiple advances and improvements that come with successive upgrades? Read on to learn more about what they are.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Anyway, that’s what I had to say on the subject in 2010.

[Nick Griffin]

Here’s some basics which you may already know and can learn about from many places.

Telephoto / longer lenses flatten the subject. Think of a very long shot of a city skyline – the buildings may appear to almost be on the same plane even though some are closer and others further away. A mild telephoto, say a 80 to 100mm on a 35mm imaging area, is considered best for portraiture because it will mildly flatten facial features.

Wide angle lenses do the opposite in that they make things that are near appear much larger than things which are far away. In this sense they stretch space. As an example if you are shooting an interior it’s very easy to unintentionally make it look like the carpet or flooring is your subject because the closer to the camera, the more of the frame it takes up. Going back to the portraiture example, wide angle lenses are best used for a comic or surreal effect. Put one close to someone’s face and it will appear that their nose is huge.

The “point of view” of human vision is best simulated with a wide angle of approximately 90 degrees field of view. Again using 35mm as the reference that would be a 28mm or slightly wider lens. I personally love shooting wide in industrial subjects because getting close and/or having the object move by has a very three dimensional feel to it.

Longer lenses (and longer zoom settings) tend to have a more shallow depth of field while wider lenses tend to have a very deep depth of field. Of course the F stop used has a great deal of influence on this also.

Speaking of F stops, the “faster” lower number F stop on the lens, the larger the glass, hence the higher the cost.

The long and short of it is buy the best lens(es) you can afford.

[Nick Griffin]

Wow! I hope I can shoot something in Winnipeg. I could make a lot on the mark-up without having to pick up a camera. But seriously, market size and skill level make this a VERY wide price range.

Here in the Washington/Baltimore market on the East Coast of the US the day rate for a good shooter could be anywhere from $1,200 to $3,500 (or more) for a day. The high end of this would generally be someone able to shoot film or one of the very high end digital formats.

The better people won’t take half days because when there’s enough work there is no such thing as two half days in the same day.

Camera operators (NOT Directors of Photography) on features of course get much less. But then they usually have 20-40-60 days of continuous employment.