[Nick Griffin]

Jim-

First of all, no cutaways for “six 1.5 hour shows“??? Has this concept been drawn up by a client with no TV or video experience whatsoever or someone who’s ego is so large that they assume just looking at them for NINE HOURS would be tolerable for any audience not already secured by handcuffs and leg-irons? I’ve been approached before on something like this and it was by an “educator” who quickly lost interest when an actual price was attached to carrying out his idea. Perhaps this is a similar situation.

Assuming this is a one camera show, you would have to shoot it multiple times from different angles to give you decent edit points. This would also require a fair amount of consistency from take to take to keep from backing you into a corner with several un-makeable edits. Unless you’re working with a real pro, achieving consistency and continuity requires another crew member whose primary job is watching the little details and making sure that the same things are said take to take. Two and a half days may be enough for all of this if you are very lucky and very efficient. But I wouldn’t commit to that schedule until you saw how long the first one or two took.

If you are still editing in Media 100 and were able to use a second camera, the multi-clip functionality could speed things up considerably, but you are likely to still need a few pick-up shots apart from the A & B camera just to make things look decent.

The edit time seems reasonable, again if you are very efficient and if the material is well organized and delivered cleanly. If any of these three are not optimal you’re going to need more edit time.

The DVD authoring seems OK, assuming you’re doing fairly straightforward stuff.

Any way you can play this safe and have your prospective client fund a “pilot” so both of you can get a true feel for what this will look like and how long it will realistically take?

My two cents: if you feel at risk of under-bidding this, don’t. It’s better to not have this job and be available for something with easier/better specs.

[Nick Griffin]

We had a discussion on this here a few years ago and you should go back through the threads and look it up. My personal opinion is that a good accountant doesn’t really need to know much about the production business per se, just the state and Federal tax laws. The government doesn’t view a freelance camera operator any differently than it views a freelance plumber or carpenter. You just need to make sure that your accountant keeps up to date on specific areas of deductability and amortization.

[Nick Griffin]

Ditto on what Mike said, with some extension. I’ve had the experience of being part of the official crew, hired by the show to produce a piece about the show. At a later, un-related show, our camera was there just to shoot in the booth of a single exhibitor. WHAT a difference!

As the official crew we could basically go anywhere, do anything with complete access. When we were part of a single exhibitor’s booth people freaked out anytime the camera pointed anywhere outside the booth. We even had a neighboring booth insist that I hand over or completely erase a tape that he thought showed some of his products. (After much back and forth it was finally agreed that the neighboring booth’s people would scan through my footage on the spot, telling me which scenes I had to erase — turned out to be less than ten seconds of one.)

Getting back to the original topic, I think the best way for both you and the show’s organizers to make money is to promote an on-line program which will (purportedly) reach people who did not attend the expo, showing them via video what they would have seen had they been there. You can sell the exhibitors on the fact that their purchased 60 second segment will allow them to reach a much bigger audience than just the attendees. Might work. Might not.

[Nick Griffin]

Aleksander –

This is a topic that’s discussed here in many posts and a number of articles. So the first piece of advice is to spend a couple of hours delving back into the previous posts for the past several years and look through the articles for still more substance.

The basic principals of getting new clients seem to be fairly consistent across oceans and cultures: the business client invariably comes from the perspective of wanting to know “what’s in it for me?” It’s like asking for a raise as an employee. Telling the boss about your own needs — living expenses, car payments, girlfriend with expensive tastes — doesn’t carry much weight. Instead you need to be offering examples of how the company or the boss in particular benefits from what you are doing for him or her. The benefits that you offer are what matters. And that’s where cultural differences can make a difference in approach.

For example here in the US (and from what I’ve seen also to some extent in Western Europe) prospects respond best to pitches promising new ways of doing things, new styles, new techniques, new approaches to problem solving — all with the implied promise that this will lower costs, or at the very least not cost any more. The idea of a new style can be very appealing to people who value creativity but not be very motivating to financial types who are just looking for ways to save money. That said most people are interested in learning something new and that can be your opening.

In many cultures around the globe price is the only thing which can crack open the door. From there you may have the ability to probe into other needs and interests, thereby gaining the ability to expand what you offer. But if you’re not viewed as a less expensive option that the current provider you’re not likely to get past the first phone call.

Another factor that I’ve seen both here and in Europe is the “good old boy” network. Work is gained only by those who are known and already the friend of someone. Getting to this point is where social networking and attempting to actively use references and referrals is essential. This takes time and cannot be done overnight. Sorry.

The bottom line is most people don’t like to change from their current suppliers. This can be both good and bad. Good if you’re the one already on the inside and therefore somewhat insulated from outside intrusion and bad if you’re the outside intruder who can’t get in. This is only broken down with a great deal of persistence and, frankly, luck. This is where sales becomes a numbers game. If you are actively in contact with 200 prospective clients you may get lucky that one of them just had a bad experience with their current supplier. Keep yourself in front of these 200 prospects month after month and your chances of getting lucky go up. It’s not easy and no where near as much fun as doing the actual work, but essential to building a business.

This is a brief summary of a few key points about getting new clients. There are many other points of view that hopefully this thread will attract.

[Nick Griffin]

James –
Your best advice on this question may come on the “Broadcasting” COW forum. That said, when quality is a concern I’d be cautious of adding anything to an analog chain.

[Nick Griffin]

If it’s a true “loop” it would logically be in color. The question becomes isn’t there some other way, ie.- a second output, so you can send a signal directly to the switcher and not risk adding any extra noise (if analog) or a weakened signal (if digital)?

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “but my partner (who is the bean counter) always looks askance at me when I talk about new toys.”

T2, boy, does THAT sound familiar, only it’s my wife who routinely regards new tools as new toys. I keep trying to explain that if I owned a machine shop and needed a new drill press she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes… but then again, she probably would.

And yes, the bump up to the Intel chip set is in the fine print on the CS-5 upgrade. The manufacturers are only happy when we’re buying new stuff.

[Nick Griffin]

Wanted to pull the trigger for awhile but haven’t yet on a wide angle matte box with follow focus. I just wish I had some assurance that the brand name system around $6k was $3-4k better than the cheaper ones. Time for serious research will probably make the choice easier. Finding the time is probably the primary reason this keeps getting put off.

[Nick Griffin]

[Jonathan Ziegler] “Compete for the big money, NOT the small money.”

All well and good, Jonathan. Problem is that way too many of the people who used to be “big money” are now trying to squeeze pennies and isn’t a video a video? I’m tired of having other people’s prices used to bludgeon me. It seems like in the past year only about 1 in 5 who went the cheap or do it yourself way have come back, realizing the huge difference.

As I said earlier, all of this has been discussed here many times over.

[Nick Griffin]

Scott-
It’s not a matter of insecurity, it’s a case of not wanting to have other people’s pricing used to beat down what I charge. Good clients are at two opposite ends of the spectrum: those who know exactly what they’re getting and what it should cost and those who know very little and trust that we’ll provide a good end product at a fair price. It’s the ones in the middle, with a little bit of knowledge, that are making me crazy.

[Scott Sheriff] “Because someone else comes along that offers better quality for the same money, or same quality for less money? Well, if this happens then you have to examine your prices and services and see why your no longer competitive.”

We’ve had this conversation many, many times here so I guess one more won’t hurt. THERE ARE WAY TO MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE TODAY WHO THINK THAT A KID IN HIS PARENTS’ BASEMENT USING A $1,000 CAMCORDER AND A BOOTLEG COPY OF FCP IS IN THE SAME VIDEO BUSINESS AS THOSE OF US WORKING WITH LONG-TERM PROFESSIONALS, USING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF EQUIPMENT AND BRINGING YEARS OF EXPERIENCE TO EVERY PROJECT. I’m tired of hearing “$5,000 for a short video??? I can get a video for $500.”

A “video” is not the same as a “production shot with video equipment.”

Too many people these days are so blinded by a low price that they simply stop there and never see the difference between apples and oranges. In the industrial field we keep hearing that video is the future… every sales brochure, every magazine article, every everything should have a video link attached to it. And then we see the homemade crap that 95% of the companies are putting out there as their “video.” Makes me want to scream.

Anyway, I’m rambling. It’s probably because my head is still spinning from Mike’s screenplay. When are he a Suszko going to release a book?