[Nick Griffin]

Jim –

Interesting idea. However we’ve been going in the other direction, hiring web developers for projects we sell and produce.

[Nick Griffin]

Micah McDowell: “Honestly, your audience almost certainly won’t notice a difference regardless.”

How true. (Heavy sigh.)

It never ceases to amaze me what some people simply don’t notice. The two biggest things that make me slap my forehead and shout “Doh!” are, in 2nd place, not being bothered by or even noticing how crummy the home-brew PAL to NTSC conversion motion artifacts are and… coming in first place… wanting to set their 16×9 monitor to stretch out older 4×3 material “because we want to use the WHOLE screen.”

[Nick Griffin]

It should be pointed out that because most of us work in video, we are typically buying/renting images MUCH smaller than those used in the print world. The pricing on many of these newer “royalty free” sites is based on size so the same image which would be 1/4 page in a magazine fills an HD frame with image to spare. That is unless you plan to do large moves, ie.- an After Effects zoom in.

[Nick Griffin]

Grinner and Walter are correct. Before iStock came along there were a few sources of buy-out stock (mostly on families of CDs) but the majority of the business was large stock houses offering “rights managed” images for bucks deluxe. Many of them have long ago merged into (been bought by) Getty, but some may still be around.

The long and the short of it is the REALLY great, rights managed shots can cost a LOT of money and are only bought by national advertisers / magazines who can afford them and demand their quality of imagery. In print advertising a typical rights managed deal would be something like “Image of 1/2 page or larger, use in 3 national magazines with total circulations not to exceed 2,000,000, 4 insertions (ads) in total, $8,000, renewal for additional use required and to be negotiated.”

Rights managed can also grant exclusivity within certain industries or in general and you REALLY pay for that.

Now with the internet anything is possible. Some stock sellers take the attitude that on the internet it’s conceivable for a billion people to see their image so they want an even higher set of fees. The opposite end of the spectrum is also true: dirt cheap images, some of which are decent, but none of which are usually what you’d call “great.”

While I believe iStock was one of the first on-line sellers — and was MUCH cheaper before they were bought a few years ago (by Getty, I believe – no irony there) — these days there are a few “subscription” sellers of stock images where you sign up for as many of their images as you can use in a period of time, say a year, for a few hundred dollars. Some will also sell you “credits” so you can buy fewer images but for more money each.

Check out: shutterstock.com, bigstock.com, dreamstime.com as a start.

Back in the rights managed world, I can recommend from experience the folks in the archives at National Geographic. Hardly inexpensive but the shots are National Geographic awesome.

[Nick Griffin]

Just bought one. Line at the Apple Store but Best Buy had 3 left. If Elon can forgive Tiger will my wife Deborah forgive me?

[Nick Griffin]

Andrei-Cristian –

While I agree fully with Craig’s suggestions, let me add a few thoughts.

Rather than simply refuse to go any further you need to go to your primary contact and build sympathy and solicit active support. For starters, try blaming your paranoia on a past bad experience. Cite how once before you let something get out of hand with the result being that you didn’t get paid and that you simply can’t afford to let something like this develop again. Stress how honored you are to be on this project, but, like anybody else, you simply need to be paid. Explain that you will soon need to move on to other jobs because you can’t pay your bills without the expected cash flow.

Then here’s the key part of handling this situation: make it your contact’s problem. Having stated that you simply can’t continue without money say something along the lines of “What should we do now?” or “How can you help me solve this problem?” If your primary contact needs the work, and sees not having it as delaying the whole project, he or she should make it their business to get this resolved quickly.

I’m sad to say that far too many big businesses and especially certain big ad agencies have developed the philosophy that delaying payment to vendors is an easy source of cash “float.” But that said, they can almost always find ways to get select people paid in a timely manner. Usually. Sometimes.

[Nick Griffin]

[Ned Miller] “Every house now has a piano and unfortunately they are happy to hear the kids playing “chopsticks”.”

Yea, and the sad fact is they’re happy because they are THEIR kids. God forbid any of you have a marketing or project manager get their hands on any kind of editing system… even iMovie. Suddenly they fall in love with their own work, even when it’s pure crap. It’s THEIR kids and they’re blind, deaf & dumb to any faults. When “good enough” gets mixed up with “saving money by staying in house” with “proud we did it ourselves” it’s easy to be hosed.

Solid sales techniques and deep relationships are the only way to combat this, and sometimes even that doesn’t help.

[Nick Griffin]

I’m with Michael on this in that unlike some other companies, Media 100 and now Boris doesn’t move a lot of functions around between versions to different menus and locations simply for the sake of a claimed improvement. If you had still been using an earlier version and switched to Suite 1.5 you would be up and productive in minutes, while still delighted by the additions and improvements.

As I wrote about in an article here on the COW, the transition to HD was so seamless and simple that it left me wondering why I hadn’t done it months, if not years earlier.

The new “Collect Files,” “Export Presets” and “Batch Output” functions clearly show that Media 100 GETS that its used by video professionals. Each of these, as well as many other M100 features, are added to make our work easier and quicker.

[Nick Griffin]

I agree with Mick. This is sooo bad it has to be a joke.

[Nick Griffin]

I have worked with and been quite pleased with Matt’s duplication services. His company also offers a fairly inexpensive form of copy protection which, depending on the nature of your show, may be a very good thing to have.