[Nick Griffin]

Sorry I’m late to this thread, but been out of town working.

We recently bought a Losmandy Spider Dolly and love it. Doing a 180 (or more) around a product (or person) is a really cool look.

First, it’s track is a 40 foot long 2.5″ thick piece of solid rubber. When configured as a “U” it gives roughly a 17+ ft run. And because it’s rubber it can easily be shaped into a curve instead of a straight run. If a longer, say 40 ft run was needed, just buy a second rubber track. Your regular tripod sits on top of the “Spider” and is secured to it with tie downs. The front two wheel assemblies roll along the track and the back wheel assembly floats on its own pivot so setting the track distance doesn’t need to be that exact — a huge timesaver.

I really like the fact that curves can be configured on location and we’re not carrying around a variety of tracks in order to have that option. The Spider dolly easily fits in a car along with other gear and can be carried and set up by one person. That’s oh so much easier than renting a conventional dolly like a Fisher with its accompanying lift-gate truck full of tracks and leveling shims. (A Fisher booms using compressed air and the Spider Dolly, by itself, doesn’t so that is one compromise.)

Initially I thought I would want to sand bag the tripod to make the shots more stable. Oddly enough, the Spider dolly seems smoother WITHOUT the sand bags.

And, saving the best for last, while I bought ours on eBay, brand new from the manufacturer the Losmandy Spider dolly is something like $1,200 — this low cost of entry made it almost a no-brainer.

I’m a fan and shots that move greatly increase production value.

[Nick Griffin]

[Ron Lindeboom] “on my own projects, I throw the clock out the window”

And I think that can also describe select projects throughout the year, even when they are paying jobs. I try to pick the ones that matter, that will have the most visibility, the ones for the reel and make them “personal” projects. These can be the ones where the clock isn’t always running and the timesheet not always filled in.

That said, it’s important to maintain a certain level of professionalism on everything and strive to make the everyday stuff a little better without pouring too many extra, unpaid hours into it.

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] “”Great art projects are never really finished; just abandoned at some point”.”

Or as one of my old partners used to say in disgust over the way our CD at the time would take every single project to the brink of deadline disaster, “We never really finish anything, we just run out of time.”

I fully agree with Mark in that I can’t find a single project that there isn’t some way I would like to make it better. And whenever I’m asked what I think is my best work it’s always “the next one.” Frankly I think that’s the only way to be in this or most other businesses. Those just churning out the same thing day after day must have the most boring, mundane, mind-numbing of jobs. In contrast those of us, like Richard, asking how we can make it better, how we can go to the next level, have a real motivation for getting up and going to work every day.

[Nick Griffin]

Mike-

If you’re up for a little wine with dinner:
Bin 36, 339 N Dearborn — a Nick pick for 4 star food and 5 star wines at 3 star prices. Try a “flight”: four half glasses of wines from particular categories, ie. – four different Pinot Noirs, four different South American selections, four different Cabs, etc. The flights are accompanied by their tasting notes and room to add your own. One of their more amusing recent descriptions of a huge red was “This is the taste of purple.”

I’m there at least once on every trip to Chicago. Diet and live well at home. Enjoy Chicago.

Bin 36 is second only to dinner in Paso Robles, CA with Ron & Kathlyn.

[Nick Griffin]

It would be even funnier if I hadn’t heard these EXACT SAME WORDS so many times.

“What did you do this in? Can you do it in Word next time so we can edit it?”

“Let me take it home and show it to my wife, she used to be a secretary in an ad agency so she understands these things.”

We even have one of our clients who attempts to show us what he wants in print layouts by “roughing them up” in Excel! Who knew that you could paste images into cells in Excel?

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] “Really, what you’re doing in this case is subcontracting the bulk of the project to this shooter/editor”

Mark- I didn’t get that impression from the original post. I read that he was just hiring a shooter this time around. As we all know, these days the cost of entry into an editing system is stupefyingly inexpensive. And even if they are using the shooter for the editing also, Jim and his group may add value by functioning at the high end as producers and/or at the low end as location scouts. And of course the real value comes from being the one who has the ear and attention of the customer.

I agree that not knowing anything about the final production and the expectations placed on it by the end-user client, it’s impossible to know how many days the shooting and editing should take.

[Nick Griffin]

Jim-
Your initial post concerns me, so forgive me if I’m overly blunt, overly obvious or both. Like you we do both still work in studio and on location and, for the past 15 years, video in house instead of at rented facilities.

[Jim Winn] “Our company’s background is commercial still photography, and has begun to expand to accommodate the video needs of some of our clients. We’ve had someone advising us on a couple smaller video projects in the past, but he is unavailable in this situation.”

OK, so this will be your first project essentially on your own? This is far better than if you had done no video work before, but nevertheless potentially problematic. I’ve seen this in many other businesses where ‘the grass is always greener’ in a parallel business and a ‘how hard can it be’ mentality is easily adopted. The problems almost always are ones of not knowing what you you don’t know. This means that you are still very much on the learning curve part of the business.

If you’re on the learning curve can you realistically (as well as ethically) charge your client as if you were seasoned pros in this aspect of the business? That’s up to you to decide. However my advice is to be conservative in your estimates but somewhat liberal in not charging for overages like re-takes and re-re-edits.

One tip that’s fairly obvious, but probably should be stated, use your strengths. Often times when we have a static subject (and I assume many aspects of real estate can be very static) shoot stills and animate them in After Effects. Say you want a 40 to 1 zoom into the doorway of a building, starting with a wide shot of a group of buildings. Well a 40 to 1 zoom for a video camera is a BIG deal and costly to rent. If you have After Effects or another motion application, it’s almost free.

Video is an entirely different mentality than still photography, and it’s not just the type of lights. In video interest is created by movement of subject, camera movement and any number of other temporal things to which still photographers have trouble relating. For example, a person crossing into the frame to go out the other side or behind an object gives great dimensionality and a feeling of space and time. In still photography there are only a handful of positions where the person will make a decent shot and a few thousand places where they will only ruin the shot. (Perhaps a simplistic example, but it’s early in the morning here.)

Video also requires a near constant understanding of context. How did we get here and where are we visually going. It’s good that you’re working with an experienced cameraman because he (or she) should know enough to give you good ‘coverage,’ enough alternates, reverses, close-ups, etc. so that you can put together a story, not simply a collection of shots.

[Jim Winn] “They will be taking two other quotes from some unknown competitors, but have said that they really like and prefer our work.”

Let’s hope that they are telling you the truth on this one and not stringing you along while they accumulate alternative vendors. Your best protection on this is to come at them with ideas and approaches to their specific project. This is also your best defense against a competitor with a healthy reel. Your biggest obstacle will be a competitor’s reel which has something in which your client can see their own idea of what they want. In the client’s mind it goes something like, “That! I want that, just with my product and my name instead of what’s there.”

Good luck on this Jim. Diversification is one of the many paths to success many of us must follow these days.

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “I’ve never had a package lost or delayed with FedEx, except once during a particularly brutal winter”

Todd, my friend, you are fortunate. We use FedEx almost exclusively for a number of reasons, but have over the years experienced a few losses. Especially on International. Last year a shipment of materials for a trade show in Argentina D R O P P E D O F F T H E F A C E O F T H E E A R T H. FedEx has no record of the package even existing after it arrived in Memphis. Nothing. Nadda. Client didn’t have his stuff and fortunately for us accepted that FedEx, not us, had dropped the ball. I’m thinking our package is on some dessert island with Tom Hanks.

Like you I routinely ship gear for shoots ahead with FedEx, but no longer trust them with cameras and hand carry that with the attention you give your primes. A few years back I shipped what, at the time, had been our primary camera — a Beta Camcorder inside the giant coffin-sized Sony shipping case — and it arrived having been dropped so hard that there was $900 of damage to the deck mechanism. FedEx fought the claim but eventually gave in to my argument of “Well if the insurance that I paid for with you when I shipped this doesn’t cover this kind of damage then WHAT THE HELL AM I PAYING FOR???”

Speaking of which I recently upped and changed our umbrella policy so that it covers “items in transit” and we no longer have to buy FedEx’s coverage. I believe that change for a year was a little under $200 so it’s MUCH cheaper than the insurance sold by the carrier.

One thing I will say in FedEx favor over UPS is that, at least in MY part of the world, the drivers of FedEx are MUCH more friendly, considerate and professional. UPS around here seems happy to almost throw packages off the truck as they drive by. (But that’s just my opinion, your mileage may vary.)

[Nick Griffin]

Interesting thread and several good points. Especially the re-purposing ideas, smart as usual, Mark.

What comes to mind for me from the original post is that the basis of good spots is the IDEA. That’s where your real competitive edge is against the $200 station-produced spots, Jeff. They are never going to spend more than a minute on their concept which is why their stuff all so often involves the advertiser’s staff waving at the camera. They are never going to adopt a “competitive positioning” message or a “unique selling proposition.” You can and should. Search out and read up on advertising strategies and tactics. Get ahold of case studies which detail how the initial creative brief sets a number of criteria and how the execution worked to fulfill these. How many hours you’ve spent learning your editing software? Now put that kind of time into understanding the concept part of the business.

Jeff also seems to have become an agency by accident. That’s more or less how I got started so let me give some advice in that area. If you’re going to be buying airtime in any market big enough to be covered by a ratings service it’s your job to learn how to read and fully comprehend ratings. It’s also your job to learn how to calculate “reach and frequency” so you can demonstrate to the people you are buying the time for that you truly add value to the process, not just skim 15% off the top. This also puts you in a position to make the stations compete on the basis of “grips” (Gross Rating Points) and not just who buys the best lunch. Advertising is a business and, as such, it deserves your attention.

Now the downside to being an agency. Are the media outlets billing the clients directly and then paying your 15% after the fact? If so you are much safer than the traditional approach of the station billing the agency and the agency billing the client. In this second scenario YOU are on the hook even if the client goes bad and stiffs you. This is a bad place to be and over the years I’ve been there more than a few times. It’s why you have to be especially careful of who you’re doing business with and watch your receivables like a hawk.

Best of luck and remember to never stop learning.

“Some people say that I’m superficial. But that’s just on the surface.”

[Nick Griffin]

[Ron Lindeboom] “Oh, and its slow-motion is STILL the very best that I have ever seen on any desktop system, nothing else over the years has even come close.”

I find it sad that Media 100 even knows that their motion function has been broken for a number of years but getting it back to where it once was has not been one of their priorities. I LOVED their old motion control and would really like to see it re-engineered to work with the current hardware. On this one “good enough” is a poor substitute for a feature that was once “great enough.”