[Nick Griffin]

I’ve just started looking into P2, so excuse my complete ignorance.

Does P2 create files based on individual takes or one big file that can’t be broken into smaller parts? I assume the previous but fear the later.

Also, at full HD on a 2000, what’s the shoot time per 32Gig card?

(Yea,I know I could easily find this stuff out with minimal research, but I’m overworked these days and the COW is sooo easy.)

[Nick Griffin]

[Ron Lindeboom] “So what we do is we ask to speak with one of the teachers that we have worked with and we ask them: “Which student needs and deserves a computer that doesn’t have one — either because the parents are too poor or their parents don’t have the vision to understand just how important it is to know computers”

And THAT boys and girls is why Ron is one of the smartest people any of us know. Brilliant, Ron. And I say this as someone who attempted to donate gear and software to our local school system. A few years back I won a raffle at a computer conference and had just under $20k of stuff that was either redundant to what I had or stuff I would never use. The head of IT for the county’s schools looked at me like I had three heads. This, of course after asking me what I was trying to sell him using this ploy. Finally I found a special needs school in an adjoining county that was only to happy to accept the donation.

One thing that we just went through was getting the call from our accountants last month asking if we REALLY wanted to keep so much old equipment on the books, incurring a hefty personal property tax each year. It didn’t take too long to see that we were still writing off — and PAYING TAXES on — RAIDS, monitors and computers that I’d been letting sit in storage. “Aw jeez… do I really want to just throw away a SCSI RAID I paid $5,000 for?” Uh, duh. At 18 gig it’s hazardous landfill material. And that weekend it along with many of its compatriots were.

[Mike Cohen]“We keep our 1″ machine out because it looks cool, like an old tv.”

You mean I’m not the only one?? A friend of mine who owns a post house offered me an old Sony BVH-2500, the single frame animation powerhouse of the mid-eighties, the one that in those days was probably $75 or $80,000. Okay his exact words were, “If you want it come get it this week, otherwise it’s going in the dumpster.” Today it helps decorate our office along with 1930’s radio cabinets and an RCA 44BX microphone which probably is worth real money, but who could part with such a marvelous prop?

Back to the 1″ — some of our clients see it towering in the corner and think, “Wow, this must be a real video facility if they have something like this.” I’d power it up, but the fans make too damn much noise.

[Nick Griffin]

Flagler’s critical need for good legal counsel was noted earlier. My bet is they are completely lacking this important element of a viable business and that they are going to lose this battle — big time. Once WalMart’s atty’s start showering Flagler with motions, restraining orders and such like they’ll be gone in a matter of weeks. And deservedly so. What a bone-headed move against one of the world’s largest corporations. Let’s just hope that someday we can read exactly what WalMart did to make Flagler feel so aggrieved.

[Nick Griffin]

Oh, great. Thanks Steve for ruining the scams by telling everybody else about them. 🙂

Fake credentials these days probably is a bad idea, but back in the day adding a nice thick laminate with a neck lanyard to the “pass” made it all the more real. Not that I ever did that.

[Nick Griffin]

Better late to this party than not making it at all?

I’m not a psychologist (and I don’t play one on TV), but having myself fallen into similar traps in the past, I’d like to add a thought to the discussion.

Oftentimes when we get frustrated and push back against clients in inappropriate ways, it’s because we have allowed a situation to spin out of control. We’re mad at the client and allow it to show on topics other than what has us mad in the first place. I believe the proper term is transference. In your mind you can be mad about how you under-priced the job in the beginning and let others excerpt control even though they’re clueless yet your getting huffy and putting on auteur airs over what color the logo should be. It’s being dishonest to yourself and can cloud your vision in dealing with real issues.

There’s seldom a good reason to be a jerk with clients. Clearly keep in the forefront of your thinking the fact that you are in business. Get the job done in a professional manner as efficiently as possible and move on. For most of us there are many, many more clients out there so extract yourself from the bad ones and get on with it. If you are going to have a disagreement do so based on the actual issues and don’t get all “whiney hiney” (sorry, Mark) because it just reflects poorly on you as a professional. It’s never a good thing to be described as “difficult to work with” even by a grinder.

And finally, thanks Lisa. Thanks for starting a thread with yet another of the issues so many of us face. The Biz COW is a remarkable water cooler for our extended workplace.

[Nick Griffin]

[Zane Barker] “You get real life work experience in your chosen field.”

I have just a small contribution to this thread, and in particular, Zane’s thought above. The greatest benefit one receives from “real world experience” is learning from others instead of having to re-invent the wheel on each and every aspect of the technology, the techniques and the business.

For example, you can spend hours, days, weeks, etc. attempting to re-create a certain type of lighting effect. Or you can be a still photo assistant or a film video PA or grip and viola… much is revealed to you if you’re simply paying attention.

[Nick Griffin]

That’s it. I give up. No reason to stay in the business when this is the competition. The timing, the animation, the green screen and the acting — especially the acting. These guys truly do establish a new “state-of-the-art.” Might as well give up now.

(And no, I’m not going to pay $1 to see anymore than the YouTube freebie.)

[Nick Griffin]

Mike –

Their usual response is:

“And your point is?”

Been there, done that, got the T shirt too many times. The lesson learned is clients will be as dumb as you’ll let them be. Their focus is always going to be on themselves and their needs. I’ve found that the best way to handle this is to always throw it back to them to come up with a solution.

“Gee, the project that you told me you can’t pay for, but that you need now so I can get paid later is critical. How do YOU, Mr. client, think we should handle this?

At the very least get the agreed payment schedule IN WRITING. A small deferred payment charge would be nice, too.

[Nick Griffin]

A pro shooter, one who would bring with him or her a professional camera, tripod, basic lighting kit (at the least enough to do decent 3-4 point lighting), bounce card, maybe a backdrop and enough grip equipment to make it all work would, in a major market, charge $1,500 to $2,000 /day. This may or may not include a sound guy, or the shooter may opt to do simple sound (ie.- lav mic for talking head) him/herself. Depending on skill and experience this could easily go up.

Those of us who do accept half days charge accordingly 70 – 80% of a day rate just because there really is no such thing as two half days.

A pro editor using something along the lines of a low-end Avid, FCP, Media 100, Premiere Pro and so on with a playback deck and a REAL monitor (not just a window on a computer monitor) will charge $75 to $200 hr. or more. Again, this depends on skill and experience.

All of the above presumes Standard Definition but, from what I’m seeing, upgrading to HD doesn’t have too much of an effect on what you can charge. For video destined for the web there is virtually no reason to bother with HD. (This year. In 2010 that may have completely changed.)

Other tips for someone just starting out:

-PRACTICE and EXPERIMENT getting good 3 point lighting and practice getting attractive shots. Being very wide and very close is generally only useful if you’re trying for a documentary look or wanting to make your subjects look bad. (More on this below.)

-PRACTICE proper mic placement and setting and managing levels.

-SCOUT where you’ll be working for backgrounds you can use and ESPECIALLY for audio ambience. Make your client aware that you need silence and that they can’t have someone hammering in the next room or mowing the lawn right outside the window. (Trust me, this sort of thing happens all the time.)

-I almost always ask for a conference room as far away from other activity as possible. A conference room versus a normal office also allows for enough distance to keep the subject 6 or more feet from the background AND the camera 10 or more feet in front of the subject. This allows you to zoom in enough that the subject’s features are flattened by the telephoto effect and the background can go soft. Kind of the opposite of the wide and close set-up discussed above.

And one last piece of advice. If you’re just starting out don’t over-promise, keep your charges reasonable, and be prepared to eat additional edit time to get the best product possible, Oh… and did I mention to PRACTICE before you show up on a paying job.

[Nick Griffin]

I believe that I’ve read most of these posts about the value of NAB and trade shows in general and perhaps I’ve missed it, but the ONE thing that hasn’t been said should be.

Sure there are things that we go to trade shows with the intention of seeing, touching, learning about, etc. But one of the major benefits of shows, be it NAB or MacWorld or AES is the stuff that we DIDN’T know about or expect. Have you ever been to a trade show where you DIDN’T learn something you hadn’t known before? How about the magic of smaller products and smaller companies? Yes you can find things on the web, but usually you have to be looking for them. At a show you can discover new things around almost every corner, stuff that you otherwise might not even know existed.

Apple and FCP may not need NAB now, but they certainly benefited from the visibility and credibility of the show when just starting out.