Philip Howells
Forum Replies Created
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Having been in the same position myself many years ago I can only recommend what we did; complete this job at the agreed rate but in a meeting post the job a) accept responsibility for not making sure the contract was fully understood – as we/you had with the original client – and b) show them what the job should have cost and why.
You may lose the second client who sounds as if they either have no idea how to budget for the work they want or are going to try and screw every supplier in turn, but at least you’ll keep the original one.
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I don’t wish to add undue levity to a serious subject but am I the only one here who finds it paradoxical that an historical documentary producer who thinks WW2 started in 1941 should be arguing whether he needs insurance against errors of fact in his work?
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Can’t disagree with much of the advice you’ve been given. However, if your career does hang on this event I think you have bitten off a major task to start it. Tremendous good luck to you. If I may add a few thoughts, in order of priority,
1 get the images of the CEO right, if he doesn’t look good, the rest of the shoot can go hang.
2 then get the sound as clean as you can.
3 everything else could be done in post assuming you have access to the slides. If you’ve only only one camera use the slides to break up the monotony.
4 finally, plan the edit in your mind as you shoot. Make changes to your framing of the CEO quick and clean and plan to hide them behind a slide. A clean change (hidden) is better than a slow zoom interrupted by an unexpected slide change. Be conservative, play safe. Better a good clean programme that’s right rather than an attempt at sophistication that goes wrong. Our reputations rest on our recordings, not people’s memory of us.
Good luck
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We encounter this quite frequently and this is our solution – as with much in video, it’s merely our solution and it works for us but there will be other ways.
Happily most bands are amplified so we use a Zoom H4, one leg taking the mix from the bands PA the other taking a feed from a Large condenser mic placed near the drums (which generally aren’t miced up. We have a background in music recording hence the large condenser mic but any decent mic will do. Get the levels set before the event starts. Use the video soundtrack to sync and bingo you can have audience FX as well.
Good luck
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For the past 30 years until 9/11 we’ve made many programmes overseas and always took our own gear (with backups if the locality was remote)under carnet – much money and palaver in preparation but worth it.
However, since 9/11 the airlines are so picky we rent equipment from reputable people wherever we’re going.
If I was offered a programme in a “difficult” location now frankly it would have to have a budget big enough to make it worth doing. I know that’s easy for a 65 year old to say but honestly some programmes just aren’t worth it and you should always know when to say no thanks politely.
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I think this is an interesting question – especially considering the way that website designers (in the UK at least) do their pitches.
The number of companies who’ll get people to pitch and then produce in house is few – and they soon get known around the business.
I was never a good enough artist to do storyboards so I relied on what I can do, write, and gave the clients a well crafted, and detailed description of what the programme was going to look like, what it would say and how it would meet their brief.
I find it amazing that web designers seem to get away with the approach of “give us $3000 – $5000 and we’ll make you a great website!” None seem to be interested in presenting ideas, roughs etc, just what they’ve done before. I tell them that in the real world that’s like a big company going to an advertising agency and saying “here’s $2m make me a TV and print campaign for my product”. It hust doesn’t happen.
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Terrible name but it does the job ie conveys what we do.
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For a series of on location taling head and interview programmes we made a 15ft set backdrop with a 35degree angle in it that packs down into the trunk of a MPV along with the rest of the gear.
It consists of five 1m lengths of 1×4 inch hollow aluminium sections with wood fitted in tight and drilled through for 5 inch bolts and wing nuts. The angle joint cost $100 to be made specially.
We mount this on three lighting stands and suspend a 3m drop of cyclorama cloth which is rolled on a core for travelling. An industrial steam wrinkle remover is all that’s needed on site to smooth and being a cyc we can shine lights on to it and through it.
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I spent a lifetime in corporate and agree that it’s been a good life. I started making multimedia AVs in house 35 years ago, then took early retirement, started my own company aged 35 and moved into video.
Budgets have fallen over the years as the cost of equipment has fallen. Digital image quality and the HDV mean that there’s no no reason why a corporate programme shouldn’t look as good as a broadcast TV programme.
NLE has also changed the whole cost of corporates- we used to pay (£1000) $2000 an hour for online editing!
In my opinion the constant problem area is still the script. Too many corporate producers don’t pay enough attention or money to getting a good script and there are far too many programmes packed with purple prose – either because the producer knows no better or the client demanded it and the producer hadn’t the bottle or experience to tell him it was wrong.
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Although this sounds like a favour I guess if you’re prepared to hire in gear it must be a big, paying favour. So my comments reflect the way we’ve shot concerts in the past. However, it depends on what sort of concerts – if they’re rock or pop you’ll need maybe 10 cameras and cobra to make yours look like a pro.
On the other hand we’ve done concerts of a four piece folk group with five cameras. I think Todd’s four camera layout should be the minimum, left, right, and two co-located centre of house, one wide (big shots and security) and one with a very long say 20x or 24x lens for tight close-ups.
I’d also agree with the reply that recommended you shoot the dress rehearsal on stage, handheld and ideally with a few rows of audience. Those shots are excellent at adding mood and detail and if the group’s any good they’ll hold sync so you can use up to 30 sec shots.
We do the main edit in Liquid and sync up to 16 cameras in Multicam which a) gives you the speed of editing only a live mix can give plus b) the ability to change your mind!
Dont forget to get some audience shots as well.
The first reply mentioned the option of doing a live mix (just like the old days!). The only merit would be speed of production. Cost-wise the rental of a scanner van would rule it out I would have thought – plus you lose all the benefits of making things look better in post.
Finally the soundtrack MUST be recorded for the video. The best way is to split the feeds from the PA or stage mics and feed them to a separate recording/mixer for the video. This mixer must also have a feed from mics set up on any instruments that are not already mic’d up for the PA.
Hope this helps