[Richard Herd]

[Dustin Wise] “I’m trading a large chunk of gear (mark III, lens, tripod,…. goodies) in exchange for producing an EPK for a singer songwriter (shooting, directing editing). “

I don’t understand. Normally I exchange my gear and time to operate it for money, and that’s what I get in return: money. Sometimes, I exchange my gear and time to operate for food. And that’s what I get: Food.

I make the decision based on the creative merits. I can’t imagine making an EPK for a TOp 40 artists on a trade, but I would (and have) trade for a local person whose music I like, and I would expect food during the shoot, and maybe a free pass to a show, and maybe some beers afterwards. I would hope to leverage all that social capital to find other artists and creative people to help me when I want to produce a vanity project, like a short film, or read a script.

Or are you talking about a deferred compensation scenario, where Dustin exchanges gear and time to operate for some future payment “once the musician gets money to pay you.” This particular arrangement would need a bona fide legal contract by real lawyer, in the event the musician gets a picked-up, you are on the books for real and with actual legal teeth.

Are you saying you’re exchanging for the “privilege” of producing this particular musician’s EPK, because their music is so good that you’re either (a) awestruck or (b) sure it will lead to actual paying gigs, or free food, or (c) some social capital for your own vanity projects?

[Richard Herd]

Another topic to ponder is “How are you going to get paid?” Do you accept checks? Cash? Credit Cards? Do you have to invoice a purchasing department and wait 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. How do you make sure you get paid? Always burn timecode into a deliverable until (a) the check has cleared and/or (b) you trust the client.

[Richard Herd]

[Mark Suszko] “the set of another man’s project.”

Also don’t hand out cards on the set of a woman’s project.

There are three basic ways to report income: a job, a sole proprietorship, corporate veils.

The main difference between having a job and the other two has to do with employment taxes. Employers pay their share of employment taxes. Sole proprietorship and corporate veils, even if you own them, means you pay those taxes.

Generally speaking folks are in business to generate a profit (and not avoid taxes).

LLCs means to limit liability. It creates a veil between the individual and the business. This is really important if you have assets to protect, like a house. Otherwise, your freelance operation is a sole proprietorship. There are many laws regarding this stuff, so you should consult an attorney and a CPA while forming an LLC. They are a pain in the a–, and maintaining all the corporate legalities is also a pain. You don’t need to do that….yet. Some day you might.

Be very wary of scams looking for “freelancers” when really the freelance should be categorized as “employee.” The scammers will do this to avoid paying taxes, but that is illegal.

This post is not even close to exhaustive, so be sure to research using the Department of Labor website and the IRS website. That will give you good questions to ask an attorney and or certified public accountant.

[Richard Herd]

[David Cherniack] “the ability to intuitively ‘read’ the timeline audio at a single glance,”

Since a notion of being rational was brought up, what you’re saying is a beg the question fallacy. You posit the following: “I can read it because I can read it.” 😉

[Richard Herd]

[Charlie Austin] “tracks in an NLE, to me, are superfluous.”

Yep. And it’s very difficult to explain that. It’s just something that has to be experienced — an ostensive concept 🙂

[Richard Herd]

[Charlie Austin] “tracks can make it easier to see the organization of an entire sequence at a glance”

Not exactly, and we are talking about audio. The tracks do not tell us bussing and sending, or other DAW type stuff like compression, EQ, reverb. The track is basically an in and out point.

[Richard Herd]

[reko tomo] “My original media is HD.
They are mts files came from camcorder.
1920x1080i (H264).
“

Import the footage using the Media Browser.

Then cut the story.

Then export TWO versions: 1 hd, 1 sd.

There is no reason to create two separate sequences.

[Richard Herd]

[Wayne Keyser] “THE BIG QUESTION: What can giving him the footage cost, just hand it over and put this whole incident in the past.
“

Bingo!

(keep a copy for yourself, to state the obvious. 😉

[Richard Herd]

[Ron Rivers] “the pain of syncing/overlaying the two”

Even if you create a new sequence and export new timecode onto new matching matching the edit’s media, there is no way, I can think of, to relink the cut.

Maybe there is a nifty multicam solution, but I am not familiar with multicam. But by the time you investigate that and figure it out, you could have the thing re-cut.

[Richard Herd]

You can choose what you want to do with the media, copy it, copy it with handles, or just “link” to it. For this project, I just linked to it, but I can see where it would nice to put the media somewhere else.