Rick Dolishny
Forum Replies Created
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John, it sounds like niche wedding videos you’re thinking about, so why not make a go of it shooting and editing those?
See how it goes and you will get the odd call from someone who is not getting married and poof get your first family doc. I get calls occasionally for that sort of thing, sort of, via my wedding vid biz.
I produced a family doc for a very senior CO for a major national bank and they dropped a fortune on that, but he was up for a major award (which he won) and really … how many major national banks are there?!? Even after having done one I can’t recommend it as an actual business.
– Rick
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Another crude way of describing this marketing model is “volume” sales, but that suggests the Wal-Mart mentality and that’s not what I’m suggesting. Sure, it’s great to get $1500 for a five second clip (I have a library of deep-arctic polar bears that fetches that regularly), but I’m suggesting and you seem to agree that it’s not the five dollar sale that matters, it’s the hundreds of five dollar sales you might generate each month that really ads up. This model could not exist or be sustained without the nearly-free distribution model the internet offers.
Of course, if you have footage that is just so unique by all means set that $1500 price, you will find a buyer!
Best of luck with your venture.
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Sign up with a stock site that mirrors your corporate culture, get your stuff up there, automate the entire process (download only) and collect small royalty cheques every quarter. Do NOT try to do it yourself. There are processes in place that make it easy for you, of course they charge for the management and google presence they offer, but try it yourself and you’ll become a full-time web developer.
The key is to do as little as possible while ensuring producers have access to it when they need it with the minimum of barriers.
You will not make a lot of money, but you will make money on the stuff you put out there; and it sounds like you have a lot of well logged material. It’s the practice of long-tail distribution: there is always a market for something. Your sales will never be zero if you have enough obscure stuff out there that someone wants.
Go for it.
And send us a link to your _stock.com shop when it’s up and running.
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned Basecamp.
As a PM I used it to manage crews/talent/locations and scripts for a video podcast that ran for several months, and I upgraded it since then to handle three separate businesses.
The ability to write scripts and make trackable modifications completely eliminated Microsoft Word which was a godsend for my virtual companies. And the pro-level included FTP access and messaging has pretty much eliminated email. That was a hard one to adopt, but without endless “cc” and email threads I could concentrate of just getting work done.
Email me offline for a walkthrough.
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> Exactly. I was going to mention this in my earlier post but we had to run out the door. If someone has ANY financial problems, run away. If they didn’t get up-front money for you, they probably are on the road to disaster. It hurts to pass up good work but not as much as it hurts to work for free.
Agree, agree, agree. With this client especially with money problems, I would have politely declined the gig, but the original question focused on his credit terms.
But look at it the other way. I am often called to produce so the tables are turned. I go into a project knowing my budget so I make the calls. If Cameraman A says, “I’ll do it and send you a bill with the tapes” vs. Cameraman B, “I’ll do it, you pay me 50% now and 50% plus expenses or I don’t hand over the tapes”, well, even if CamA is more expensive I gotta think this guy’s got it going on, has a decent professional attitude… you see where this is going.
Hey I took a look, I have one client who owes me as of today about $2800 in miscellaneous charges like courier and dubs on a larger project that just won’t die. So I’m not immune to what I’ll stereotype as deadbeats, but the whole “payment 100% in full in advance” just doesn’t fly for me.
Now having said that, some of you who know me from other forums know I’m involved in a wedding video business here in Canada. Terms there: 100% paid WAAAAY up front.
I don’t believe this conversation is in that league.
– Rick
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I think you need to relax your terms a bit. You can’t expect to be paid in full on delivery in this business. The fact that you’re going out of state with gigs is exemplary. Congratulations BTW (if you got the gig that is). Hopefully there will be more of it.
If I understand you correctly the job was worth only $3K gross and they offered $1500 upfront. I think that’s very reasonable terms. They pay you net 30 days or whatever you state on your invoice.
Sounds like I’m in the minority, but this way I keep cash flow rolling in rather than stressing out clients over what amounts to a short amount of time and small amount of dollars.
– Rick
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This forum is the single most useful thing on the COW.
And this thread I may have to read on my way to the office every single day. Maybe use a hundred little post-it notes on my walls too.
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XDCAM is a really interesting format that is coming of age, slowly. I can speak from the perspective of a FCP editor who happens to be on an Avid and tell you it’s pretty remarkable.
We offlined a show of 51 tapes which were “digitized” in about 40 minutes. That’s using the proxy version which is a little low-rez for my taste, but wow, 51 hours in 40 minutes!
When the show was done we moved the project from the XPress to a Symphony and “uprezed” the timeline (which, as others have explained much more accurately, is just copying over what we need) in about half the time it would have taken with regular tape transport.
Image quality is excellent, I’ve now done an HD-XDCAM as well so it looks pretty good. Chroma key is really bad, worse perhaps than HDV, but most vis is coming in really nice.
I have to say after a shaky start (like, a year I’ve been dubbing from XD to DBETA because I don’t need the hassle), and a few rough installs with a miserable Sony XDCAM browser, I can see the light. XDCAM shows some very good potential, and in my case it’s finally paying off big time from a post-production business perspective. I never (a) liked paying someone 50 hours to digitize 50 hours, and (b) cared for my vastly underpriced “digitizing rate” to tie up my Symphony or FCPHD.
– Rick
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[Les Kaye] “If you want to ger an earful, just ask some of the discreet edit people here about that undo history.”
Ah ha! The thread has already started!
https://forums.creativecow.net/viewforum/13?
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Even Avid Unity or ISIS takes a full time crew to keep aloft. SAN based media management is a dream that in reality is a nightmare for many.
I would say wait until it actually ships and get a proper demo then.
The demo video of the LA CBS affiliate is stunning, I forwarded it off to many colleagues, but on the Avid side we’ve seen it all before. Wait until it actually ships, personally it’s way too good to be true!
– Rick