Rob Jackson
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t know how to translate this to motion, but this is how it’s done in After Effects:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/hansen_jaysen/growing.php
Also check out:
https://www.videocopilot.net/products/evolution/
Hope it helps show the concepts, and don’t forget to post samples of what you come up with!
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I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv, and I have never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. However, I have spoken with my attorney about these things and here’s a quick run down of the conversation we had.
You can register the name, as long as no one else is using it. The idea can’t be registered as a copyright because it’s just an idea. There needs to be a tangible “product”, so to speak. Is anyone else in the country doing this sort of thing? Your copyright can’t just be local.
As for getting a copyright or trademark on your name: Do your research. If someone else is using that name for a similar product, anywhere, and decides to move to your town and their company has been around longer, YOU have to change your name. For example, in my town there’s a small mom and pop hotel called the Holliday Inn (Holliday is spelled correctly). The national Holiday Inn came to town and told them to change their name claiming they had been in business longer and hence held the rights to that name. Turns out the local Inn has been in existence longer than the entire national chain so the national chain had to name it’s local hotel something different.
ALWAYS get release forms from people you film. If they’re recognizable on camera and you don’t get their permission, you can face legal problems. Certain journalistic rules apply here and I don’t know how your specific product is formatted.
Get a lawyer, every business should have one. You don’t have to pay for them to be on retainer, but they can guide you through the copyright processes, be specific about what you can and cannot register, and if it’s potentially a big money maker, the investment in legal services before you do anything is well worth it.
Cynical note: As far as stopping other people from doing what you’re going to do, protecting your idea so to speak…were you the first wedding videographer in your area? That was originally someone’s idea “Hey, this town doesn’t have anybody filming weddings, I’m going to do it and hope no one else does!” If you do it better than anyone else, the who cares if they do it too?
Good luck!
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OK. Answered it myself by accident. Posted a video which hopefully explains better than my words.
Answer: Duplicate the original comp. Add the second comp to the original comp. Select one of the comps, using the bounding box drag one side to the other. This will flip that comp over.
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I see this question posted under “Common After Effects Questions,” but I don’t see an answer anywhere. I’m having this exact issue. I know I can hand-do the keying for the second object, but I’d like it to be an exact reflection.
My project is taking two objects, having them on opposite sides of the screen, move apart, collide, bounce back, collide again, etc. Think of rams butting heads or football helmet graphics colliding.
Thanks!
Rob Jackson
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Slight tangent here based on Bruce’s last comment “You must be doing very well to contemplate such a charge in this recession.”
From what I’ve seen, one of the quickest ways to dig yourself into a hole is to lower your standards during this recession. Yes, it may help retain clients, and a lot of us would rather take some work than no work, but consider this: If you lower your rates or start not charging for rush work now, when the recession ends, it will be exponentially more difficult to raise your rates and start adding charges. Clients will remember your lowest rates and be reluctant to go with higher invoices if they know you’re “willing” to work for less.
I’m not an economy expert, I haven’t owned a business during a recession before, and perhaps in this business that idea of thinking is way off. However, I know of many large corporations and small businesses alike that are trying to keep their prices as steady as possible specifically so they don’t have problems in the future. If you have to lower your rates, try and make it in the form of a one-time “special promotion discount” or something similar.
Fernando. Charge a rush fee. If they balk, perhaps compromise with 2-3 weeks instead of 3-4. Your time is worth it. If they are a consistently great client, like Bruce mentioned, then perhaps giving them a break now and again is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t hurt the other clients who have deadlines looming.
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The timing couldn’t have been better. Just yesterday I had a client come to the resort with 2 DVDs produced by a NY production co. Of course the producers had finished it, delivered it, and were not present or available to contact during the event (we’re in SC by the way.) The client had tested the DVDs multiple times, on several DVD players. Came to the resort, we fired them up, and the DVDs played fine…for a while. Turns out for some reason with those 2 particular DVDs, (there were others on different media brands encoded by different companies that had no problems), our seamless switcher/converter didn’t like the video feed. The preview monitor showed the image fine, but nothing came off the projectors. The DVD played fine off a laptop and everyone was happy.
I’ve given the presenters my cell number and told them if the producers would like to contact me so I can describe the situation, I’d be glad to. Can’t blame them, except for only leaving 1 second of black at the beginning, none at the end, and having it auto-loop, but I’d like to find out from them what the encoding technique was.
This was a situation where there’s no known explanation yet, and I can’t accept blame as the other DVDs were fine, and they can’t accept blame as it plays on all DVD players, but they couldn’t have known what switcher we were using.Always have a backup plan.
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Effect A isn’t a freeze. It’s just slow motion. If you watch carefully, the sail and waves are all still moving. In real time, that big splash just happened rather quickly, hence why when slowed down, it looks like it’s moving faster than the rest of the video.
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I am an AV technician at a 5 star resort. (I add the 5 star comment because we deal with clients who are paying for, and expecting, nothing but the absolute best in equipment, treatment, and technical knowledge. And they, as the client, can NEVER possibly ever be wrong…about anything.) We get dozens, if not hundreds of clients every year that show up with DVDs produced by someone not in-house. Most times they have never tested the DVD ahead of time. There definitely is a “certain media don’t work with certain players” effect, but we as an AV company have multiple brands on hand just in case. We get thrown under the bus by the clients, the hotel staff, and the DVD producers. We take it, apologize for the inconvenience, and bust our asses to get it fixed before the meeting starts. It is absolutely unacceptable for us to blame anyone else. However, if they never tested the DVD ahead of time, and won’t call the producer to get encoding information, there’s only so much as a 3rd party AV company that we can do.
That being said, hindsight is 20/20 and you can’t tell the client they messed up. Has the client seen the DVD work on a different monitor? Perhaps let them see that your disc does actually work and just keep them informed as to your progress in working with the AV company to find the cause of the trouble. If they see your disc working on a comparable set up, they may ease off a bit and at least spread the blame around. If the AV company is, shall we say, less than helpful, relay that (respectfully, not whining) to the client. If they see you’re trying to get to the bottom of the problem, they’ll at least appreciate that you do care things didn’t work properly and will make sure that it never happens again.
Clients who want $100,000 production on a $1,000 budget tend to be severely disappointed. Sounds like the budget wasn’t there for you to consider needing to coordinate with a different AV company and do production management of their event. All 3 parties in this case messed up. Do what you can to maintain a good relationship with the client, but understand there are some very underhanded AV companies out there that will screw things up, fix it after the event, then claim there was nothing wrong in the first place.
Good luck.
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Thanks for that tip, Taylor!
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That’s why people hire college students to do this type of work. They don’t want to pay for experienced videographers. They just want their meeting recorded. Would I prefer they pay a professional $500++ for it? Yes, absolutely. Would I prefer they pay a college student $200 and give that student more experience before heading out into the career abyss rather than not pay anyone at all? Yes.
Rob Jackson
1018 Productions LLC
Real T Video