[Roger Van duyn]

Hey Alan,

Looking at your signature, are you an actual employee of the hospital and are you being asked by your department head to make a pitch for donors to the hospital where you are employed?

Before I was a freelance videographer, I worked for hospitals and clinics in the lab. When someone called the lab, and wanted me to do something, how I responded depended upon which type of “boss” they were. We were told we were working for the patient, for the doctor, for the … (Believe it or not, there were actual laws determining how I could answer certain requests for information etc. depending upon who was asking).

Were they a patient? Were they a physician? Were they a vendor? Were they a nurse on the floor or from a doctor’s office? Was it section supervisor or the lab manager or the medical director of the lab asking me to do something?

How you respond depends a lot upon the employee-employer or client-vendor relationship you are in. Some of my actual supervisors in my previous career would listen. Some would not. IF it is your actual supervisor asking, a lot depends upon how much they value your expertise, and how much they think they know about your area of expertise. Client relations and employer-employee relations are more art then science. Even if you are right, sometimes you have to just go along, if you want to keep your job. Especially if you are new. Only one hospital I worked for even had people doing video production in-house, and that department disappeared during a downturn. Another clinic where I worked had a guy in the marketing department doing it all. But both that hospital and clinic went outside for their commercials…

Not sure if these ramblings are a help to you or not. Are you asking a technical question about what to do in the video, or a question about how to deal with a certain person, office politics etc.?

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Sounds like a disaster documentary in the making…

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Believe it or not, there are still some tape cameras out there. I have two, with external CF card recorder.

Sometimes people would capture live from the firewire output on the tape camera into a firewire port on the laptop. I did it on occasion before getting the external recorders.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

When I switched to Avid about 4 years ago, my experience was similar to yours. Now I love using it.

What helped me was to just forget everything about how my previous editing program worked and just start fresh. Avid uses a completely different approach, so I had to think different (and I’ve never owned a Mac, pun intended).

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Hi Katie.

In my limited experience, only in business since 2009, pricing is more of an art than a science, but don’t neglect the “science” part. You MUST charge more than it costs you to do the work, including your overhead. The term is “cost of doing business.” There are threads here on the COW discussing that, among other places, and they have helped me.

One thing I learned from experience, all work is not equal. Some work is more difficult. I charge more for difficult work than easy work. Some work is SO quick and easy, and requires less equipment even though it doesn’t seem to pay as much, it earns more profit.

I try to make the price fit the project. Most clients prefer a quote or estimate for the package price. With experience, that part gets easier. It’s both art and science making a quote. It’s a lot like going fishing.

Also, since you are just starting out, build up an emergency fund, a stash. And keep an eye on your cash flow. Running my business is more time consuming than doing the projects.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

While I don’t have a C300, I do edit in Avid, though I’m no expert. It’s been my experience that renaming clips is a bad idea. Avid is finicky with media management. (That’s actually a strength, once you understand the logic).

What I do, is give the bins for the clips a descriptive name. Plus, you can add comments to the clips. Also, you can browse the clips with the thumbnail view, or using the script view, you see both the thumbnail and the comments you’ve added to the clips.

You really need to use Avid’s media management the Avid way, or it will likely come back to bite you with “media offline” and other error messages later.

Perhaps you should post your question to the Avid section here on the Cow. There’s some real experts there with regards to media management in Avid.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

I have a matched pair, an XH-A1 and the newer XH-A1S, both paid for and making money. About a year ago I worked with an out of state producer using my two cameras, along with him using his XF-105 and XF-305.

As best I can tell, in the same location, his newer cameras had a very minimal improvement in image quality. Whenever I looked at his settings vs. mine, they were the same regarding F-stop etc. Final output was to the internet and DVD.

His newer cameras had the same problems as mine in dim light. The only advantage I saw was the speed of transferring footage from the CF cards vs. capturing tape. Also the SDI out to his mixer was nice!

I’d love to go tapeless, but cannot justify the expense at this time in order to get minimal improvement in image quality. For now, I capture to a laptop when convenient for both of my cameras. For me, it’s a business decision, cost has to justify benefits regarding the bottom line.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

You might try the audio professionals forum.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

I wonder about the whole point of the commercial. From my thirty years in health care, the department heads would tell the CFO of the clinic or hospital what equipment they wanted, and then budgets were hammered out, competitive bids etc. There were leasing arrangements, outright purchases, and in the laboratory, reagent rental agreements. I always called it funny money because the equipment I used every day cost way more than my house.

Why put a commercial like that on the tv? I mean, the general public isn’t gonna clamor so much for GE equipment when they go to the doctor. And even if the public did, so what? If Siemens gives a better bid, or has a better working relationship with the institution.

I mean, should the ad be pointed to the target market? And if it’s just PR, brand awareness, well, I think it’s creepy too. Kind of like at the Terminator Pavilion at Universal Studios where the robot is rocking the baby.

But that is supposed to give you the creeps!

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Hi Trent. Sometimes Canon has some good deals on refurbs on their site. Here’s the link:

https://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/subCategory_10051_10051_-1_45251

Sony and Panasonic also have links. Most of my equipment was bought used or refurbished ( including my XH-A1 and XH-A1S)

I’d like to go tapeless, but watching the cashflow. Have one external unit that’s a little flaky. I suspect that it would be better to go with a newer tapeless camera than deal with the issues of external devices.

Roger