[Sam Cornelis]

This is a question not only about invoicing, but also about efficient workflows.

If you optimise your workflow, you will have less “dead” render times – and less worries about invoicing this render time.

So, how can you optimise your workflow: try to divide your AE comps into shorter comps. Render these in the background – as shorter comps will not take up as many resources, you can continue working while rendering. You can stitch the separate clips in PPRO.

There are several advantages to this workflow: you can start reviewing (e.g. by a client if you create a team project) while still animating the rest of the video, is one of them. Another important one is that once you reach the deadline, you don’t have to wait for 13 hours and then find out there is still something wrong – which takes you another 13 hours. With your project chopped into smaller pieces, you only have to re-rerender shorter pieces in case of last-minute changes.

And, since your render time is integrated in the workflow, you don’t have to charge for extra rendering hours.

If the reason for the rendering is because you have used e.g. a lot of particles or other render intensive stuff – you could try to use proxies, or pre-render the complex stuff into mov’s with an alpha channel and work with these renders instead of the original comp.

Think modular.

And if its not possible, I agree with Mark: if you cannot use the computer for any other work – your client has to pay for occupying your computer. If it happens overnight … I consider that as a cost that is already included in the hourly/day rate. And yes, this should be high enough to invest in hardware … for example a separate “render machine”.

[Sam Cornelis]

– if this forum had a like button, I’d use it.

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

I’ve used an iPad prompter. It was a rental and I don’t remember the brand. There were no issues regarding the readability. This was fine, since the mirror also enlarges it.

The only two things that could be better was that you had to adjust everything on the iPad which is under a hood in front of the lens, that was not so handy. Also start/stop for instance.
And you can’t adjust the speed while reading. Although, there are solutions for that. It was just not included in the kit.

But, it worked very well, especially for its price tag. And for inexperienced speakers, it saves a lot of takes.

If you are in doubt, you can always go out and rent one and see if it works for you.

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

The easy way would be: put your video on it. Start playing and pause at the first frame. Shut it off. Next time your customer opens he or she will see the video, no autoplay, but you could add a frame in the first sec of your video that welcomes your customer (personalized) and invites him to hit the play button. I dont have an ipod, but thats how I would do it on an ipad. You dont want to add some apps on an ipod that he is never going to use again.

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

I am not familiar with charities, but I came across this article, earlier this week. And it might be interesting to read it in this context: it seems that not all charities are doing what they pretend to do.
https://www.tampabay.com/topics/specials/worst-charities1.page

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

By the way, here you have an AE template for an iPhone:
https://bluefx.net/after-effects-templates/my-iphone-catalog/

Sam

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

As mentioned before: there 3D iPhone models available. And for the screenrecording, you can animatie this, but you can also try an app like Reflectionapp.com This allows you to mirror your iphone on your screen. (actually a great tool for presentations, to show your ipad or iphone with a beamer). Make a screenrecording of the iphone screens presented on your computer. Drop it via AE in the 3D model. I never tried this, but I think it might work, and would be pretty fast to create it.

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

I admit, this is a very old thread – but since I just dealt with this problem, I think it is still relevant to tell what solved my problem:

On a mac you have to delete the preference file:
users>Hard drive>Library>Preferences>com.Adobe.Premiere Pro.4.0.plist

A little later, the same occured with After Effects. It suddenly couldn’t read any HDV file (mpeg, m2v, large photoshop files, …). Deleted a similar preference file, and everything is back to normal:
users>Hard Drive>Library>Preferences>com.Aftereffects.plist

Actually, for AE, there were different preference files, I deleted them all.

Good luck.

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

You can also do screensharing via Adobes https://www.acrobat.com, there is the possibility to have an online meeting including webcam, white board, screensharing, taking over the control of a computer etc. There is a free option as well:
https://www.acrobat.com/main/en/pricing.html

I never used it for live editing – but I do use it often to help someone who is working on a remote location and has some software problems. Set up a meeting, share computer screen, take over the control of the other computer and fix it (also very handy if you want to help your dad with his computer).

To deal with choppy video – you could work with low resolution proxy files during the online session. I never tried this, but I can imagine that would work more fluently. Aferwards you replace the low res files with hi res files and continue working.

Sam

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.

[Sam Cornelis]

Thanks, that’s very helpful.
Sam

– I have read the entire internet, and I am feeling a little bit bored, so I started to reply to interesting forum topics.