Seth Bloombaum
Forum Replies Created
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For most production positions your reel is very important. Do your utmost to keep it up to date. Old stuff and student stuff is good too – you just want it to show the best of your abilities, and you should be able to speak to each piece.
Ideally, you’ll present your reel in person as part of an interview. Say who the client was, the nature of the project, your role in the project, how it turned out for each piece of your reel. If a particular project seems to have resonance with the interviewer, by all means go deeper on that project.
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Cover letter:
Make it formal, header with name, address, date, etc.
Salutation.
Intro: I’m interested in…
Relevant experiences (NOT “I was an X for a year” but “Last year I worked on a project in which the producer asked me to do this and that. The results were such and such. I feel that this is highly relevant to the position you advertised.”) (It helps to know what the company wants. Do you know someone who works there? Do you attend local industry events? Do you know their work?)
Ask for the job. (you’d be amazed how many people don’t).
Close with suggested action: “I’d like to meet with you to discuss your needs. I’ll call you early next week to set this up, or please contact me at XXX-XXX-XXXX.”
Thank you,
A. JobseekerIf you finish this pre-interview process with some name recognition, you’re ahead of 95% of the pack already. Do what you can to keep your resume at the top of the stack.
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If you can incorporate your “stock” clips and merge them with your other content within DVDA then by all means do so and use them as MPEG-2.
If they have to be edited with new material then do it in vegas as AVI-DV. Under no circumstances should you bring MPEG-2 into Vegas as editing source if you can possibly avoid it.
So, we’re talking about a balance of efficient workflow vs. not wanting to edit and recompress MPEG-2 because a second round of compression sacrifices too much image quality.
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Well, your tag line of “limited ears” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. I’m not trying to be insulting, it’s just that if you don’t have confidence in your ear then it’s pretty hard to mix or compress for any sort of paying project. When do you know its right? Listen to reference monitors or reference headphones and listen very carefully.
But that aside, you might be using a ratio of 1.5-3:1 (start with 2.5), attack of 0-100ms (some prefer a slower attack, but this is what I like), release of 500-1500ms (some prefer faster…), which leaves gain and threshold. Gain is (usually) output gain. If you need more gain into your recording device then turn it up. But 0 is a great place to start.
Threshold is a little harder – turn it down until you can see/hear the compressor start to work. “See” meaning you have a gain reduction meter on your compressor, right? Turn down threshold until you start to see your peaks reduced by up to 3db and see how you like that sound. Too much? Try either turning up threshold or turning down ratio.
This whole approach might be called “taking a little off the top”, controlling your program peaks so you can increase the average loudness. Good for the spoken word. There’s another approach of “limiting dynamic range” used more often in music, where ratio is modest, threshold comes down, and release is long.
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Ya’ know, I’d like to continue this thread but I’m afraid I’ll just get too depressed. Caesars is a rule unto themselves, too, Nevada state labor law literally stops at their doors. A buddy wanted to use his traveling IATSE card to work one of our shows there – it turns out that could be OK anywhere but C’s.
Frank, if you’re interested in working and referring on these occasional shows (sometimes I produce, sometimes I’m shadowed for some sort of tech op, but always a good producer and client) send me contact info offline at sbloombaum at yahoo dot com.
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Frank, I really appreciate the good crew available in L.V. and wish that I could get them consistently. But with only a show every year or two in LV, it’s pretty much a crap shoot. Because we have to use a local signatory agency and we don’t know who to ask for.
For example, last year booking a camera op who didn’t know how to put a lense on a sony D30 or hook up zoom/focus on a studio config. Yeah, we shadowed in a couple of key positions (like our video engineer, for example) but how do we get some decent ops on our shows?
On the other hand, we’ve had some absolutely outstanding individuals as well. No, we don’t cheap it out, typically we’re one setup day, one setup/rehearse day, 1-3 show days, and an out day.
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Vegas is the top NLE for DV and multitrack audio. It started life as a protools wannabe for the PC but now is an amazing editor for video and audio. Note that it doesn’t conform to the Avid interface standard that so many NLEs have used, but it does have a more PC-like interface that power users are extremely productive with and really enjoy.
I regularly slurp in stereo from HHB pro minidisc and sometimes slurp in 24 track from an Alesis HD24 and sync by hand to action and reference audio from a camera mic. (Sony PD150).
One of the key features of the HD24 for this application is that there is an available firewire interface for its drives – you just plug the drive into your pc, launch the Alesis software, and transfer your files to a PC drive. Simple and fast. This can be a tremendous issue with other multitrack recorders – you don’t want something like aes/ebu or s/pdif to be your only way to slurp audio in, because then you’re looking at perhaps 8+ transfer hours per recorded hour of 16 track. ADAT lightpipe will get you 8 tracks at a time, but I think it’s pretty much a legacy method from the ADAT days and isn’t included with my favorite sound cards.
Other features of the HD24 include 24 analog inputs and outputs (no extra cards to buy), uses standard and inexpensive ATA133 hard drives, caddies for the drives only $25. Note that another challenge with this kind of work is how you archive projects. Putting hard drives on the shelf turns out to be the only way, so using inexpensive standard drives helps.
I just harness up with a 24 channel TRS-TRS snake from the direct outs of the board to the HD24. Done. (don’t forget to hit record!) And yes, multiple HD24s can be synched as well.
I’ve never had sync drift problems over 1+ hours of continuous DV-prosumer video.
My understanding is that Vegas can generate what’s needed for midisync but I’ve not used that. If it works as advertised your suggested workflow would probably be fine. Vegas can be downloaded as a demo – see if it works (you’ll need some pc-midi interface).
That’s my preference and workflow – slurp it all in to the PC and don’t bother with timecode chase. BTW, Vegas has tremendous support in forums, and the Cow has a great one. Check it out.
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I think the trick here is to avoid doing work for the scum that seem to inhabit the fringes of our industry. At least that’s the way it seems in the northwest – just a few fringe industry folks and a few fringe clients.
A challenge for me is to listen to that inner voice that’s screaming “RUN”, usually the inner voice has it right!
I did a few booth shows about a hundred years ago with a trade show manager for a high-tech manufacturer. She was pretty slippery – never skewered anyone, but made a habit of being elsewhere when her poor up-front coordination created problems for the crew, or just not being around when s*#t happened, as it sometimes does.
Well, even then she didn’t stay with her employer for that long, those habits didn’t just affect us contract media folks, eventually they rolled uphill to the the product marketing people who were her internal clients too. It goes around and comes around.
Glad I’ve never been sued, though (knock on wood)! But I think a clear written agreement with the client’s signature AND scum radar (scumdar?) serves me well. Of course some of the biggest clients will have their own in-house legal departments, and they’ll apologize as they tell you that you have to sign it or they can’t work with you. I’ve never been screwed by one of those – I think it all comes back to the scumdar thing.
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IMHO it’s most important to create a really clear written agreement specifying process, deliverables, production schedule, review schedule (include intermediate reviews!!!), and payment schedule, a complete set of specifications. Should spell out what the client is responsible for and when, including all client-supplied materials and it’s always a good idea to ASK how much time they’ll need for reviews, then incorporate that into the production schedule.
If you have to go to court to compel payment, you lost the client relationship a long time ago. This is assuming that you can avoid dealing with pond scum. I’ve only have had that particular problem twice in 25 years, once at an agency and once on my own. In my experience, if you’re dealing with pond scum an enforceable contract doesn’t help very much.
I think your timing is off: “Something we can submit to a client after a bid has been accepted…” They haven’t accepted anything until they’ve accepted a process, a schedule, their responsibilities to deliver source materials, a review process, AND a bid. Give them this WITH the bid, not after. Price is not the only criteria for a client’s decision. This assumes that you’re willing to walk away from a client that won’t accept your take on specs, schedules, etc. (you SHOULD walk away!!! see “not dealing with pond scum”)
Disclaimer
I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to give legal advice. Consult your attorney when preparing contracts, or assessing when a contract may be needed. -
If you are a one-man operation with no employees I don’t see why you should need workman’s comp – try pushing back on that.
General business liability seems to be what they’re asking for otherwise. I’ve heard of productioninsurance.com, more of a specialist and probably their equipment loss/damage riders are more affordable or accessable than what a conventional insurer offers.
I’m very interested to see where you end up with this, as I too don’t carry any specialized insurance, but one of these clients will require it…