[Shawn Marshall]

Hi Dave:

Thanks for your reply. I did mention in my initial post that I used the Flip 4 Mac Pro exporter within Quicktime Pro to create a nice-looking 60MB wmv. The 1-pass version ended up looking better than the 2-pass version. I see no option to export AVIs through Flip 4 Mac.

I’ve asked the agency to ask the end client what their plans are for the AVI. Do they want to use it for distribution or are they looking for an archival, uncompressed copy?

Shawn Marshall

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi:

I’ve asked the agency we’re working through for clarification, and I think I’ll ask them whether the end client plans to use this AVI for distribution (which wouldn’t make sense these days) or for editing.

This PC stuff is out of my comfort zone. When you’re editing in NLEs or working in AE on PCs is the standard media format AVIs, as opposed to Quicktimes on the Mac?

Thanks.

Shawn

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi Rob:

So did you do your DV AVI from Quicktime player on the Mac? I can dial down the quality but can’t adjust the bitrate; those options are greyed out. I thought DV was fixed at, like, 4.5 MB/sec.

Shawn

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi:

Thanks for all your replies. I really don’t know why they want an AVI, but that’s clients for you.

I’ll confirm that this won’t be used for NTSC; in addition to working at 30fps (I’m matching a project they provided) I’ve been working full raster, pretty much ignoring safe title.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics.

[Shawn Marshall]

Sorry if this is too obvious, but that type of thing usually crops up when you’re using a demo version of a plugin. That X would appear in your composition window too, though.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Shawn Marshall]

Daniel:

I had a similar question a few years ago. This thread shows an expression that will output the actual 3D position of your parented object. In your case you’ll have to substitute your object for the camera used in the expression Dan provided:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/869400#869400

Hope this helps.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Shawn Marshall]

Well, we sent our invoice to the client and they didn’t bat an eye. They replied by saying “Thanks for stepping in in our time of need!”, and we just took one of their drives back to them and everyone seemed very happy, so it was probably just my insecurity which prompted this thread.

As I said initially, we have worked with this client four or five times in the past, and we have 6-7 year relationships with one of the producers and their in-house graphics guy. We’d like to be doing more work for them, but they don’t seem to have as much overflow as our biggest client. We’ve done two other super-quick turnaround projects for them, charging comparable rates to this latest job, and things went fine. I think they know us enough to know that our billing would be fair, even though it came out pretty high for this job.

Here’s sort of a philosophical question. When a client comes in with a quick turnaround job, is it the duty of the vendor to volunteer their rates up front, or is it the responsibility of the client to ask for that up front? My thinking is that if the rate’s important to the client, they’ll ask up front. However, if it’s more important to get the thing done, they’re not going to haggle about rates, within reason. I’m sure that if we’d decided to charge $2000/hr for our work then we’d had a problem, but I think they knew us enough to know we’d be fair.

If I walk into a Toyota dealership and say I want to buy a Prius, here’s $50,000, is it their obligation to tell me the sticker price is only $24,000?

And it’s not like this is an everyday problem. This scenario springs up once or twice a year for us; this was the first time it encompassed such a large volume of work in such a short time, which is what prompted my initial inquiry.

Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi:

Thanks for all your replies. It helps me to know that it’s not unreasonable to charge more for working strange hours, though I don’t think I’d feel comfortable charging triple time, at least not this time. I think we’ll be content with time-and-a-half, even though it turned me into a zombie for a day.

I don’t think at any point this agency has asked us what our hourly rate was, and I didn’t feel super compelled to volunteer that information. Maybe I should have. Maybe I assumed that if the price was important to them they would have asked ahead of time. I guess I thought what does it matter if we charge 1.5 times our normal rate when they don’t know what our normal rate is? Perhaps it comes down to a common character flaw that it’s better to ask for forgiveness after the fact than to ask for permission ahead of time.

And it’s not that I feel guilty like we’re overcharging them. Logically I know we did good work in a very short timespan, and that we should be rewarded for our knowledge and talent. But I also get insecure sometimes when we present a large bill that amounts to a month’s usual income for three (very long) days work. It’s a totally illogical emotion, but what can you do?

Thanks again for your insight.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi:

Thanks again for your reply.

Changing the sequence to 48K didn’t affect the timing issues. Changing the duration designation from non-drop to drop-frame or frames doesn’t change the timing in the sequence; it stays the same length (and drifting sync) no matter how the time is counted.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics

[Shawn Marshall]

Hi Jeremy:

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

If this was for video playback I’d do 720×486 anamporphic, 29.97fps, but it’s going to be turned into a Flash video.

I’ve used the animation codec at 864×486 many times without having any problems playing it back off a single, fast, Firewire drive. I trust that codec more than 8 or 10 bit uncompressed since I see luminance shifts in those sometimes. I’m not attempting to play it through my Io system; I just want to marry the video to the audio and export the result as a Quicktime.

The problem isn’t dropped frames or stuttering playback, it’s that the audio sync gets progressively more off the further you get into the piece. And if I scrub to the end of the sequence the audio doesn’t jump back into sync; it’s off by the same amount as if I’d been playing it at normal speed from the beginning.

I think there’s some weird sample rate thing going on between the AIFF and FCP, but I don’t know what.

Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics