[Stephen Pickering]

Thanks Dave. No, I will not be doing any time remapping stabilizing. I’ve read though that Premiere Pro is good with h.264 AVCHD footage, but that After Effects hates it. Maybe those were older versions than CS6. I’ve always edited native AVCHD and while it lags a little with heavy filters, I’ve never spent the time transcoding. I would like to skip that step of transcoding if you say there is no advantage (with keying), but I also don’t mind the time or harddrive space if there is any reason to do so.

Thanks Dave,

-Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Just to be clear, I know the footage is only 4:2:0 right now so will not be real 4:2:2, but I’ve still heard that transcoding it up to 4:2:2 is better to key with, even if it isn’t native.

[Stephen Pickering]

Hi everyone,

I really appreciate your input in this. I totally agree that ideas are all over. I hate when I see a super creative commercial and think to myself, “Man, I wish I had thought of that!!”

I’ll let you know how things unfold, but I’m really looking forward to building this relationship with the client. And just to give a little context, this is not a $30,000 project. It’s much, much smaller 🙂

Just a quick question, are films copyrighted because they are completed pieces of work? Is Fargo just an idea which I could re-film myself, or am I misunderstanding something?

[Stephen Pickering]

Well, guys, that’s not really what I was hoping to hear! I was hoping to hear “add this magic line to the bottom of the contract and you’re golden.” Na, I’m just kidding, but honestly I did think there was more protection for the ideas presented.

I appreciate both of your helpful answers which are exactly what I needed to hear. I’ve done lots of commercial competitions and always tell myself I would laugh to see one of our ideas made into a million dollar spot…

Thank you very much for your helpful information- I’ll do some more research as suggested but I think you’ve answered my biggest question of how to keep them as my own, “you can’t.”

Thanks!

-Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Thank you all so much for your thoughts on this.

I agree my situation is not the same as an artist risking something in hopes of selling it. I’m being paid no matter what.

I do have a little pull as they approached me for my “twist” on the video (after seeing a specific video I had done in the past), but I am by no means irreplaceable. I think I’ll casually run it by them but will try to present it in a way that it doesn’t in any way feel to be a required contingency.

I really appreciate your input on this. I’m a creative person and unfortunately not a very good business person, so I sometimes overlook good business practices.

Thank you again!

-Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Mick, thank you for your thoughts on this as well. I’ll just mention it to the client, but as far as I’m concerned it’s not a deal breaker. If I can just word it like that…

Thanks again, I appreciate your thoughts.

-Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Is this filter CS6 64bit compatible? Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but no matter where I drop it Photoshop doesn’t seem to see it.

[Stephen Pickering]

Thank you Wayne. I just wanted to be sure that it’s appropriate. The potential “client” could easily go to another company but they contacted me after seeing an original piece I did, asking me for my spin on their project.

Is this something complex enough to require a lawyer to write up?

Thank you again,

Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Thanks Roger. Tomorrow I’ll get a screen grab of the menu to show what I mean about the artifacting. I was using PSDs for the menues (which Encore created for me, then let me open and edit in Photoshop). The specs were what you mentioned. When I looked at the dvd folder the menus are being made into Mpgs but I thought they would be better, although I’m used to motion menus where moving backgrounds can hide a lot of poor encoding.
I’ll post a screen gab soon to see if I can improve this at all.
Thanks,
Stephen

[Stephen Pickering]

Thank you both for your replies. I guess I’ve never looked into how the 4 colors work. I’ll start reading up on that and I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions. In the past I’ve added the shadow behind the main text, so that the highlight subpicture isn’t so jarring.

The menu still seems to have a TON of artifacting when encoding (even just a still PSD menu). The shadow usually helped this a little, but sometimes a shadow is not appropriate. Is there a way to compress the menu as a higher bitrate than what it’s default is making?

Thank you again for your time in explaining this stuff.

-Stephen