[Steve Wargo]

You have asked the “question of questions”.

Decide whether you have a business or a paying hobby.
Decide what you’re worth.
Quote that amount or more.
If they decline, don’t lower the price.

The only way to make strong, consistent money is to create your own product.

I’ll save Bob the trouble: “Go out of business now, before you go into debt”.

Good luck.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

I did a job like this last year for a state sponsored university. I found out what their dollar limit was and bid $250 under that. I put a firm limit on what we would do for the money as in How many crew people for how much time on the shoot and how much time in edit. We paid for the VO and stated that we would include a certain amount of effects and graphics work.

Clients like this are not bound to take the lowest bid. They are supposed to get the most for their money and not exceed a certain dollar limit. The limit I’m talking about is stated in their business guidelines. Ask the person making the offer what those guideline are. They have to tell you. Don’t leave money on the table. If you think you’re going to get the job by being the lowest bid, you’re probably wrong. Ask them what they’re scoring process is.

Now, a note on taking these bids on: In 2004, we tracked how much time we spent bidding on jobs that we didn’t get. I’m talking about those RFPs where there are dozens of pages to fill out. We spent over 150 man hours on jobs that we never had a chance on. Total waste of time. If they have 1 or 2 pages to fill out, you might have a chance. The longer the paperwork, the slimmer your chance of getting the job. Also, watch for trick or impossible requirements because they have probably written the job spec around their favorite vendor who will get the job regardless o who else bids. We’ve had this happen both ways.

These days, I turn down almost every job where we have to audition or make special DVDs or whatever. It seems like the more sophisticated the client, the easier it is to get the job if you have a history of award winning productions.

Don’t spend more time on the bid that you are willing to completely throw away.

One more thing: Find out who they’ve been using in the past and why the job is out for bid anyway.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

Thanks Raphael. I just need to vent that once in a while. One thing that the Red accomplished was to get some other companies back to the drawing board and show that a lot can be put into a package that doesn’t cast so much. As for the F-35, I think that would be a rental. We have one on our equipment list on an upcoming feature.

Panasonic just released their 300 camera and it is quite the machine. My holdback would be the P-2 format. Since working with the SxS cards, I would have a difficult time with it’s downside. They certainly have some nice accessories, though.

One of my clients is spending a few weeks in Vietnam right now.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

[Jason Jenkins] “So perhaps we will soon see more control and restraint exercised in the use of depth of field.”

Let’s hope that’s the case.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

Oh Ron, you are so right on the money. Being a fantastic graphics artist and being an entrepreneur are two distinct occupations and talents. And, when we tell them that they will spend 60% of their time doing things that they don’t get paid for, they don’t belive us. Fortunately, most of them go out of business after being called in by the IRS about the taxes that never got filed. (Been there. Paid for that)

And, it’s shocking how many people think that just because they are extremely talented, that people will line up at their door when they hang their shingle. If our clients shop us around or go try someone else out, we fire them. While this policy has cost us a few bucks, I don’t go through life feeling like a whore. (Can I say that?)

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

I just set our company up with a gateway firm that allows us to process by cell phone, wireless computer or land line.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

[Rafael Amador] “PS: Steve, the “dry heat’ is not reason enough for you to disappear from this forum for months.
Are you getting RED?”

No, I didn’t go anywhere, especially RED. When the Red was first announced, there were quite a few people who dropped into the HD forum and advised us that we needed to toss our Varicams and F-900s into the sea. They went on to accuse me of being closed minded about the future. All I said was that I thought that we should have an actual working model to test, instead of the word of the sunglasses guy.

When the Red was getting close to being a real product, my advice was to make it modular in design because they would spend years figuring out that there’s a lot more to a professional camera than a huge imager and if it’s modular, they could upgrade it in sections. I was referred to as an idiot…..

Well, it got released and they sold thousands. I hear about a lot of work being done with the Red and yet I hear about numerous Red cameras gathering dust because the owners aren’t qualified cinematographers who can take on a job worthy of the Red camera or they can’t quite get their hands around the workflow, which has gotten easier, by the way. To bad the workflow was such a disaster when it was first released.

At first, the Red fanboys said “No worry that the sound doesn’t work. I’ll just use second system sound like the big boys. Now, I hear a lot of bitching because “We always have to sync the sound”. I thought that the sound was fixed. ????

Red has been out for how long? 18 months? And it’s still in Beta? So, they’ve stopped development of Red One and have moved onto Epic and Scarlet, to be released in 2009 or so. Keep in mind that Red One is on build #17. My 7 year old Sony F-900 is version three and everything works just fine, and has worked fine since September 2002.

It’s true, I can’t shoot a 4K image so therefore I can’t adjust my shots in post, but then again, I happen to be a very talented shooter and I don’t have to adjust my shots in post. I shoot a take and a backup and we move on. So sad that the newbies have to roll 12 takes before they can get it framed right. But, they can fix it in post, remember. By the way, Red doesn’t shoot a 4K image either. It’s a 2.8k recorded image.

A crazy as it may seem, my biggest squawk with Red is the fact that those ding dongs put the control panel on the back, instead of on the operator side of the camera. (Key word here is “operator side) There are so many kick ass things they could have done with that big plate on the left side of the camera instead of that self indulgent Red billboard that they put there. It could have had a touch screen, an LCD, level meters, or god forbid, a switch or two. The Red camera is a huge imager and a computer panel. Yeah, there’s a couple dinky little connectors on the right side but they should have put a removable block on the side that had a gang cable box that screwed on. This camera was designed by computer geeks, not professional camera operators. Some say that I am unwilling to adapt. Well, I’m just not willing to adapt to a problem.

If the initial comment was in response to the fact that I have listed my F-900 for sale, it is simply because I have a huge project coming that will require something different as far as acquisition. We are looking at the Sony 700 XDCAM HD. 100 Gb BluRay is right around the corner. Shoot and put the disc in your pocket when you’re done. No downloding cards. No data wrangler. The wireless receiver drops into a slot and away you go. It’s all self contained, records to a proven, protected media and is very advanced. Also, it has switches for all of the important things that need changed right now. Sony did not finance R&D by suckering over three thousand people into putting down a thousand dollar “deposit”. What a scam.

And, if I could choose any camera on the planet to shoot with, it would be a Sony F-35. And who needs 120 frames per second. My HDCAM deck has Dynamic Tracking. I’ll bet that 95% of Red owners don’t even know what Dynamic Tracking is.

The Red definitely has it’s place but it’s not everyplace. It’s just not my cup of tea. Would I use one for a shoot if asked to do so? Of course. However, what I have works fine so why change? No one has ever complained about the image that our company lays down. And now, we do the bulk of our work these days with EX-1s. Small, cheap, portable = all profit. That little guy is very impressive.

While I’m in a bashing mood, I think I need to ask the usual camera manufacturers why in the hell they have the settings on the gain switch the way they do. On all of the cameras, the low setting is at the top and you push the switch DOWN to go up. It must be the same dizzy idiots who put a legend near an elevator and they have what’s on the first floor, listed at the top and then the higher floors are listed in descending order. I would put floor one at the bottom and go up from there. Does that make any sense at all or am I just crazy? If it (the elevator thing) never bothered you before, it will from now on.

By the way, that F-900 had four channel, 96K sound from day one.

So there.

Thanks for asking Rafael.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

[john sharaf] ”
I don’t get the fascination with these DOF devices”

I fight that every day. This thinking is extremely narrow minded. They have this train of thought that every shot needs to have almost everything out of focus and they all stand around and pat each other on the back. Not everything needs to look like an intense drama.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

[Don Greening] “yes you can jump from SxS card to the SDHC card and visa versa”

I believe that you just press the button that controls which card you’re recording to. As I recall, we did it at a time when the on person camera took a breath.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Steve Wargo]

[Michael Slowe] “Here in the UK thankfully the attitude is one of friendly co operation.”

Maybe we shouldn’t have separated from England back in the 1700s.Oh well, too late mow.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .