Steve Wargo
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COW Coins
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Premiere Pro Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Hey there Rennie, a lot of us feel the same way you do in regards to making sure our work doesn’t end up looking like garbage.
A friend of mine is a very, high end compositor that uses a Flame to process some fantastic TV spots. After finishing one last year, the client took the DVD version and had some text changed before it aired, obviously because it as cheaper for a Final Cut quickie. Can you image how that looked on TV? However, it was no longer his to control and the client thought it looked just fine. We’re still sick over that.
As far as needing to make money on copies because you didn’t make enough in the first place tells me that you need to charge more up front. Charge for your time. Don’t do anything free for incidental clients. They don’t appreciate it. They don’t care. Having said that, we just put a few extra days into a project for the city we live in because it was a special video aimed at children, to get them to go to the library. I guess that sometimes, you just have to, don’t you? My advice is not globally applicable.
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 . -
[Ron Lindeboom] “Ron and Steve’s position on ownership “
I didn’t say that I don’t own it. I said that I don’t WANT to own it.
All I need is for someone to go on-line and call me a thief and then the you know what hits the fan. And, as I’ve said before, pulling something off the web is like pulling pee out of the sea.
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 . -
David, if you go back though the posts in this thread, you’ll see numerous people claiming that they own the copyright to everything they shoot unless there is a signed “Work for Hire” agreement. Regardless of the law, our company never claims copyright. I just don’t need any legal problems. We can debate this forever and until some court decision finally puts it in black and white, the argument will go on forever.
[David Roth Weiss] “Whoever assumes that or anything else is just opening themselves to disapointment.” I agree, of course. As for your question, first of all, Dick Wolf’s camera guys are his employees. If Dick hires a guy to shoot his grandkids birthday party – now what? I asked some colleagues that very same question earlier today. About 10 years ago, I shot interviews for Stephen Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah. Who owns the copyright to that stuff?
We have seen posts above where some have said that they own the footage and the client does not. I just bought a book at NAB this afternoon titled “Media Law for Producers”. In it, there is mention of the “creator” owning the footage but the book does not go into “who” the creator is.
As I stated in my post, we give it all to the client. I don’t want to be tempted. I don’t want my employees tempted. We did a job for the band Megadeath a few years back and I had to sign a multimillion dollar liability agreement with Columbia Records before we could shoot anything. We’ve done work for some very large companies and some have us sign an agreement and some don’t.
On another note: this guy Flagler was making millions of dollars all these years? Holy crap. How many of us figured that he was making that much money? It’s no wonder WM went Chinese, they had to pay Flagler’s invoices. On the legal side, can he sell evidence? Doesn’t the opposition just have to subpoena the tapes? As for the comment from, I believe, Bob Cole, shouldn’t someone had advised the client to not record something? We’ve done that on a few occasions. maybe Flagler had the whole thing planned. Isn’t it just a bit odd that he knows where all of the “evidence” is located in 15,000 tapes? Did the footage belong to Flagler himself or to his company? If he sold the company, shouldn’t the tapes have gone along with the other assets? This whole thing smells bad to me.
Whoa! Lot’s of unanswered questions. But now that we know some answers on dollar amounts, I now have a much lower opinion of the person in question.
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 . -
that 503 is a very sweet head for the money. What you actually need is a 516 though. When you load the camera with a large battery and a light and wireless mic, it starts to add up. In the future, if you’ll ever use a lens convertor, a prompter or something else, you might push the 503 to it’s weight limit.
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 . -
Mitch,
Why not take the 16×9 anamorphic footage and run it through a convertor to make it a 4×3 letterbox to match the other stuff? Seems like going the other way could work too but what format is the deliverable? If it’s 4×3, my suggestion above gets you right there. If it’s 16×9 for WS display, then take the letterboxed clips and crop them to 16×9 in Combustion or whatever.The deliverable format will determine your course of action.
FYI, the projectinist at Ferrelli’s supper club told me that 16×9 is “A regular picture where they put black bars over the top and bottom of the picture. Every idiot knows that.” He was 100% correct on one of those points.
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 . -
The shooter owns the copyright but has no right to use the material.
The person who paid had absolute right to use the footage forever.
This just creates questions in my mind. We just tell the clients it’s all theirs. When we do a job for an agency, we ask them to clarify whether they own it or the end client owns it.
Supposedly, there is a clause in the law the states that the copyright belongs to the “creator” of the work. It has always been ASSUMED that the photographer or shooter is the “creator”. With the recent acceptance of the term “Intellectual Property”, look for the term “creator” to be redefined in a court of law. It’s coming. After the recent WGA strike, a lot of heads are rolling on the subjects of “work for hire”, “origination”, “creator” and more.
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 . -
[robert reed] “When it comes to Flagler and those that agree with them”
They probably bought some Chinese underwear at WM and it fell apart in the laundry.
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 . -
[John Cummings] “”Est. arrival at B&H is 2-4 weeks” “
i heard that the guy writing the ad used to work at Red Cinema. that puts delivery at about Christmas – ’09.
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 . -
Four guys and only three names. Ouch! How would you like to be that 4th guy?
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 . -
That sums it up Walter. It’s good to know that there are a lot of people on this forum that know right from wrong but it’s sad to see that some are siding with Flagler. Someone earlier said that “We don’t know what we would do in the same situation”. Well, I do. And you do too. As well as Boomer and many others. We stand on our reputation and on our honor, no matter what.
Clients have asked us about “Who owns it?” in the past and we have always said that we would guard their interests to the best of our ability and there have been a few times that we landed the client or the job based on our integrity.
I think that if Photography Studios had a sign on the door that said “We own the copyright to every photo we take of you and your family”, they would all be gone in about a month.
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 .