Steve Wargo
20
COW Coins
4
Premiere Pro Coins
Forum Replies Created
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We charge 1/2 of a day’s labor. If a person’s day rate is $500 plus gear, we charge $250 for that person’s time.
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 . -
Minnesota too, huh?
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 . -
[Robin Probyn] “I could always refuse and spit the dummy”
OK, you got me. What in the world are you meaning with this? It sounds like something I’d say.
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 . -
We use the Pelican 1510 with the padded interior. The foam is a bad thing.
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 . -
Are we talking about the same Jane Fonda who went to VietNam during the war and condemned our POWs. Is that the Jane Fonda that we’re both talking about here?
Yep! Hanoi Jane. That’s the one. Nice girl.
https://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp
Every time she has a movie coming out, she goes public with some phony apology over her actions. No thanks.
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 . -
I have found that when co-oping a production, it’s usually a case of the main person putting up their talent as equity and the production company puts up their work and expense for equity. The problem here is that the talent person can decide to walk away from the deal and they are out nothing.
I say split it like this:
Figure out what the production will honestly cost to do.
Subtract your labor. ONLY your labor! NO GEAR!
Split the actual cost with the talent person. This way, you each have a vested interest in seeing the project succeed. I learned this one by having several joint projects just fade away.
It won’t seem fair to the other guy and that’s your cue to walk away.
The original Jane Fonda (traitor bitch) workout tapes were a joint effort of her and her video guy. She had the only product on the market and it was a raging success. Don’t use her as a guide, ever.
If he is confident that it will sell, he will have no problem investing in his own future.
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 . -
If you have Chimeras, I would doubt that you need an additional light. Eye lights are used when the rest of the lighting is subdued and only the eyes are to be accented. OR, if the talent has facial features that warrant it as in very deep set eyes..
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 . -
MANY years ago (around 10) I bought the assets of a video company going out of business. Part of the deal was that they had put $500 down on a Sony UVW-100B Betacam Camera, soon to be released. The B+H price was actually around $12k.
We needed the camera for a job in Irvine, California, a few days later. I called B+H and talked to the guy handling the account and gave them a debit card number for the payment. I had about $50k in the account at the time. Debit cards had just appeared and the bank’s ad said “Use your debit card like cash”. So I did. This was 2 days before the trip to Irvine from Phoenix.
I get a call the next morning from the B+H guy who leaves us a message on the recorder that goes something like this: “Mr. Wargo. You are a dead beat! You’re credit card is no good and neither are you. Stop trying to steal our cameras. Your order is cancelled and we are keeping your $500 because you are a crook.”
Well! That was a great way to start the day. I immediately assumed that the new camera was not being shipped overnight priority as I had specified. It turns out that no matter how much money you have in an account, you cannot actually use your debit card like cash. A quick call to the bank disclosed that one can only use it for up to $7500 in any 24 hour period.
I make a humble call to our guy at B+H and explain the situation. We figure out that the wife and I have two debit cards with different numbers. We put &7500 on one and the balance on another. B+H ships the camera by FedEX with only about 10 minutes to go.
It arrives the next morning and the folly shifts into phase “2”.
The packaged lens does not fit. Now what? I know. I’ll call my friendly customer service rep at B+H. I call 1-800 pray-now and my usual rep is off on a holiday.
CSR number 2 listens while I tell him that the B+H supplied Canon lens does not fit onto the front of the camera. Here is his reply to the best of my recollection (word for word because I recorded it): “Even a pathetic idiot could figure out how to put a lens on the camera. Maybe you should get one of your kids to help you with that you stupid (mumble mumble)”
I calmly explain that the camera requires an “SX” style of lens mount, according to the manual (Yep, I read it. I am not a real man). He said that he has not received any complaints from anyone else. I asked how many UVW-100b camera/lens combinations he had sold and he said that I was the first one. In my mind, I’m thinking he has a 100% failure rate. He feels otherwise. He repeated the “stupid” part and I asked him to hold.
A very good friend of mine is Tom Bender from Canon, in Irvine of all places. I called him but he wasn’t in. I told his associate about my dilema and he confirmed the “SX” lens part. I connected all three of us together using the conference function on our office phone. The Canon rep proceeded to tell the the B+H rep that they had ordered 200 incorrect lenses. The B+H rep said he would check on it and let the Canon rep know if he agreed, and then hung up. He did not call the Canon rep stupid.
I stayed on the phone with the Canon rep and asked if he would provide us a b-stock or a loaner. We were leaving for Irvine about 3 hours later. He declined and said that B+H is on a cash account because of “well, I can’t really say”. Had Mr. Bender not been on vacation, we would have had a loaner waiting at the hotel where we were staying. I made a few calls and borrowed a lens for the trip.
Not being one to hold a grudge, regardless of anything you may have heard otherwise, I decided to give B+H another try when we bought our F-900 from BandPro. I needed some filters that BandPro did not have in stock, specifically, a 4×5.6 blue sky grad – horizontal of course. A call to B+H disclosed that they had a #2 blue sky grad. I asked the delightful CSR to verify that the grad was horizontal and not vertical. I actually faxed him a drawing of the filter in actual size. He called back and confirmed that my wildest dreams had indeed come true. I payed standard overnight FedEx and the filter that I desperately needed for a rental arrived the very next afternoon. I open the box and, yep, you guessed it (or I wouldn’t be telling this tale) it was a vertical grad. I called him and he agreed to accept it back. They kept a 15% restocking fee and did not reimburse my shipping because it wasn’t their fault that I needed it overnight.
Part three of the story is that NAB was right after the first incident and I visited the B+H booth to see if my friendly rep #1 was there. He was. I proceeded to ask him if he felt that treating customers ($12,000 customers) like he did was really good for repeat business and customer good will and he told me that they are a huge company and that I am only about a big as a pimple on a camel’s ass and that I should leave the hall immediately or he would summon security. I’m surprised that he didn’t tell me to leave town.
Please note that I can be a real diplomat when necessary and he was treated with way more respect than he deserved.
So, there it is.
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 . -
When you’re in a restaurant and the server says “Do you want sour cream with that?”, is it their duty to tell you that it’s $.50 extra or is it your duty to ask if it costs extra?
It’s their duty to tell you, just like it’s our duty to tell the client that the rate is higher for nights and weekends.
I usually say “Is there going to be any issue with the higher weekend rate?” This is a polite way to open the door with a question rather that slapping them with “Hey buddy! You are going to pay like hell to get me out there on a Sunday”.
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 . -
There is a TC piece that we found last year. Didn’t buy it but we still need it and will purchase it soon, IF I can remember who it was. I’ll have that answer tomorrow. I believe a company in Las Vegas makes it.
Around $200. We need it so we can feed HD-SDI into our Black Magic Multibridge and input timecode as well into FCP.
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 .