[Timothy J. allen]

I’m happy to see that you are o.k. Matt.

My kids were getting worried from the news last Tuesday so my wife and I decided to turn this thing into a vacation for them. We boarded up and headed to my in-law’s house in Kentucky on Highway 59 on Wednesday morning about 10:30, and traffic was “normal”. What a difference a couple of hours makes! I have friends at NASA that left in the early afternoon and spent the same amount of time going 75 miles that I spent going 750 miles.

On the way back, I saw a grand total of two (2) gas stations open during the last 200 miles into Houston. Luckily, there where only a few traffic jams…and those were because of those two gas stations being open 😉

But seriously… I saw several guys on four-wheelers bringing cans of gas to stranded travelers on 59. One rest stop in a hard hit area on the way back had free food and drinks for Rita evacuees. I didn’t stop, but it was a nice gesture. There are some really good people in Texas.

Anyway, you make great points about the ability to pack up in a hurry. We covered our Avids at NASA with huge plastic bags and hoped for the best. We were lucky this time. We still have some employees trying to get back, but most stores are open, and I haven’t noticed any real “shortages” of food or water. I can wait a few days to fill up the gas tank.

-Timothy Allen (…who is seriously thinking of buying a motorcycle to save gas $$.)

[Timothy J. allen]

This is probably my favorite forum (although “Art of the Edit” gives it a run for the money). I must say that I’ve been focusing more lately on developing my leadership skills, and trying to get more experience under my belt in that area. That’s one reason you guys haven’t heard much from me lately – I’m spending less time online and more time talking to people in person.

That said, I miss participating in the conversations around here and I do want you all to know that I still read every post. (It’s just usually WAY after the end of the business day by the time I get online away from work.)

I’m in the process of writing a new article about “leading and managing creative professionals” which I hope to submit soon. It’s about how to work with diverse types of artists on a daily basis and the struggle between satisfying employee’s creative desires while also bringing in enough profit to keep them employed.

I believe this dichotomy between business and art is a destructive illusion and I plan on illustrating the reasons behind my thinking. The challenge of balancing between the business and the art (individually and while leading a creative group) seems to bring all of us a few gray hairs.

That may be why I haven

[Timothy J. allen]

Mark makes a great point about resume scanners. That’s why it’s important to find out who will be reading the resume and target it to that person …or that computer 😉

The key is putting yourself in the shoes of the so called “gatekeeper” and figure out what they need to see to forward your resume onward.

If it’s the type of person that wouldn’t go for anything other than a “traditional” format, a traditional one is what you need to send. If it’s an ascii reader, then you need to account for the keywords Mark spoke about.

Keep in mind that if you sprinkle your resume with keywords, the human that eventually reads it will be able to know you did that. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you are honest about your skills. I’ve actually sent both formats to the same potential employer with one labeled “for your database” and the other to the attention of the person who was conducting the interviews. They understood why I did this and were glad that I was up with technology to know enough to do that. (This was about 7 years ago, so ascii readers were pretty much only at the large companies back then.)The interviewers were glad to see that I made it easy for them to get their jobs done even before the interview was granted.

I should mention that when I talk about the layout of the resume, I’m not talking about any thing truly wild. I’m simply talking about finding ways to draw human eyes to certain parts of the document. (Not unlike you would do when shooting or editing.) That doesn’t mean adding things like graphics that a computer wouldbn’t understand. It means making use of white space, choosing your order of items carefully, and some other simple design elements that wouldn’t fool today’s text readers anyway. Just like with video design… a little modification goes a long way.

-TJA

-TJA

(… and yes… I was offered the job.)

[Timothy J. allen]

First, let me say that J’s points are right on target. It’s good to find sample resumes when you are trying to create one of your own.

The information included in the resume is very important. It

[Timothy J. allen]

Welcome, Franklin!
I’m glad to see you here.
-Timothy Allen

[Timothy J. allen]

DON’T DO IT! (Sorry to shout, but it’s important.)

The waiver will not keep you out of court or gaurentee a judgment against you, it may een point to your guilt, since it demonstrates that you most likely knew it was illegal.

In most states, (if not all), the producer is responsible for clearing the music, and securing rights to any footage used.

My advice – simply get permission to use the song from the publisher. Part of why we get paid the “big bucks” is to deal with things like that. Have you checked to see how much it would cost to get permission to use it?

This is a good opportunity to make a little extra $ in return for the additional work you need to do. Call the publisher, get the quote for how you intend to use it, tack on a 10% service fee for your trouble and bill it back to the client. Present it to the client as “in order to use that music, it costs $X.” If they don’t want to pay it, offer alternative music that doesn’t cost so much for the rights. That’s the professional approach to this situation.

It amazes me that clients don’t realize that the music industry is an industry and it costs money to legally take advantage of the talent out there.

I’ll bet the total licensing fees would cost less than the total court costs.

-TJA

[Timothy J. allen]

It’s still too broadly defined to really say…

Here are some questions for you…

* What about music/sfx? Is it from a stock library or is it custom for each episode?

* You said no producer or director… Someone will need to fill the role of producer (whether it’s an editor or someone else) Do you mean don’t include the cost of a producer in the budget estimate? Or roll that cost into a producer/director/editor role?

* Is this shot with only one camera at a time (film style)?

* What kind of audio support do you plan to have on location? (One guy with a shotgun mic and a mixer, or more than that?)

* What is the production schedule or timeline for each episode (shorter production timelines mean that it costs more- since overtime has to be considered)

* Do you have to rent any extra gear for production? (cameras, jibs, monkey costumes?)

* Do you have to rent any extra crew for production? (shooters, stunt persons, monkeys?)

* What about production insurance?

* Would production require a completion guaranty?

* What’s your target distribution market(s)?

* What about promotion/marketing/distribution costs? (Or are you just wondering about production costs only?)

The answer to these questions will play into the final costs just as much as the other things you listed.

-TJA

[Timothy J. allen]

Trashing the .ini file didn’t help. Also, I found out that this issue is consistant with all of our Avid Media Composer Adrenalines which have been upgraded to version 1.6.3.

…and the issue isn’t limited to 16×9 footage, Some of our other editors are seeing this in any RED effect in any program (4×3 or 16×9).

Even projects that used to have rendered files that looked good before our Avid upgrade are showing this anomaly now. I hope the upgrade to Red 3 fixes it, but if any of you have ideas, I would really appreciate them.

Thanks!
-TJA

[Timothy J. allen]

Actually, the Avid Adrenaline is version 1.6.3. We have several programs that need to hit air dates but won’t if this isn’t resolved, so I’m feeling the heat.

Any other Avid users seeing this “issue”?

-TJA

[Timothy J. allen]

Hi,
We videotape in “zero G” pretty often. Honestly, I’ve seen more issue with the camera iris because of the white walls and lack of controllable lighting on the “vomit comet” (and the space station or shuttle), than I see problems with reduced gravity.

Whether to build a rig depends on what you want to see. You will lose the perspective of the entire experiment