Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Rick beat me to the punch, I was out earlier and about to respond, when I saw his reply come in.
My suggestion too was to hit eBay… or as my hero Ron Swanson says, “the electronic bay dot com.” Mitchell mags are always quite plentiful there, and usually relatively cheap. It boils down to one of those “What is my time worth” kinds of things.
I have mags, but no Mitchells or Auricons. If you really want to make one though, I think a friend has some. I’m not home right now though, I’m on location down at the gulf coast this week, but I can check when I get back home in a week or so.
We built a similar behind-glass display for the folks up at educational TV here in their lobby with lots of old photos, a rainbow “Johnny Carson” curtain, and several old cameras (we had to scour eBay for vintage sticks for some of them)… it was very cool (even have a bigass Norelco turret-front studio camera in the display), so your project has a lot of potential.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think part of it is that people’s attention spans, especially in the US, are so short these days.
We’ve never actually counted or added it up, but by my best guess I’ve directed and/or produced somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 television commercials. Of those, I can think of FOUR that were :60s. Maybe six, tops. Virtually all the rest were :30s. Maybe a few :10s and :15s here and there, and even some :04 ID spots, but they wouldn’t account for more than 100 or so. 99.8% of them have been thirty-second spots.
It is really hard to tell a real story in thirty seconds, and frankly we don’t always get to do that. Or even usually get to do that. More like sometimes get to do that. But at least it’s a good goal.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That’s some really good stuff.
As for….
[Mark Suszko] “It reminded me of an Isaac Asimov robot story, “Lenny”. Which I’d love to someday shoot as a short.”
Harlan Ellison beat you to it… sort of. His screenplay “I, Robot” is based on Asimov’s “Lenny,” although by the time it became a finished film you’d never know it. I don’t think there was even a character named Lenny in the final movie… although there certainly was in the screenplay.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Just couple observations…
[Joe Knapp] “Brainstorming new GOOD names is much harder than you would think.”
No, I think we all know that’s really hard… been in on many a session where people wrestled with a company name.
[Joe Knapp] “problem my buddy was running into is that the names he wanted were all taken online.”
Well I’m glad you recognize the importance of that, because many people do not. Make SURE you pick a name that you can register a clear .com name for. Again, .com. Not .net, .org, .biz, or any of the other suffixes. People AUTOMATICALLY type .com no matter what the actual suffix is. There is a British record company with the exact same name and domain as ours… only our suffix is .com and theirs is .co.uk. We get TONS of their email, because people just type .com as a default. If you think you really are more of a .net or a .org, only go with those if you can ALSO get the .com. Here, the real domain is creativecow.net, but if you type creativecow.com it will also forward you here, because the COW gurus were smart enough to register both.
And make sure it’s a clear-and-easy domain name. No hyphens or anything weird like that. Don’t try to do anything cute, like using a number instead of a word unless you can ALSO get the domain spelled the “usual” way as well. If you want to name a company “Kool Cre8ive Stuff,” that’s fine and go ahead and register koolcre8ivestuff.com but ONLY if coolcreativestuff.com is also available. If you are a hipster (check to see if you have a goatee and/or are wearing black skinny jeans) and your company name ends in _____worx or ____werks or ____werx, only use those if you can also get _____works.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “I HATE company names that are deliberately ambiguous. Is it a bar, a strip club, a trendy coffee house or art gallery, or WHAT?!?!?”
Mark’s just cranky because he had to explain to his wife that he only ordered a coffee but accidently got a lap dance.
On the upside, Spice Latte got a great tip.
Personally, I kinda like the obscure names… but only when they are really good obscure names.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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He looks like he did really great work there… very finished, polished, and professional.
I’ll make one “Good Lord he’s being picky” point about terminology, which might make a difference to someone considering this…
Both Mark in his original post and Tony in his video referred to using these big lenses on DSLR cameras… and late in the video he says his cage “isn’t camera specific,” and can be used with any DSLR. Here’s my picky point, the Panasonic Lumix he is using is NOT a DSLR. It is a mirrorless camera (and Tony mentions that it is for mirrorless cameras, but he also uses the term DSLR). Remember, DSLR is Digital Single Lens Reflex… i.e., “reflex” meaning it has a mirror and a prism.
Why is this important? Because most DSLRs these days have a bigass 35mm sensor. Many or most of the mirrorless still cameras have a somewhat smaller sensor and can use a MFT lens adapter which will allow use of the B4 (and similar) lenses. These older ENG lenses would likely NOT cover the sensor area of a 35mm or full-frame sized sensor, as the lens was designed for the much smaller sensor (I’m assuming a 2/3″ sensor) of an ENG camera.
I’m just being picky about that because I wouldn’t want someone to think “Hey I’m gonna scrounge up an ENG lens for my 5D.” It likely won’t work, as the lens will probably not cover the sensor. Some DSLRs might fit/work (those with smaller sensors), but the all-the-rage-today “full frame” sensor cameras probably wouldn’t with the average ENG lens.
But other than that pickiness, it looks like a pretty elegant piece of gear.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Nick Griffin] “What I DON’T miss is, in the final weeks, the URGENT 1:00AM calls to create a brand new spot…”
LOVE that! You’re in “name your price” territory, there 🙂
My most urgent one like that was turned around in about 5 hours, from the first midnight telephone call and concept… to seeing it on air. On film, no less. I was tired, but we sent them a bill that would gag a horse.
Those “urgent” political spots are actually what sparked our move to HD several years ago, even though no one was actually airing HD here yet. We had previously shot most higher-end politicals on 35mm, but urgency (or perceived urgency) started to preclude that. But the clients still wanted the film look, they just couldn’t wait on it. That’s right about the time that it was first becoming technically possible to shoot digitally but keep the film look (true 24p shooting, with a P+S Technic converter, and later with big-sensor camera). We haven’t shot a frame of film since. The 16mm and 35mm cameras have long been sold… although recently I noticed a couple of drawers in the fridge are still full of filmstock.
There’s also a mystery Tupperware container in there that I’m not about to open.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, this is really a forum for lighting designers for the film, television, and theatrical industries…
BUT… I don’t mind answering your question.
No specs are given, but from the look of it, it just appears to take a regular Edison-base lamp… a plain ol’ ordinary screw-in household light bulb.
So any bulb (tungsten, compact fluorescent, LED, etc.) with a “regular” base should fit.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Of course, it’s always good to get as much money as you can, as soon as you can.
They only time we ever had trouble with a political bill getting a little late was once when working for a candidate himself, directly.
We’ve never had a lick of trouble otherwise, as most of our work is for ad agencies or political consultants. With those we bill our usual net/30, but I can’t recall a political spot ever taking longer than 5-7 days to get paid.
The good news is that the jobs get bigger, faster, and more urgent the closer you get to election day… and when the date is really close if a campaign is really aggressive, then that’s when they especially move into “no matter what it costs” territory. And since federal election laws require than the books be settled by election day, there’s no waiting to get paid.
But yeah, for an individual candidate who is a direct client, get your money upfront.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Richard Herd] “Do candidates just take their lumps and move on?”
Yep, it just seems to be part of their cost of doing business.
It has nothing to do with your position on the totem pole. I’d bet you a nickel that even the highest poobahs in the campaigns or their political consults never get a moment of grief about it from the other side. It’s not right, but it’s so soundly in the “everybody’s doing it” territory that it is just ignored.
The only ONLY time I’ve EVER heard of any backlash was when Shepard Fairey used an AP photo to create the iconic Obama “Hope” poster… and this was a different situation because it wasn’t an opponent crying foul, but the rights-holder…
…and this is one instance that one would have been completely overlooked, if it hadn’t been such a beautiful piece of work and become such an iconic image. If the rights hadn’t been owned by the AP, probably nothing would have ever come of it.
Other than that, I’ve never heard anyone make a peep of noise about it. It’s probably happened, but certainly isn’t the norm.
Again, I’m not saying it’s right (it isn’t). Just how it is.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
