[Todd Terry]

[Nick Griffin] “Ever take the time to read any of Chuck Lorre’s vanity plates?”

There are actually several websites dedicated to Chuck’s vanity cards, which is needed since they are only on screen for one second.

Personally, I think his show writing is extreeeeemly weak and pandering (I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would sit through more than three minutes of “Two and a Half Men”… and not much longer for “Big Bang…” but apparently what do I know?)… but some of his vanity cards are, yes, fall-down funny. Very well written.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

If it was pro bono… something discrete like an end title card I think would be fine. Internally within the video I definitely would never ever put my own logo as a bug on someone else’s screen, even if they are getting it for free. That’s cheesy and self-aggrandizing. And you’d certainly never ever ever do that on a client’s paid project.

Most of what we do is broadcast commercials, so there is obviously never ever any credit there, so we are used to that. On longer form things we do (industrials and corporate stuff, etc.), we would rarely if ever put any kind of company credits unless there was a need for (and the client wanted) a legitimate credit roll at the end.

We recently did a government video for an area fire department, and they actually insisted that we put our logo at the end. We didn’t want to… it’s their show, not ours… but that’s what they wanted, so we did.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I’d just have to go through them, same as you.

I’d suggest picking a later episode at random and checking. They used that device literally ALL the time… usually three or four times per show. I’d be VERY surprised if you found an episode that didn’t use it.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I’m tempted to be a smartass and say “Just turn on the TV for ten minutes” because right now there seems to be tons of commercials using this effect… I saw two or three last night.

But instead, check out most any episode of “Scrubs” (available on Netflix, also tons of YouTube clips). That was the go-to transition on “Scrubs,” and the effect would be used at least a few times in every episode.

That would probably be the easiest/fastest to find.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Tim is such an enigma…

He’ll keep quiet for a while… and then open his mouth and you’ll realize he probably has to buy extra-large hats because his brain is so full of info.

Thanks!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Rick… I’m a suction-cup fan now.

I’m thinking of getting another set and putting some baby pins on it… might prove to be a convenient way to mount cutters and such in certain places… maybe even small instruments.

I might try cutting them in half so there’s just one suction cup with a pin on it, for smaller things. For an application like that you could use the model that’s a little shorter than the ones I bought (which were the long ones)… and the shorter ones are even cheaper. About 12 bucks I think.

Could be useful.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

The spikes were only used for background motion tracking in the closeup.

The wide shot has a slight move, too, but it was actually a locked-down shot with the fake camera move added in post… so the tracking spikes weren’t actually needed there.

In hindsight we should have only put up a small greenscreen, just big enough to cover the talent… it would have made the composite a lot easier as there were a lot of green reflections around the edge of the car. They didn’t really affect the key, it was still clean, but it did make parts of the car look green when they shouldn’t be. We took care of those, but it would have saved a step to use a smaller screen. Live and learn, hindsight is 20/20 of course.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Mark, appreciate the words…

What details were you curious about? That scene was a quickie down-n-dirty, snagged on one of our night locations…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Square?

I haven’t used them (we don’t take CCs either), but I know lots of people do. This is certainly not a review, just a “Hey I know this is out there, too.”

You can also take credit cards with a QuickBooks account. We had one set up for a while but dropped it because 1) it had some significant setup/maintenance fees, and 2) we never ever take credit cards, so what’s the point? But they’re out there.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well, it’s whatever looks best to you, and is dependent on your camera.

I don’t shoot with the F55 so I couldn’t say. But, just as an example, I shoot with the Canon C300PL where 850 is considered the “optimal” ISO… but honestly I often shoot much higher and much lower than that. Especially lower, that’s just way too fast for daytime exteriors.

There is probably some documentation in your camera manual that spells it out? There certainly is in the Canon manual.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com