Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I’d sure look into it.
Here in Alabama, when we started our company 16 years ago we never charged any sales tax under the same assumption that we were providing a service, not a tangible product.
We were (and still are) mostly producing television commercials, but still were providing boatloads of Betacam dubs (time to gather the children around the rocking chair and explain what dubs were in the olden days). To help cover myself I made sure that all the printed tape labels had a tiny fine-print disclaimer line that read “This tape remains the property of Fantastic Plastic and must be returned upon request.” That was my way of saying “We’re not selling you this tape” even though we never wanted them back (strangely enough, one TV station many states away did ship us back several boxes of them once a year).
We were told many times by a competitor (who did charge sales tax) that we would get busted for this.
As luck would have it, we were audited… by city, county, and state, almost simultaneously.
We did get stuck for not paying a bit of sales tax on equipment items that we had purchased from out-of-state… but all three auditors agreed that we were providing a non-taxable service, not a tangible sales-taxable product.
Of course, you’re on the opposite side of the country from us, so your mileage may vary. I’d certainly ask the proper authorities and/or your CPA about that.
At the very minimum, for those clients who do still want hard copies, it seems to me that you could only charge them sales tax on however much you charged for a disc (20 bucks?), as opposed to tax on the entire production… most of which is clearly a service and not a product.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Michael…
I don’t own those, but I do own a pair of different ProAim instruments from Camtree. Solid enough, for what you pay for.
They were discussed in a previous thread…
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/47/860518
Now that’s a loooong thread that initially was started regarding some backlighting questions, but it got sidetracked. The discussion of the LEDs and some pictures of mine are about halfway down the thread, I think.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Filip Markovic] “It’s funny to me that I never saw sound proof housings for dslr cameras, beside movie sets…
“Yeah, I’ve really only seen them on movie sets, or even more commonly, in TV studios. I’ve always thought you’d see them at golf tournaments (although I never have), where many times snapping photos is verboten. A photographer will certainly at minimum get glared at if he snaps a photo before or during a swing, and often kicked off the course.
Then again the sound barneys are big bulky cumbersome plastic affairs, basically just a little Pelican case with soundproofing inside, a tube for the lens, a couple of connectors for basic controls, and a window in back so you can see the screen or through the viewfinder. Big clunky things.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[john sharaf] “Apples and Oranges”
Oh no doubt, I’m sure they are not even in the same ballpark…
[john sharaf] ” the Red Rock is a Laser”
Just one clarification, the Redrock does have a laser you can turn on as an “aiming assit,” but like the other unit it does work ultrasonically and does continuous measuring.
I do not own nor use either. Sometimes I’ll whip out the aforementioned Fat Max, but not often. And I still have the old-fashioned roll-up tape measure if I’m wanting to feel real Old Hollywood… ha.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Incidentally, as far as the Cine-Tape goes, RedrockMicro also makes a device like that, although theirs is an all-in-one, not a separate display.
No doubt it is not quite as full-featured as the one from Cinematography Electronics… but it’s about a tenth the price…
https://store.redrockmicro.com/Catalog/microTape-Sonar-Rangefinder/microTape
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well those are definitely two unrelated things…
The top photo is a camera (still camera, an SLR or DSLR) in a soundproof blimp… so the still photographer can silently take production photos during takes….
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That’s interesting, John… pretty cool. Probably works better than my method, which is a Stanley “Fat Max” laser tape measure. Then again, I imagine it’s a touch more expensive than the hundred-buck Stanley.
And Filip… John may be right about Item #1… my only other thought would be that it is a Fries director’s finder that you are seeing. But it’s unlikely you’d ever see an AC using that, so I don’t know…
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x4GqRY1Wuq8/Sk_Rwjj1VBI/AAAAAAAACPw/fo1rHOBhkXg/s400/Fries_003_LG.jpg
As for Item #2, not sure, probably some kind of timecode slave for the smartslate.
If you have any links to examples of these we could probably tell you exactly what they are.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Dang, yes that is both a sad and amazing story. I wish I could say it was a surprising story, but it isn’t.
Apparently that page is being quite flooded. I couldn’t get it to load, but here’s a cached version….
https://web.archive.org/web/20131127041019/https://juanluisgarcia.com/dear-spike-lee/
And some interesting Reddit discussion…
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1rjp44/buddys_friend_is_sending_this_open_letter_to/
I hope the guy gets this resolved to his satisfaction. Can’t wait to hear the outcome…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
Buddy's friend is sending this open letter to Director Spike Lee, hopefully with enough awareness this can reach him for a response . PLEASE READ
byu/QuiGonnHank inmovies -
First clue would be knowing what camera you shot with. There’s probably no way to give any advice until we know that.
Plus, as many settings as you can provide or remember.
I’m assuming this footage looks bad even when not in your editing program? When playing it back and watching it on camera? Or viewing it with a real monitor connected straight to the camera? We need to confirm that the source footage is actually bad first.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’m not sure if I’d include shots on my reel from a scene where I wasn’t even there, even if I was the DP on the project as a whole. I’m sure in that instance the second-unit camera operator was technically serving as the DP as well for those scenes (unless there was also a second-unit cinematographer).
I’m reminded of an Academy Awards acceptance speech of some years ago… sadly I don’t even remember when or what movie, but the Oscar for directing was awarded. As the winner was making his way to the podium clips from the movie were shown. The winner took his Oscar and began his speech, but he was laughing. Finally he stopped and said “Sorry, I’m laughing because those clips were all second-unit.” The Academy was showing off his directorial prowess with footage he was nowhere near.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
