Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I have not, Joe… I’m not familiar with that, and will certainly check that out.
And yes Mark we not only use it as a selling point, but a line item as well… we always include an “archival fee” on projects. It’s not much, I think it’s $75, but more than covers the drive cost, so it’s actually a slight money maker. Slight.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I don’t know if there is any legal requirement, but we have the same issue… as broadcast commercials are 95% of what we produce.
We keep everything. Forever. And not just masters, but all the assets in creating them.
It’s not everyday that we need something (or a piece of something) that is 5, 10, or 15 years old… but it does happen.
Ancient stuff here (late 90s) is archived on stacks of CDs. Things slightly newer than that, on data DVDs. A bit newer than that, on Blu-ray discs. And present-day stuff is all archived on hard drives. As for original acquisition, original camera tapes (from back in the tape days) are in storage, as are 16mm and 35mm original camera negatives.
Although I must say while we keep everything, sometimes finding it is a bit more challenging. I will freely admit we need a slightly better archival/library system.
I’ll add that we do this because we generally (or at least more than half the time) also do the creative for our clients. For agency clients where we are just tasked with effecting their scripts and concepts, I don’t feel quite so beholden to keep their stuff forever. But we do anyway.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Alan Balch] ” If that is the case, would I be able to get an hour of shooting time from a 32 GB card and 2 hours with 2 cards?”
It depends on settings etc. For example with the C300 you can shoot at various bitrates, although I always shoot at the maximum which is 50Mbps.
I shoot on the 16GB cards, which are more than big enough for most of my projects (but then again I’m almost exclusively shooting :30 broadcast commercials). You can of course shoot on the 32GB or 64GB cards (as long as they are fast enough, always at minimum use the SanDisk Extreme 60MB/s cards), although anecdotal evidence tells me the 16GB cards are the most stable ones. I always shoot dual cards, recording the same thing to both card slots so I have a backup.
A 16GB card at highest bitrate gives me 41 minutes of 1080p 23.976fps footage.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “Yeah but reversed and spring held on with gaffer tape…”
I’ve done this for a couple of decades+ now and I’ve never heard of a “B-52” before.
Ya learn something new every day I guess.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “Not a fan of the pop up ones”
Yeah, me either… rather use them, except for a quick setup where I know I’m going to shoot a quick shot and then break down two minutes later and have a crew member to hand-hold it the entire time.
[Craig Alan] “But the frame doesn’t stay assembled by itself which is weird.”
Is your frame hollow tube? If so, you can string shock cord (elastic bungee cord you buy by the foot) throughout the entire frame… keeps it together, pull it apart to disassemble it, and it will also pop up back together tight like those elastic-strung tent poles. We’ve done this with 4×4 frames before, works well. It’s kinda hard to find shock cord in stores, and when you do it’s expensive. But it is plentiful and cheap on eBay. Quarter inch works well…
https://www.ebay.com/itm/261242632588[Craig Alan] ” allow you to mount the vinyl with some B-52s? “
Ummm… C-47s? Maybe, if your frame is thin… or use cheap small spring clamps from Harbor Freight. Or velcro on the frame and silk.
[Craig Alan] ” I think I’d be nervous doing that in front of our 1k fresnels. They get really hot.”
If that’s a 1K tungsten, yeah, they’re probably too hot. They work fine though on a 1200w HMI, maybe even larger but that’s as big as I normally use. You’d think an instrument that big would melt it right away, but the vinyl doesn’t even get warm. Of course, although HMI housings get pretty darn toasty, they generate much more light than heat compared to tungsten.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Alan Balch] “colleagues say that in all of their personal experience, they love the products that Canon puts out. That makes me think that maybe it’s time for a change. Any thoughts?”
Well, personally I’m a die hard Canon guy now. I used Sony cameras for years and always found them to be the “industry standard,” and Canon was more in the consumer world.
Not any more. We bought an XL1 about 15 years ago just as a small “B” camera, and really liked it… although we still shot Sonys as our primary cameras. About five or six years ago we switched to the then-brand-new Canon XLH1 as our primary camera, which (when paired with a P+S Technik converter and cine primes) was unbelievable for the time. It was my favorite camera ever. Until now… after switching to the C300 almost a year ago, now that is my favorite camera ever. So much so that even though I was a hardcore film guy for years I have now sold my last 35mm camera, which was my last remaining piece of real film gear. The C300 has totally won me over.
Now, I don’t recommend that particular camera for you… it’s definitely cine-style gear and that might not be most appropriate for your particular usage (or it might be, I really can’t say). But I blather on about that to say, yes, you should definitely take a look at the current offerings from Canon.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I dunno about the rest of you (and don’t want to get on a political soap box), but here even though companies don’t get much smaller than ours we still do gladly pay employees’ health insurance as one of the main extra benefits of working here (that, and my sunny disposition). It’s one of the best ways I know to get (and keep) good people.
And it’s just the right thing to do.
We get cold calls from those cut-rate or no-name health insurance companies every so often, trying to get us to switch to them. My response to them is always “Do you want the staff here to revolt? Because if we killed the Blue Cross Blue Shield, that would happen.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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More vinyl…
Forgot I had uploaded this pic to the COW long time ago.
Here’s one of the 4×4’s that I made gaffer tape “pockets” on the corners so I could use softbox rods to attach it to a 1200w HMI fresnel… so I can diffuse without setting up a separate stand and frame. I drilled holes in the perimeter of the barndoor’s ring to make a sort of halfassed speedring. I use this setup for exteriors a lot to give talent some punch.
There’s no elastic loops on this one but I think it’s self explanatory…
And no, as I said before it doesn’t melt, or even really get warm. It might with a big tungsten instrument, but not with HMI.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Here’s another DIY thing with the vinyl that I should have mentioned but forgot about til I just ran across it in the truck.
We have several pop-up silks as well as reflectors, but never found a pop-up silk that had a nice translucent quality that I liked.
So I took an old 52″ pop-up Photoflex reflector that we had retired (it had lost most of its silver). I cut a big circle out of the center of it, leaving about a 2″ hem all the way around. Then I glued a big circle of the vinyl in with hot glue. I now have a pop-up version of the rag that I was talking about with the 4×4.
I don’t use it much but if you are traveling light or in run-n-gun mode without all your normal gak like Hollywood frames etc then it is a good quick-n-easy substitute.
It wads and folds right up like normal, then pops right back. I know the idea seems kinda fragile, but we’ve had this for years and looks and works the same as the day I made it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I sort of “hem” the edge of the vinyl all around with gaffer tape (one strip, folded over). Then the elastic was taped on. If I recall (it’s been years) I think I put a dab of hot glue in there to give it some extra hold. They’ve never come off.
As I said I don’t have the DIY versions with me, but do have some larger “real” Matthews silks with me and my DIY corners are arranged basically just like theirs, took a quick cell phone shot…
And I do have one or two that I put grommets on (with ties) like you suggested. But I quickly found that was overkill on a 4×4 and that the corners were enough, so I didn’t put grommets in the subsequent ones.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
