Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Duh… you’re right. Dunno what I was thinking.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “You also can’t go wrong using Peter Thomas for your VO guy, MAN, I wish I could do that.”
Yep, Peter is THE man. I use him as much as I can (where appropriate), but try not to overuse him. He’s great for health care, political, etc…. wherever you need a narrator that’s just dripping with authority, yet not a cliched “Voice of God” type. And a sweeter old guy you’ll never meet.
I’ll have to ask him if he’s still getting paid for Hardcastle’s “17.”
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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After trying it a few ways, we almost always do it this way…
I carry on my small case full of prime lenses. They stay with me at all times, as they are my babies (and because they are worth more than all other gear combined)… they never leave my sight.
EVERYthing else is shipped… usually via FedEx. A little pricey, yes… but sooo worth it in terms of hassle-freeness and confidence in arrival. We have several large pelican cases dedicated to all the gear, usually five to seven cases depending on what all we are taking, shoot format, etc. (actually some of the longer-shaped stuff doesn’t go in pelicans, but in golf bag shipping caes… tripods, jibs, stands, etc.). We ship them via FedEx marked “Hold at FedEx for pickup,” indicating the FedEx location closest to our destination airport or hotel or shoot location… whatever works best. We zip by, pick it up, and it’s always there waiting for us. There are always stories people have where things didn’t go well… but we have never once had a piece of gear delayed, lost, or damaged. I can’t say the same about checked baggage.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[walter biscardi] “So we run it on a PC here.”
I know Walter is not alone. Except for one graphics Mac we are an all-PC house, so it’s not a problem. But a friend who is a businessman with an office full of Macs was constantly tearing his hair out and fighting with Intuit over problems with the Apple version.
So, like several other people I know of, he just bought an inexpensive off-the-shelf PC and dedicated it to accounting… and has been happily running Quickbooks ever since.
He found that was cheaper in the long run, rather than wasting valuable time wrestling with the Apple version. It’s not a power-hungry program, so could might even be able to run if off a $300 netbook… or a cheapo eBay or CraigsList machine.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey Jared…
Coincidently, we did exactly the same thing for a product video hawking digital signage transmitters for a corporate client (Avocent Corp)… they wanted pretty much a straight rip-off of the Apple spots.
So, considering the spots as “inspiration”… we did the white limbo thing. We even cast an actor that looked a heckva lot like Justin Long from the Apple spots.
We shot it mostly practically, with some clean up in post. It was shot in our studio on white seamless photographic background paper that hung from the grid and trailed out onto the floor.
Because the background roll was pretty far back (to help eliminate shadows), the paper wasn’t quite wide enough to cover the frame in the wide shots. There was also some things in the frame to get rid of (mic boom, some lighting instruments)… so in the end all of the extraneous stuff was matted out, along with extending the virtual set and killing a few floor shadows.
The background was lit by Kinos, and the key light on the talent was a 1200w HMI that was bounced into a high central white 4×4 bounce card. If I recall, I think we also had a reflector or two for fill, and maybe a couple of small instruments to help fill in some problem areas (this was a few hundred shoots ago, so I don’t remember the exact details).
You can see the results at the beginning and end of the video here…
https://www.connectivity.avocent.com/tv/I think in the end we got a better result doing it practically rather than trying to greenscreen. It’s not perfect by any means… but close enough considering the scope of the project and their fairly low budget.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yep, Mick, I have noticed that.
Most of the people here are very gracious and appreciative of the help they get… fortunately. I try to be the same way when it’s me coming here to get advice as well as give it.
But… just like anywhere, there are invariably a few clods who do not have any social skills.
There’s one occasional poster in particular that will ask for help (they usually aren’t difficult problems), be given several thoughtful responses by people, but you never hear back from his original post. Never a “I’ll try that,” or a “That won’t work because…” or even just a “Thank you.” He’s even emailed me off forum for advice, which I happily gave. I’ll assume my emails back to him went through. Can’t say for sure because I never heard boo back from him.
Know what? I don’t respond to his posts anymore. At all. Even when I might have a perfect/easy solution.
I don’t need to be thanked for my efforts… not at all. But it’s a bit saddening not to be even acknowledged at all.
Fortunately most people aren’t like that.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Quickbooks Pro.
I think you’ll find that’s the choice of lots of small business people here.
Does a heck of a lot more useful stuff than just invoicing, too.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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To develop the bike idea one click further….
Is the rink big enough to accommodate getting an electric golf cart in there? (and is there a wide enough door?)
The cart could be driven in front of the skater, with a Steadicam operator on the back. That configuration has been used a number of times… although I’ll admit I’ve never seen it done indoors.Or…. don’t suppose you have a Segway with Steadicam mount?…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think that’d work in theory…. but yeah you’d have to have some good equipment and some GREAT operators.
My biggest concern would be that you’d probably want to pile as much weight on the dolly as possible, to keep the thing from tipping, and to give you smooth dolly moves. But that would give you tremendous inertia at the end of the dolly moves that would have to be braked smoothly and suddenly. Might be possible, hard to say. You’d have to have a really talented operator for the remote head, too.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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You could “DoggyCam” it… either with a real DoggyCam rig, or a homemade version. We built one that held a pretty darn heavy 35mm camera out several feet… worked like a charm, with probably less than a couple hundred dollars worth of parts in it. I’ve seen DoggieCam shots done in a couple of distant-past music videos. Your lead singer would wear the rig himself as he skates (if he is a really good skater, and your insurance on the RED is paid up)…
That would probably give you a bit of a different perspective than what you have in mind, but might be cool.
I’d also suggest that you rent or buy a copy of the movie “Blades of Glory.” In the DVD extras is a fair bit of behind-the-scenes footage, and I remember seeing a number of the different skating camera rigs that made me say “Wow, that’s cool,” and “Oh, that’s how they did that.” Some neat stuff. Of course, that was ice skating, but there may be some rigs that could be applicable to roller skating as well.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com