Todd Terry
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
-
Rick’s right…
But as an addendum… if the project’s budget doesn’t allow footage from istockphoto, you may be in for a hard search. Their stuff is typically dirt cheap… usually much less than other stock sources. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of any high-quality footage sources that are less expensive than iStock.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Snatch the pebble from my hand……
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
No real advice on self-promotion, Eli… but just a couple of comments.
Firstly, your works is absolutely top notch. Those two TCM “31 Days of Oscar” spots have long been my absolute favorite promos… ever. They are just soooo seamlessly crafted, and have such stunning attention to detail. Every time I saw them I saw something new and different and cool… but they never felt cramped or crowded. As I said, they’ve always been my favs, even before I knew who did them.
Secondly, make sure your website is fully accessible. I’m usually on big monitors with wide vistas, but today, I happen to be on a machine with a not-so-huge screen while my normal suite is being re-vamped. I thought your site looked exceptionally cool and clean, but was frustrated by the fact that it was bigger than my screen size, and could not be resized (scaled down) to fit. That left me unable to see some of the info I was trying to read because it was a “no scroll” page and I couldn’t get far enough down (I even tried two different browsers). Finally (duh) I realized it was no-scroll because the entire page was Flash, and was able to click “Show All” in the Flash to be able to see every thing. Not a big deal for me, but I did have to jump through a few hoops and was willing to do so because I was very interested in seeing it. For someone less likely to take the effort, it might could be made easier.
SUPER stuff.
Oh, btw, cinematographers will tell you the “Jaws”-esque dolly/zoom you mentioned in that great Shark Week promo is called a “trombone shot.” Your useless trivia for the day.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Great stuff, Steve, read it all.
Love your item #4: “There’s a wonderful invention called Spellcheck… please use it.”
Had to smile in light of the fact that the first main paragraph of the blog contains the word “pompous,” except misspelled as “pompas.”
Haha… just yanking your chain. Me?… I’m a terrible speller.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Rob Grauert] “who do I address the package to?”
Easy. To whomever they tell you to when you call and ask who the appropriate person would be.
Don’t send them out blind, or to a generic position (i.e., “Production Manager,” or “Creative Director”).
If you do that, you might as well be throwing them away. Some here might argue that they are being thrown away anyway, but at least if they are addressed to a real person you stand a little bit better chance.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I think my post led to some of that confusion.
I always assumed that Don did not shoot with a Tyler mount… and my original post suggested that unless one does use the mount, often times some unexpected jitters etc. have been known to come into play.
Great footage, of course, can be had without the uber-expensive (and hard-to-find, depending on your market) mounts… but I’ve found that the quality of footage to be wildly variable.
I’ll fully confess though that I’ve never shot video with a helicopter-mounted camera… only 35mm (and a little 16mm). I’d be interested to know how much of the “jitters” is attributable to the HD format, which would not be seen on actual film.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
In lieu of real FTP, DropBox works really well.
I had never used it before, but we recently outsourced a pretty big After Effects job to an artist in Chicago, and that’s what he uses. It seemed to work really well, even with really big files. Some were quite a bit bigger than the ones you are trying to send, and we had no problems.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Don Walker] “Bottom line, the pilot says the issue is the 720 24p, and that I should have shot it at 1080 60i. Is there any truth to this?”
Maybe, maybe not. Unless shooting with a known and tested flawless system and a Tyler mount helicopter footage is notoriously difficult, and there are countless tales of all kinds of quirks, judders, and flickers working their way into video footage… for no apparent reason.
BUT… while the pilot might have thought he was giving you helpful technical advice, he was also inadvertently giving you aesthetic advice as well… your housepainter can tell you want kind of brushes he wants to use, and suggest a brand of paint, but he can’t dictate what color he wants to paint your house. 60i looks nothing like 24p, and if it’s not the look you wanted, then it’s not the look you wanted. Same for the camera, and its ability to match your other footage. Those things are your calls to make… not the pilot’s.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Got to agree with Walter, as usual…
Relationships tend to get worse, not better, with time. I can’t imagine a relationship that starts out this rocky becoming smooth as silk later on.
From what little we’ve heard, this guy sounds like a control freak prima donna (or whatever the male equivalent of a prima donna is), with an over-inflated sense of self importance…. as is all-too-often seen in local television personalities.
You call him the “co-host”… obviously that means it is not his show, that he is not the sole talent. Does the show hinge on him? Can it be done with someone else?
If he is what carried the show before, his following that generated an audience, then I think you might be in trouble. If on the other hand it’s the show itself that people wanted to watch, I’d definitely consider re-casting the part and moving on.
Lots of people (herself included) thought “Live!”…” would tank without Kathy Lee… but if you’ll notice, Regis is doing just fine without her.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Franklin McMahon] “But the most important key is to mentally prep for moving on from certain clients.”
I think Frank makes a good point there…
The interesting thing is, the last time we had a rate hike (a big 50% as I mentioned), we fully expected to lose clients. We wanted to a bit, in a way. We were wanting to lose the “schlock” work that was taking up our time and resources but not really bringing in much money… and limiting our time to do really high-end (and high-paying) work.
The surprising thing that happened though, is that none of those clients bailed on us… except one, who still comes occasionally, but takes most work elsewhere. And that particular low-paying commercial client was only here sporadically and bringing us the lowest-of-the-low-end crap work imaginable. I’d told them several times bluntly that we were overkill for them and I hated taking his money for what was absolutely no better than cable-grade commercials (which was exactly what they wanted), but they still stuck around. You know the type: the client who honestly didn’t know the difference in videotape and film, legitimately belives that the more fonts you have the better (and that they should flash if possible), who gets positively orgasmic over a 3D fly-in or a cheesy explosion, and fully believes that a star wipe is the definition of “classy.” They actually asked us one time why none of their stuff was on our reel, and why we never entered their spots in the ADDYs.
Some you don’t mind seeing go. Maybe another rate hike is in order.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com