Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Actually Steve… while I don’t recall that issue ever having been brought up on the COW, in the rest of the business world that is extremely common.
A lot of people bill “2/15 Net 30″… meaning the full balance is due in 30 days, but if a client pays within 15 days they can deduct 2%.
The problem is, a lot of big corporations (and especially a lot of government agencies) take this deduction anyway for early pays, even if you don’t stip it on your invoice.
You can try to recover the 2%, but I remember a story of several years ago where someone tried just that (it was with a government client) and they simply wound up beating their head against a wall and wading through a mountain of red tape. In the end they spent time worth far more than the 2% trying to recover it… which they never got.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yes Dale…. weight=stability, so if you can figure out a way to add some heft to your little camera you will definitely find it more stable for handheld work.
The shoulder brace idea might prove helpful as well… if you want to go super ultra cheap, there are the braces from this guy…
These are definitely not high-end cine equipment… they are very inexpensively made braces built out of PVC pipe and electrical conduit parts. I bought one just for fun, and to see how it was made. It actually does work pretty well (although I heavily modified mine for my particular camera). You could make one yourself with about fifteen bucks and a trip to Home Depot… although this guy’s are so cheap your time may be worth more than the unit’s cost and it winds up just cheaper to buy one.
If you want to step up, a variety of vendors make more professional-grade units that operate similarly.
However…
You were looking for a “poor man’s Glidecam,” so keep in mind that a Steadicam (or any other type of floating stabilizer) should NOT rest or your shoulder or any other body part… the idea is for the camera to float independently from your body’s frame. With a tiny camera like yours, and easy/quick/cheap solution is to put the camera on a short but hefty monopod… and simply hold the monopod just a bit above the center of gravity and walk with it… then your own arm becomes the Steadicam arm. Although even with very light cameras that can get tiring very quickly.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[John Frank] “Hey, I’m wondering if I can use copyrighted music if under 30 seconds for commercials or other things”
Yes, of course you can.
Depending on the piece of music (say, something current and popular) and the exact usage, be prepared for negotiations between you and the various rights holders (writer, publisher, label, and artist) to easily reach well up into the several tens of thousands of dollars range.
If, on the other hand, the question is actually “Can I use copyrighted music…. for free?”, the the answer is a lot easier. Of course not.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Good advice from the other guys…
Sorry Linda… but not good news.
With what is basically a bright exterior background and a dark interior foreground where your talent is, and with no opportunities for additional lighting (which would take a LOT), you have basically been given an impossible task, especially if it’s a bright daylight situation (yes, dusk might be a little easier).
There are simply no setting on your camera (or any camera) which will combat this near-impossible situation. The best you can do is open up your iris as much as you can until you get a somewhat acceptible combo of blown-out background and visible foreground. It’s going to be very tough to create a look that doesn’t look like a “crime victim,” shot… you know, the silhouetted shots with a hot background and you can only see the outline of the subject.
Barring renting, hauling in, and powering about 12,000 watts of HMI lighting… the best you can do is try framing your subjects so they are not against the hottest part of the background. You might be able to shift your camera positions a bit and improve it some, although I doubt a lot. You could also quickly scrim the background by dashing quickly to Lowes or Home Depot and buying a big 25′ roll of black screen door fabric and hang/stretch it over the back part of this shelter, which would cut down some of the hot background. The downsides to that are that it will only work to a small degree, might be hard to stretch into place tightly, and that I’m willing to bet the farm that the bride won’t let you do it.
On the upside, you say you are doing this for a friend… so I’m guessing it’s a favor and not a paying gig. I think you might just have to keep the phrase “you get what you pay for” handy, and do the best you can.
Good luck…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Emre Tufekci S.O.A.] “Even with the top end system like PS+Technic you will suffer sharpness of the image.”
Perhaps technically, but in practicality I’ve never found that to be an issue or hindrance. I shoot with primes and a P+S Technik every day and the images are always razor sharp.
That is… if the footage is in focus.
One of the challenges of shooting 35mm format with primes is that DoFs can be very shallow if you desire, and perfect focus is critical. That’s why I always am an advocate of using real cine primes rather than SLR lenses… among other things, real cine lenses are infinitely easier to focus, especially when tracking is needed. A really good follow focus unit is also in order (not one of those cheap “Fisher Price” FF units, they have way too much slop in the gearboxes). The low-res viewfinder on most any camera is useless for eyeball focusing for primes… at minimum a true HD monitor is needed…. although the very best focusing is the old fashioned “Hollywood” method… a tape measure (we usually use a Stanley “Fat Max” laser tape… about a hundred bucks at Lowes or Home Depot).
Strangely enough in light of this conversation, just today I had to use our video zoom lens (after I found it) on a shoot this morning. For a variety of reasons the situation just called for that rather than the P+S converter and primes. One look at the footage and I was longing to put my primes back on as quickly as possible.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That’s not a silly question at all.
The answer is yes…. somewhat. Using a cine zoom with a Pro35 (or whatever other flavor of converter) is certainly doable… and will give you an infinitely more filmic look that not using the converter and just using your stock video lens.
You still won’t get quite the look of primes… a good prime just has such a clean crisp sharp look that is rarely matchable by a zoom.
There’s also a light factor. You can get superspeed primes as fast as T1.2 or T1.3. Typically, cine zooms are going to be in the T3.0+ neighborhood, and that’s if you are lucky. Much much slower than fast primes. For this reason, especially for use with DoF converters (which eat up a lot of light themselves), using a zoom will need tons of light. I’ve used my Foton zoom with my Mini35 successfully quite a few times, but only for exteriors… I’d never even try it for an interior shoot, it’s just too darn slow.
Lastly, there is the cost factor. You can find a relatively cheap zoom, but you largely get what you pay for. There are really good ones out there, but a really great honest-to-goodness real PL mount fast cine zoom is going to cost you. Probably about the same as a late-model used Lexus. Or maybe even a new one. For that money, you can get several primes which (imho) look better.
But to answer your question, yes, you definitely get flexibility with a zoom. I’ve most often used mine on political shoots… the typical “candidates gladhanding with supporters” shots, often handheld, sort of a documentary-feel type of shot… and sometimes because I wanted to see a little bit of a pop zoom happening in a shot (although I normally always hate actually seeing a lens zoom… it’s unnatural, and the only camera move that the human eye can’t reproduce). But again, I’ve only done that with exteriors.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Not trying to quash your request… but that might be a tall order.
In the dozen+ years that I’ve been principal owner and creative director of my company, I’ve had a few bazillion reels come across my desk. Lots from editors, lots from directors, quite a few cinematographers, and a fair number of Steadicam operators.
I can’t say that I’ve ever been given a reel of someone’s work purely as a straight camera op.
If you’re looking for camera ops, then cinematography/DP reels are likely going to be your best bet. Those guys/gals are showcasing their work as DPs, but you can bet that 19 times out of 20 they were the actual camera operator, too.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’m a big fan of primes, and use virtually nothing but them.
My main bunch is a set of PL mount Leitz-Panavision superspeeds…. not a real huge set… 18mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 80mm. On very rare occasions I use a 6mm (180° fisheye) that I have, and I also have a Russian 200mm LOMO that I’ll use on occasion. I could use a few more… would like to have a 28mm and maybe a 100mm or a 120mm.
Very rarely will I use zooms… when I do, I have a Russian Foton 37-140mm, but it’s pretty slow and a lot warmer than the primes. I never use a video zoom lens because I almost always use a P+S Technik converter.
I’m really fast at changing lenses (although I’d be faster if I had a swing-away matte box, which I keep promising to myself as a gift), and I usually call for a lens and my AC is ready to hand it to me. However, even by myself I’m pretty fast at it.
The upside to primes is that they just look so darn great. There’s buttloads of glass in a zoom lens (as many as, say 16-18 different elements), whereas a prime lens just has a few. The less glass, typically the better the image. Also there’s the lens speed factor… primes can be had with a much faster f-stop range than can zooms because all that glass eats up light. Most of my primes are T1.3, so very fast indeed… so you don’t have to drag out five different HMIs for most scenes.
Bigshot DPs who have access to anything an everything (i.e., Roger Deakins, Tak Fujimoto, cinematographers of that level) will be very particular about what primes are used on each project because every model/brand/vintage has a different look. They might chose a set of late model Cookes for an action movie (very cold and crisp), or an early set of Speed Panchros for a romantic comedy (warmer and softer). Lots of flexibility, if you have the resources. Most of us don’t have that luxury, though… and that’s one thing I like about my Leitz primes is that they are pretty much “right in the middle” as far as lens “looks” go (not too warm, not too cold, not to hard, not too soft) so they are very versatile for pretty much most projects.
The upsides to primes are pretty obvious, as I said they just look fantastic.
The downsides, as Rick said, are firstly that you are always changing lenses. That of course can be inconvenient and eats up time. It’s also a danger to the equipment. We try to be as careful as we can, but a couple of years ago my 50mm took a spill onto a set floor. I almost cried. Didn’t break any glass, but still it did a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of damage to it. That God for Paul Duclos of Duclos Lenses in L.A., he’s a wiz of a lens tech and was able to repair it. You can bet we have very strict lens-handling protocol now.
The other big downside is the cost. Many people use cheap SLR still camera lenses for video (with DoF converters), and that’s okay, but a set of real cine primes will knock a big hole in your wallet. No matter how many big bad and expensive pieces of equipment that we might take on location, that little silver case of primes is always by far the single most valuable piece of gear on the job. In the instances when we have to fly to locations, the lenses are never shipped or checked as baggage… they stay in my possession at all times.
The primes that most people consider are most likely used… as most of us (I definitely don’t) can’t pony up $100K+ for a set of brand new Cookes. But with the more widespread use of DoF converters today (including me), the market for primes has really dried up in the last few years. Just two or three years ago, you could find a decent set of four matched 35mm format cine primes in the $10k neighborhood if you looked hard enough. These days the prices have doubled and in some cases even tripled (especially for superspeeds) and that’s when you can find them. It took me three months to find the set that I bought, and I wasn’t being overly picky or price hunting… they just weren’t available.
Worth the hunt, though.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Nick Griffin] “We have a clause in our agreements stating that we can charge 1.5% a month interest”
We’ve considered doing that too, Nick, especially with one of our clients who, other than being veeeerrrry slow to pay, is a great client. With them, it’s not a sign of the economy… even though they are a quite large and very successful ad agency they’ve operated that way for the 10 years we’ve been dealing with them (and some vendors in town, such as the local Mac store, won’t even work with them at all any more). Some people just think it’s ok to do business that way… sadly.
It’s important to remember though that IF one wants to consider imposing “finance charges” or whatever you want to call it for late payers, it MUST be stipulated upfront with the appropriate lingo (“Overdue invoices are subject to late fees up to the maximum allowed by law”… or whatever). One can’t decide retroactively to start charging late fees and then spring them on a client after the fact.
Maybe we should start…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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We have not really noticed a slowdown in clients paying. We have always had clients that paid quickly, and a couple that paid painfully slow, and that’s still pretty much the case.
I will say though that we have gotten more vigilant about keeping after the slow-payers, whereas we used to let it slide a bit, and we’re also asking for bigger/prompter deposits when jobs are booked, as opposed to the pretty much everything net/30 that we used to do.
Just last week when a client called to order some dubs of a television commercial we had produced, I did think to check and sure ‘nuf they had not paid for the actual production, which was quite overdue. I’m usually very lenient with them but this time I instructed our GM to play hardball… we gave them the “What would be a convenient time today for us to come pick up a check?” call. Their office person countered with the expected “Oh we mailed that a couple of days ago, you should be getting it any day now.” To which we explained, “Great, we’ll release the dubs when that arrives,” and held the tapes “hostage” until the check did arrive. Which actually was the next day, so I guess in that instance they were telling the truth. Go figure.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com