Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Timothy J. Allen] “I’ve seen lower prices for this in other areas of the country… but I’d put money on the fact that Fantastic Plastic is worth every penny.”
Ehh… kind words, but maybe, maybe not. I’d certainly not try to oversell our greenscreen work… it’s definitely not our specialty (personally, I hate greenscreening and do it only when I have to… I’d be hard pressed to even remember the last one I did here, it’s been months at least).
Sooo… our rate for greenscreen is probably a little high, I’d bet better bargains could be found. The rate ends up being highish because it’s the same rate as any other kind of shooting here… even though it’s somewhat simplier (in theory) than, say, a complicated location shoot. Unfortunately, here a very simple shoot ties up the same space, equipment, and people as a complicated one does, so the rate is the same.
Plus, we don’t have a permanent perfectly-lit greenscreen area… it would be set up and lit for a specific shoot. Bigger houses that do a lot of compositing shooting will have the luxury of larger stages often with areas dedicated for matte shooting… there you might find a better base rate plus the time savings of at least a background that is already good to go.
All that being said… great lighting for matting is an art in and of itself… as Timothy pointed out, a bargain might not be such a bargain if you have to do it again.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Reggie Spires] “I bet I got you beat … Basement of my home”
Yes you do… we are happy that we now have a small but pretty decent facility.
BUT… I do have you beat in hindsight… first year of the company 12 years ago was lonesome me solo at home in the taken-over dining room. Had to think about getting a real place after the FedEx guy caught me in my boxer shorts a few too many times.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Reggie Spires] “Wow Todd you are right up the road ..”
Yep, I was just about to say that.
I would hardly call it an “operation,” but you’re welcome anytime… we’re tiny tiny, the dime tour is just a nickle and only takes about three minutes to complete.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, for some reason in the past most folks on the COW have been somewhat reluctant to reveal their individual rates…. it’s never bothered me though…
Shooting on our stage (or location for that matter) is generally $300 an hour, no matter what the format (whether Beta, DVcam, HD, 35mm, whatever)… if that is for a project to be posted here.
For “hand off the footage” projects like the one you described, our rate is generally $400/hr.
We have the two different rates because the overhead on shoots is farily high so we really don’t make much profit on shooting… we basically give away part of the shoot in order to get the edit, where the overhead is very low and the profit is higher.
Is “magic city” THE Magic City?… as in Birmingham?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Jason Jenkins] “It’s hard to believe they would pay big money to license that music for a spec ad.”
Agreed… if that was really produced totally on spec, I bet they didn’t license the music, at least not up front. Or had some kind of cheap license just for demo purposes. The broadcast license for that track would have been many many tens of thousands of dollars, at minimum.
All that being said… as an ad, I don’t quite get it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I guess we do things a little differently, but apparently get away with it.
Our contracts here always explicitly state that we retain ownership of the footage. I know hindsight is 20/20 and that doesn’t help Neil in this case, but in the future it might.
We have never had a client or potential client balk at this restriction.
We mostly do broadcast commercials, and our contracts stip that is what they are buying… the finished production to be used as a whole. They do not have independent access to the raw footage (although it is available to them free for any additional production here), nor can they take the finished commercial and hack it up or do anything else with it without our approval.
We’re not just being possessive… it’s about protecting rights, not only our own but those of others as well. Here, chances are that couple-of-years-old footage from a commercial shoot (for example) might include acting performances for which rights have long since expired. If we turned over raw footage we lose management of the rights that we have secured, and that can get us in trouble with actors, agents, and unions. I did a shoot in an airport once, and when the client came back to us for a recut a year or so later I had to explain that every person in the crowd were paid actors… and that while some of them were on a one-time buyout, several of the principals were only contracted for the initial 13-week run of the campaign. If I had simply turned over the footage the client would have undoubtedly just used it… and I would be fielding angry phone calls.
I only know of once that we have ever had a former client violate the terms, by taking a finished spot here and having someone else (actually a TV station did it for free) cut on it and turn it into something else. The problem is that they reused a music track that was specifically licensed for the previous production, as well as reusing an announcer tag that they did not pay new performance rights on. We called them on it, they gave us the “Oh, I didn’t know we couldn’t do that,” and pulled the spot.
Now, all that being said, yes sometimes we do turn over raw footage… some clients hire us just to shoot raw footage for them, and that’s fine. BUT… we do charge a higher rate for that though…. there is very low overhead on edit jobs, but very high overhead on shoots… so for large full-production jobs we are essentially giving away a portion of the shoot in order to secure the much-more-profitable edit gig. Ergo, a shoot-only gig has a substantially higher rate.
In the future, just spell it out in writing clearly in advance and there will be no question about it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[gareth blakemore] “do clients really pay from £ 300, £1000 plus”
I think the most we ever paid was about $1500 for a clip a few seconds long… but that was the only source and it was very specific and something we absolutely had to have and would have cost much more for us to shoot it ourselves. We needed a very specific and hard-to-get shot and it had to be shot on 35mm film telecined to 1080HD at 23.97fps… and the expensive one was the only one we could find that exactly fit the bill in that instance.
With a wide variety of very very good stuff available on sources like istockphoto.com at absolutely dirt cheap rates, it is unlikely that our company would be paying those footage premiums very often… and I imagine others would say the same.
Obviously the trick would be having good footage that is in demand… that’s very exclusive that no one else has available. Now, what that would be… I’m not sure.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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MIB??? Wow, nice score!
Hope it’s not hot… haha
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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All Mike’s suggestions are good ones….
I’ll add just one or two things, trying to stay completely within the hardware/equipment that you have….
While softboxes and unbrellas can look great (I use them every day), I have personally found that in my setups the most absolute natural “beautiful but doesn’t look lit” setups come from bounced lighting… and my usual tool for that is a white 4×4 bounce card. Perhaps you have a big piece of foamcore that would work. I’d place it far enough back that it can be used to illuminate both subjects, and blast it at least with your 2K, and maybe more (adding some of your other instruments if needed). I’d put it at about a 30°’ angle from the talent. Very similar to the setup with the 8′ bounce that you mentioned… except one that size just might be too big and result in lighting just a bit too flat. I would also put it at the angle suggested rather than straight on to give it a little more interest. Straight on would be extremely flat and probably uninteresting.
Michael’s diffusion suggestions of 250,251 and 252 are good ones… if you don’t have any you can usually pick up frosted shower curtain by the yard (usually only a couple bucks)… the stuff I buy at a local fabric store is right in the middle of 250 and 251 and gives a great look. Just exercise some care with it when using it with hotlights (although I regularly put it in a frame about 1′ from the face of a 1200w HMI with no ill effects, it doesn’t even get warm). The advantages of this cheapo diffusion are of course its price, plus unlike 250/251/250 it is completely silent outdoors in a breeze and you can just wad it up and put it in a bag and reuse it again and again. If you don’t have (or want to make) frames, you can always just “hollywood” it by hanging it from a grip arm on a C-stand.
Michael also suggested putting your clip-ons on a squeeze box which is a good idea… BUT, you said you use CFLs in those… and of course CFLs and rheostats don’t work and play well together. You might want to opt for tungsten bulbs in those if they need dimming.
And, I don’t know what the subject or topic of your project is… but remember that it “is what it is” and don’t beat yourself up over trying to get unattainable results. You say these women are in their late 40s. Well, they can be beautiful and still look like they are in their late 40s. You’ll never get them to look 20, and even if you could I’m sure that wouldn’t be the desired result (well, for them it might be). I’m sure you can find beauty and interest in your subjects, no matter what their age.
You mentioned that you cannot filter… why’s that? Is it because you have no filters, or something else? You might try stretching a piece of black silk or nylon stocking material (Liz Claiborne and Donna Karan hosiery are industry favorites among bigshot DPs) over the rear of the lens…
On that note, did anyone see Stephen’s interview with Barbara Walters on “The Colbert Report” a few days ago? They really did something brilliant…. very glowing soft focus, very typical of the way you usually see Walters shot. Except it was only on Stephen’s camera, not Barbara’s. Hilarious.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mike Cohen] “I try to never use a local shooter…”
Me either, I always do it myself. One of the things that people hire us for is our particular “look,” and I can’t get that by farming a shoot out to someone who has different equipment, lenses, and personal eyeballs and ability. It’s not to say that their talent or eyeballs aren’t just as good (or better) than mine, but they are not the same… and it shows.
As far as traveling across country or even around the world for something as simple as an interview… some clients think that is a huge waste of resources, but some don’t bat an eye at it.
You can never predict what clients will do or how they think. We were recently submitting budgets for a very similar cross-country shoot that’s little more than interviews. The client balked a little bit at our proposed travel budget (which was actually pretty slim). Their solution? “Hey, we have a corporate jet… rather than you guys flying here yourselves we should just come pick you up.” My reaction of course is “Whaaaaa??!!” Now you know that’s gotta cost them a lot more than the price of three commercial plane tickets, but apparently they had some sort of warped rationale about it. Crazy, crazy.
You never know what they are thinkin’.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com