[Todd Terry]

YES, Tim, thanks… that’s the guy. Unfortunately I still don’t know who he is.

The poster mused that he must do “70% of the trailers”… not true (that distinction would go to Hal Douglas, even before Don LaF’s untimely passing). I’ve never heard him on anything other than Showtime, except a little bit of NBC sports. He has a great voice, but is fairly emotionless… which is why I think he doesn’t work more (although that’s what I need for this project).

And no, that’s not Beau Weaver. Similar, for sure… but not him.

I’ll keep searching… I have a voice session later today with the great Peter Thomas, I’ll play that trailer over the phone patch and see if Peter knows him.

Thanks all…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Mark Suszko] “it may now actually be cheaper to have FedEx pick up your stuff at your house and drop it at your destination.”

Dunno if it is cheaper (doubtful), but it sure is easier. We FedEx everything when shooting on distant locations. We have a bunch of Pelican cases (different sizes), and usually ship about 5 to 10 cases depending on how heavy the shoot is, whether we are shooting SD video, HD, or 35mm, etc. Things like tripods and jibs are shipped in heavy-duty golf bag shipping cases, which we have found to be more rugged (and a bit cheaper) than the real cases that were made for them. Long stuff (mic fishpoles, C-stands) are shipped in those padded shotgun shipping cases.

After doing it a bit (and hating it), I never check equipment as baggage anymore. The only thing I travel with are lenses, and they aren’t checked, I carry them on. I have a case for the primes about the size of a very thick Haliburton briefcase and it just makes the carry-on size limit. I won’t ship or check the lenses since they are my babies (and worth more than most of the rest of the equipment put together).

What we usually do is look up the nearest FedEx office at our shoot destination, and ship “Hold for pickup” at that location. The gear is always waiting and ready for us, good to go.

Depending on how much gear we are shipping, the FedEx charges usually range from about $1800 to about $3500 for the two-way trip. It’s pricey, but money well spent, I think… and if a shoot is big enough and far enough to have to fly there and need all of our toys, chances are that it’s a project with a big enough budget to absorb those costs.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I started our little company a little more than a decade ago as a one-man shop. My strengths were the creative side (directing, shooting, editing) but my weaknesses were the business side.

My first hire was a part-time administrative assistant/secretary. She handled billing, various paperwork, and such. It worked fairly well, freeing me up to concentrate on the creative side that was actually bringing money in. She was only around about a year or so though, when she gave up her two part-time gigs (mine and another one) for a full-time opportunity elsewhere.

My next hire was a general manager for the company, who became responsible for everything except the creative side of the business. He does all the invoicing, pays bills, coordinates schedules, books jobs, and generally keeps the gears grinding. This has worked out great. In addition, he is a creative guy who has become a very good producer and writer in addition to the duties he was hired for. This person worked out so well that although he started as an employee, he eventually became a junior partner in the company (when my original junior partner decided to retire, he bought her interest in the company).

Our next full-time hire was an editor. Previously I had edited everything myself (in addition to directing, shooting, and writing). Adding a Senior Editor position (and finding someone who is very creative and actually a fair better cutter than I am) took a lot of additional weight off of me. I still direct everything we do (and shoot almost everything), but I am now not saddled with cutting it all myself.

Along the way we have also added to part-time contract employees, who are used as needed… an art director/graphic designer, and an additional producer.

This “hiring flow” might not work for everyone, but has worked very well for us.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Jeffrey Gould] “dropping off DVD’s is a viable option. will they watch it or toss it?”

They will probably toss it, UNLESS they know you, know of you, or you are also able to wiggle yourself into a face-to-face. You need to find SOME way of letting Dr. B know that Dr. A is using you and becoming a celebrity doc.

A lot of doctors have the “God complex,” of course… and plastic surgeons seem as much or even more than most. They like having their egos stroked, and mostly are pretty vain and like the idea of television (one exception we have is one surgeon who doesn’t want to appear in his advertising… which is a wise choice on his part since he personally looks like the fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. He does great wortk though).

I have another tip for dealing with doctors (that some here might say is bad advice, but it has always worked for me). I first met them with a “Glad to meet you, Dr. Smith,” but after that I always call them by their first name. Actually, I do that for any physician I’ve ever gone to as a patient, as well as doctor clients. They are so used to being revered as “Dr. So-and-so” that the guy who just calls them Bill or Larry puts them on a level playing field. Works for me, anyway.

Oh… and although the business moved slowly, it’s good to see that many non-plastic-surgeon docs are now beginning to feel not so “above it all” and do more advertising. Today in fact I’m editing a campaign for a group of spine surgeons.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Plastic surgeons are an intersting bunch, seem to behave a bit differently than “regular doctors.” We didn’t really try to become the “plastic surgery production guys,” but sort of fell into that role a bit. At last count I think we have eight different plastic surgeons (or plastic surgery groups) that we do television commercials for.

The best way to get “Plastic Surgeon B” as your client is to do great work for “Plastic Surgeon A.” These guys are unbelievably competitive. If Dr. Smith is doing something great, Dr. Jones wants to do something even better. You have a leg up since you have already worked for one of them. The trick now is getting to the guy who considers him his competition.

With smaller, individual (and sometimes newer practices), the best bet would be to try to get to the doctor himself. Bigger and more established practices will have marketing people, they will be the ones to approach. Some may even have full-blown advertising agencies that handle all their stuff (three of our plastic surgeon clients have ad agencies). In those cases it is the agencies that you should approach to show your expertise in this kind of production.

It make take a while… plastic surgeons are notoriously busy… even the ones on the lower rungs. Our oldest plastic surgery client is a group of three doctors, and they stay so busy that when we shoot for them we have to do it at oddball times (like at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, etc.), because they are so busy shoveling money during regular business hours that they won’t give up a second of that time (and of course we charge them accordingly). The funny thing is, these guys don’t have to advertise at all. If you were a potential patient and picked up the phone right now you probably couldn’t get an appointment with them for 9 months or so. Yet they do advertise because they are sooooo competitive with the other guys in town.

One thing to remember with plastic surgery marketing (if they don’t have an agency and allow you to concept their spots for them), that the very very BEST way to market plastic surgeons is before-and-after. Research and practical experience shows that nothing works nearly as well as being able to see before-and-after results of their work. That can make it a bit tough because you have to get real patients willing to appear, and often the doctors don’t have the foresight to take good “before” pictures… they just take the sterile “medical” snapshots. But it works.

Also, if you use models or actors, the best ones are often in their 30’s. Most plastic surgery patients are women 40+… but they don’t want to look like that. In one focus group that had funny results, women were given a stack of headshots and told to pick one that was closest to their own age. Almost invariably they picked the photo of a woman about 10 years younger than they were. People think they look younger than they actually do. Funny.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Your best bet is to do a COW search, as there are tons of posts/threads on DoF adapters with lots of good info. In fact there was recently a long thread on the Mini35 specifically.

I have had a Mini35 for two years and love it… you can get great results with it. However it is not a stick-it-on-your-camera-and-instantly-get-great-results gadget. They take a fair bit to get used to and learn to use properly. If there is any way possible to adjust your schedule so that you have more time to get comfortable with the adapter I would definitely recommend you do so.

You are asking some very basic questions about the adapter (not that there’s anything at all wrong with that), but it does let me know that you are “starting from zero” with your knowledge about it, which is not a good place to be a half-day before an important shoot.

I don’t know what your background is, but if you have some relatively good experience with shooting 35mm film then giving yourself a crash-course in a few hours might give decent results. If your background is limited to video, then make sure you learn as much as you can in advance about film-style shooting (lens selection, depths-of-field, camera moves and blocking, and most importantly film-style lighting). Always remember that when using the Mini35 you must treat your scene almost exactly as if you were shooting film rather than video… the only real difference is that there is no film in the camera.

Also make SURE that the rental house knows what camera you are mounting it to and gives you the proper kit. They may have changed something, but the last time I talked with ZGC a few months ago (the US distributor for P+S Technik), they did not at that point yet have connector kits for the Sony EX series. They simply had not engineered them yet. Maybe that has changed.

[Peter Humble] “Because I’m assuming that I set my exposure from my Primes or do I have to negotiate two sets of exposure?”

Actually there will be three sets of exposure for you to negotiate, the f-stop on the cine lens, the f-stop on the camera’s native lens, and an additional exposure control ring that is on the Mini35 itself. The adapter is a wonderful device and can get stunning results, but as you can see it does take some practice and it’s not a quick use-it-right-out-of-the-box gadget.

I don’t wish to sound negative (especially since I’m a huge fan of the Mini35), but I just don’t want you to go in unprepared and get poor results. I believe there is a downloadable (PDF) manual for the Mini35 on the ZGC website. You might study it as much as you can before you actually get the hardware in your hands.

Good shooting….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hey Trey….

Glad it worked. Bet you are a Mini35 convert now, huh? I love mine more and more every day.

One thing of note for future use… since the time when you first started this thread I’ve had a chance to check out the follow focus unit from RedrockMicro. I wrote an article on DoF adapters that should be in an upcoming issue of the COW mag and Brian at Redrock sent me one of their FF units to test drive.

In a word, it’s GREAT. Very well made, and rock solid. Not a bit of backlash in it… something that you would normally only expect from units costing several several times as much. It works great with the Mini35. My only complaint about it is that the “well” inside the handwheel is very deep, and ergo I was unable to use the speedcranks that I already have…they weren’t long enough to connect down into the socket. Other than that though it’s a total peach.

Another thing to note is the small HD monitors. Many of them say they are HD, but really aren’t. If you look at the technical specs, many only display about 480 lines or so. They will take an HD signal, but not display it fully. You definitely have to be careful, and focus by tape measure when you can.

Thanks for the update!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

That’s right… if I recall from the production notes I read about that film (it’s been a long time since I read that), it was shot with multiple PAL XL1s so they could shoot 25fps… which was transferred to 24fps film. Since there is only 4% difference in the speed it was (more or less) unnoticable and they were able to frame-for-frame transfer without worrying about all the complicated pull-down math or processes. I think they made some different lens choices, but just stock XL1 bodies with no DoF lens converters or anything.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Walter is absolutely right….

They have abstolutely NO right or standing to request that you sign a non-compete AFTER the fact. To do so takes a fair bit of gall in my book… they definitely have brass cujones.

They did have the right to ask you to sign one BEFORE they contracted with you for the work. I’m not saying that would be correct or the “right thing to do” to a freelancer, which is isn’t. But they do have the right (we have the “right” to do a lot of things which we shouldn’t). In any regard, a pure freelancer shouldn’t sign a non-compete even before the fact, either. That’s just maddness, and a clear blockade to your pursuit of your livelihood. What if they never called you again? They can’t expect you to sit at home and starve.

Request your money, in full, immediately. If the firm-but-polite request doesn’t work, demand it. If you still don’t get it, tell them you will be hiring a lawyer. Then do it.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

As an employer, I have to agree with that. Finding and hiring those people is very expensive and often a drawn-out process. We don’t like having to repeat it more often than is necessary.

As Grinner said, “we need artists that have great dreams and show it by taking huge leaps forward every other year or so” sounds great and in a perfect world that might be true… but in practicality it doesn’t work that way too often. I’ve seen many applicants that indeed did work at six or ten different jobs over a ten year period… but virtually all of them were simply building a checkered resume, I can’t really even think of one of them that moved from job to job taking that “huge leap forward” every time. Most of them simply moved for a few bucks more, because they were tired of the work, or they didn’t like the employer. That’s just the way it is.

I have one employee in particular in my tiny company that could easily make that big leap to something bigger and better… but rather than expecting him to do it, I try to prevent that by keeping him happy here. We are not trying to “hold him back,” we are just trying to keep our business running with the best talent possible. We give him interesting jobs, treat him very well, make sure he has a fun and creative working enviroment, let him grow as much as he can in his job… and pay him very very well (much more than he could get by making the next leap “up”). He’s happy, we’re happy, and he stays creatively challenged and working hard.

Too many employers don’t realize the value of a good employee. They should be nurtured and cared for, not used up. Getting people is easy. Getting great people is hard.

And…as for Googling…

Those in the job market might not like that potential employers Google them, or think that one’s on-line personal life is personal and that shouldn’t matter, etc.,… but the simple fact is that like it or not, or feel that it is “right” or not doesn’t matter one whit. It does happen and it’s going to keep happening. Nothing you can do about it. If there’s something you don’t want the world to see, hear, or know about you, don’t put it on line. Anywhere. There’s no such thing as “Hey, that was just supposed to be for my friends” Doesn’t exist anymore.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com