[Todd Terry]

We used to do a lot of food cinematography (still some, but not as much)…

Whenever we needed something like that we used steam chips, a staple of the food photography business.

I think they probably have them at Trengove Studios…

https://www.trengovestudios.com

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Sounds like a Phantom job to me…. one of the various flavors of the Phantom camera from Vision Research.

Not all rental houses have Phantoms, but some do. Some require that you hire their tech guy for the day along with the Phantom.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m sure you’ll find people in here happy to help. Point us to your site in question and we’ll be happy to take a look.

I will say though that you are a very mysterious poster. You are a new COW member, have zero “About” info on yourself, and have made a number of posts in different forums (I even answered one a little while back) that are on wildly disparate topics. And despite people giving you answers and suggestions, you have never even once responded back to anyone… ever.

Mysterious.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Makes sense, Tom… but I have three matte boxes and not one of them uses any blue hardware. Nor is missing anything. It’s a puzzler!

I’m guessing something will turn up…

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Of course they were using the flash.

Didn’t you notice it got dark???

[eyeroll]

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m a little surprised you haven’t received about 15 replies that basically said “Man, are you nuts?”…but this forum has been a little slow for a while.

Read what Mark said, twice… good advice there.

From what I’ve read you have a fairly long and very significant list of reasons to keep your existing job… and only one reason to chunk it and start a production company. And not to diminish it (because I’m ALL for doing what makes you happy and thrilled to get up to go in to work in the morning) if that one reason is basically “Ehh, I’m kinda bored,” well I don’t think that gives the argument a lot of weight. If any.

Obviously the deck is stacked against you in lots of ways, but you know that and have been forthcoming enough to spell them out… the production business climate is REALLY tough, you are starting from scratch, not in a big market, have hands-on skills that aren’t quite up to speed, apparently already have a house full of young’uns and more on the way…. all that jazz, and you know that.

But, I don’t want to COMPLETELY rain on the parade, so I will offer one alternative… which is to do what I did. I’ve been in biz for quite a while now (April marked 20 years since I founded this company), but I wouldn’t have lasted 20 days if I hadn’t started it the way that I did, which was start it with already having business to support it. I’m super fiscally conservative, so normally I wouldn’t have dreamed of chunking an existing job in broadcast television (very well paying, although very boring) and spending boatloads of money (and going into a little bit of debt) to start a new company EXCEPT that I had the opportunity to start it with an already-in-place multi-year contract with a very established advertising agency to do all their production… one that guaranteed enough work that I could completely fund the business and pay myself a better salary than I was already making. I wouldn’t have done so otherwise, not in a zillion years…. it would have been a recipe for disaster (and the number of small production companies here that came along after me but have since gone bankrupt or out of business has borne out my initial thoughts as correct).

So… see if the work is out there. If before you walk out on your job you can land enough business that’s enough to completely cover all biz expenses and pay you a salary equal-to-or-better than you are presently making, and that there is a reasonable guarantee that it will continue (at least a 2-3 year contract would be comfortable)… then maybe you should take the plunge. Even then I’m not saying you should, but if you get to that point it would at least level out that big stack of negatives that warn against it, and you could then make a decision starting from a more-even playing field.

And there’s less chance that all those babies will go shoeless and you can continue to enjoy the luxury of living indoors.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Sorry, Lenny…. I’m not a fabrics guy by any stretch, and honestly don’t know what any of our backdrops, cycs, chroma screens, or other textiles are made of [shrug]… so unfortunately I’ll have to plead ignorance.

Steaming and wrinkle sprays are not only the things we do, but they are the only things I even know of (barring ironing, which i assume is not practical).

Maybe someone smarter can chime in. Or you might contact Trevira to see if they have any manufacturer’s recommendations.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Steam it, or use spray-on wrinkle remover (which is what we do).

Read the last four posts in this thread….
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/54/860829#860833

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Ty…

Sadly I didn’t see this message until now… I’m not an audio guy so I don’t usually haunt this forum, and I don’t get email alerts for posts here…. that’s why I asked for off-forum replies and included my email link.

Anywho, wish I had seen your message sooner. Fortunately we got it covered nicely though. I was happy to see there actually seems to be quite a decent number of audio guys in Fairfax, once I looked beyond the COW.

Thanks!

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Pretty cool… that guy is quite the interesting designer, too… check out his work….

https://ingo-maurer.com/en/

T2

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