Todd Terry
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
-
Looks good, Jason… especially the longer lenses.
Weren’t tempted to haul out your new Porta-Jib?
What camera?
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
We don’t really charge for storage.
We like to keep everything anyway, and found ourselves spending too much time burning data DVDs to back up everything, and then a lot of time re-loading projects when they come back up.
We buy 1TB eSATA drives that are dirt cheap these days (about $250) and we archive everything to those. When we finish a project, we just drag the whole project including all the source files from the video RAIDs to the storage drives (two copies, two drives). When we fill ’em up, we take them off line and go get a couple more at Costco.
The drive space is so relatively cheap compared to the whole project that we do it that way, sort of “value added” that we don’t charge a client for.
Maybe we should charge for it, but we have fairly flat rates for most of our services and don’t try to nickle and dime it much. It’s just easier. Another film house I know of well itemizes everything to death (invoices for shoots will literally list how much gaffer tape was used), but I like to keep it easy and simple… and I think our clients appreciate it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Warped Noise] “movie posters and publicity stills… I assume they are public domain?”
What kind of posters are you talking about that would lead you to believe they are in the public domain? Really really ancient ones? Even those probably still have valid copyrights.
Sorry, but absolutely not. You can bet the farm that there is at least one and probably numerous copyrights on the average typical movie poster.
And some studios (most notably Disney or any of their subsidiaries) will very very vigorously protect those copyrights, no matter how small or insignificant a project may seem.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I bet that is true… now that I think about it, I know a couple of survey pilots who fly solo… although from an aesthetic standpoint pushing the trigger on an underbelly camera is far different from artistic shooting, I bet from a technical standpoint the FAA considers it the same thing.
I did glance and couldn’t find a FAR reg that prohibits it… maybe it was just my CFI years ago trying to scare me because she knew I was a photographer.
I will say though it is not recommended… for both artistic and safety reasons.
The airport may have indeed screwed you… but in the end they are only screwing themselves.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Yikes…crummy day there, bud…
Just a minor point, but one thing of note: I’m not a commercial pilot, but I do have a fair number of hours behind the yoke… and noticed you said….
[Tim Frechette] “The pilot said “I am up there so I might as well stick a camera out the window”.”
…I could be wrong (I need to research it), but it was my understanding that’s illegal. Obviously, a commercial pilot can be a commercial photographer as well, but I think that he or she cannot be both at the same time. I seem to remember reading in FAA regs years ago that if you are piloting, you can’t be the one shooting. I can’t honestly say that I’ve never shot a couple of stills out the window just for fun, but I would never do it on a commercial job, and definitely not attempt to shoot video.
Am I wrong? Any other pilots in here?
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I stand by my previous comment (and everyone else’s) which is basically “don’t give your design away for nuthin'”….
BUT, you never know what may happen.
Case in point….
Our art director has a separate graphics company, and for several years she produced a gigantic (several hundred pages) catalog for a company that sold products via their website.
This year she has learned that an employee at the client’s company is attempting to take her last-years’ Quark files and re-do the project himself for this year’s version. From all accounts, this guy is a complete and total yahoo… and keeps his job pretty much purely based on the fact that he is the owner’s grandson, incompetent or not.
The art director has already fielded several calls of the “Ummmm… how do you do such-and-such…” variety, for which she charges a premium for her sage advice. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end she doesn’t wind up making more from “fixing” this guy’s inevitable mess than if they had just let her do the job in the first place.
You never know….
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
This is a bit like what happens to us in the video world, on occassion. Usually we work on a project from beginning to completion… pre-prod, shoot, edit, post…etc. However now and then we are booked for a “shoot only” job, where we just go and shoot and hand off the film or tape to the client for them to do with as they wish. In these cases, we definitely charge substantially more for our shoot hours. The justification is, we generally do not make that much profit on shooting because the overhead is so much higher (crew, much more expensive equipment, etc.). We basically do the shoots so we can get the edit jobs, which is where the real money is. So, if you want a “shoot only” gig, it costs more.
As for the print side, when we do print work we generally do not make available the source (in our case, Quark files) to the client unless special arrangements (and payment) is made.
It sounds like they have asked you about this going in, in advance… rather than after a job is completed saying “Oh yeah, can we have all the sources?” That’s a good thing, because at least you know what you are dealing with.
In our case we would definitely charge more per hour or job if we were turning it over to someone else and basically cutting ourselves out of future work.
How much more, I’m not sure… but charge enough to make it worth it, definitely.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Jim Hyde] “So would just playing in a cover band alone be considered an illegal act if not cleared by the original artists?”
Yep. Sure would… especially if you have a paying audience.
Except the music has to be cleared with whomever actually holds the publishing rights… which may or may not be the “original artists.”
You rarely hear of it happening…. but years ago a guy I used to work with, Richard, had a moonlighting job running sound for a local cover band.
One night they were playing in a tiny dive hole-in-the-wall bar that you would think no one would ever care about. Well, the Richard was tapped on the shoulder and found himself facing a BMI/ASCAP rep who demanded a copy of their playlist.
Richard, ever the smartass, handed the guy a scrap of paper and a pencil and told him to enjoy the show.
I’m not sure how it all came out, but at least that night they were checking up on them, for sure (and no doubt this band was not paying any BMI or ASCAP fees).
Depending on the usage, publishing rights to songs can be steep. Dolly Parton made a mint off of “I will always love you,” but she actually made more from Whitney Houston’s cover of the song than she did from her own previous recording, purely because she was the writer.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
For what it’s worth, all the videos play fine for me. I’m on a relatively fast but not super-smokin’ DSL connection.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
The easiest thing to do would be to just keep your companies separate. You can operate under some “umbrella name” that is really no legal entity, just what you “call yourselves.” Invoices would still be written from and checks written to your repective companies.
If you are doing a job for a client where you are both doing about half of the work each, then bill the client separately.
If on the other hand, you are doing a job that is greatly one-sided (say, it’s 90% video with just a smidge of print), then I’d do the job entirely as a gig with your company, then YOU just sub out the print stuff to your pseudo-partner (and vice versa, if a job is more print heavy than video). That will be invoicing simpler for the client.
I think I would operate that way for a while, it’s a “living together” period before the marriage… that way you can see if you and your partner really do fit together as well as you think, exactly what assets each of you bring (both phyical capital assests, as well as the intangible ones such as client contacts), learn what client needs are, etc. If it seems to be a beautiful partnership, then some time down the road you can form an “official” company under the umbrella name and work that way.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com