Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I’ve never used the Brevis35, but I’m a huge fan of lens converters (I shoot with the XLH1 and a P+S Technik Mini35 almost everyday)….
… but I HAVE seen some really impressive test footage from the Brevis35, especially considering the dirt cheap price.
We have a little HV20 to use as a crashcam, and I have been planning to buy a Brevis35 for use with it (among the really good test footage I’ve seen was an HV20 demo). It’s nice that you can get one of these tiny/cheap units with a real PL mount. Hopefully it will be pretty sweet. I will give a review here as asap.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[David Roth Weiss] “I think your best bet would be to try talking to them again and ask for their permission”
I think that’s the best advice.
Plus, there’s another issue: This may may indeed be a one-time gig for a one-time company that you never expect to hear from again. However in our company most of our jobs are with clients that we have worked for many many times in the past. Even if I felt I was “in the right,” if a client didn’t want me to use something that we had created for them, we wouldn’t.
It’s most certainly not worth pissing them off, ruining a good relationship, and costing us a future job.
Even if I were right.
Which I always am, of course.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I second Mark’s “Crystal” suggestion… we still have a very older verstion of that software (back when it was called Crystal Flying Fonts) floating around in a couple of suites. It’s what we use for all “down and dirty” (but great looking) logo animations… some projects simply do not call for something more advanced (I can make a good-looking 3D piece with simple animation in literally 5 minutes).
It’s SUPER easy to use and is dirt cheap if you wana buy it. It’s actually easy with some practice to get actually quite good at it… learning to nest the canned moves, etc., to create fairly custom animations (without having to learn a complicated program). Lighting, surfaces, textures, etc., are all very VERY good as well, especially considering the almost giveaway pricetag
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Doing that kind of “community service” work might work well as a promotional tool for some people (and I’m glad to hear that it has in some cases)…
However…
It has been said here on the COW before (probably in this forum) that “The only kind of additional work that pro bono work generates is additional pro bono work”… and I think there is some truth to that, as least we have found that to be true through the years.
That being said, we’ve really come to try to limit that stuff through the years. NOT to say that we are not “community minded,” we do occassionally work for non-profits or “community causes”… but when we do so it is because we really want to help a particular group or cause that we believe in, not to use it as a promotional tool. It is tough turning down the numerous requests from non-profits and community groups, but with full production schedules we simply can’t handle them.
With one exception…
Sometimes (about every other year) we produce the big-screen presentation for the local advertising federation’s ADDY awards show. It’s completely a pro bono job… but it gets about an hour’s worth of our work shown to a captive audience of a few hundred people… the EXACT audience of people that hire us. It is a tremendous amount of work and the AdFed gets about a $15-20,000 job for free… but in this case it’s worth every dime (especially because we have total creative control and can just go crazy and do fun stuff).
So, if you want to do pro bono as a promotional tool, just be judicious and pick the right jobs.
Nextly… I would say do whatever you can to ingratiate yourself to advertising agencies and public relations firms. Larger corporate companies (the ones that have more money, pay better, and will need bigger film/video jobs) will often already employ an ad agency or PR firm that they expect to take care of things like corporate videos, marketing videos, training tapes, television commercials, etc., so working first for them is a way to get in with the big companies. We have several that we have worked that way for for years, and several that started that way and then the company eventually started calling us directly themselves (and unless the ad agency or PR firm is marking up your work a great deal they usually don’t care about being bypassed… it’s less work for them).
Good luck!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Those look pretty darn nice.
They are however, about three times the price or more of some of the less expensive ones mentioned in this thread. You probably get what you pay for… that would probably be the way to go for daily or heavy use. For a very occasional user one of the other units might be the best choice, depending on how budget conscious one is.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks, Max…
Yeah, I finally got some techie on the phone there who said “Ummm, yeah, the functionaity of that feature is no longer supported.”
Nor do they have any other products that do what I need. Nor did anyone else that he knew of. I told him I was pretty sure that I was not the only one who needed to do this, and he said, “Oh yeah, I get this call all the time.”
Oh well… at least they offered me my money back on my newly-purchased yet unneeded copy of DVDit HD Pro.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Tim Kolb] “I didn’t know you had been an actor (did you tell me that?)…”
No, Tim, I probably didn’t. Why?…planning to schedule the “World’s Worst Film Festival”? One movie-of-the-week thingy was so bad that I literally couldn’t watch it long enough to see myself.
Seriously, it all was an education though… I was fortunate enough to work for a couple of seasons (VERY bit part) on a very wonderful but underappreciated NBC series called “I’ll Fly Away”… where one of the rotating DPs (who shall remain nameless) could do more with one instrument and two feet of gaffer tape than I’ve ever seen. He was a genius… but very abusive to the crew, even the cast. We were doing a scene one time and he literally screamed at poor Sam Waterston (who is a total pussycat) for causing a shadow he didn’t like (which was actually my fault for missing a mark, but I was a twenty-something year-old kid and afraid to own up to it). Watching him I learned as much about what NOT to do as to do.
More comfortable behind the camera these days. Don’t bother IMDBing me though… there was another “Todd Terry” already in SAG so I had to use a different name (and will never tell!)
It’s more fun yelling “Action!” and bossing people around, anyway.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yes, you are correct.
IF you shoot with the Canon in 24f mode AND in HDV mode, then you must use a Canon camera for playback for capturing.
With other combinations (such as 24f in standard def mode, or 60i in HDV mode) then some other decks will work fine… but not 24f HDV.
Yup, you can use the HV20 as a source “deck” and capture video via HDMI, as long as you are using a capture card that will take HDMI in.
Or, you can use your XLH1 as your source deck, and injest video via the camera’s HD-SDI output (which is what I do). We also have an HV20 but have never used it as a source deck… although a lot of people do.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks, Nick…. sneaking is my best thing. 🙂
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[DavidWaxmanKRCB] “Todd, was this the version you use (smallest broadcast), or was it the smallest DV-sized model?”
Hi David…
The one we use I believe is their very smallest one… their designs have changed just a little bit since we bought ours. Ours has a 16×9 ratio LCD screen that is about 7″ diagonal.
Yes, that is pretty small, but still quite readable. We usually use Arial Black font, bold, at 72 and get a readable image. We used it yesterday outdoors and talent was about 8′ from it, I think, and he was able to read it fine. It’s NOT a big studio-sized prompter by any means… but that’s not what we were looking for. We wanted something as small as possible (yet still readable) that was good for run-and-gun type usage, and that could pack up as small as a laptop case. We used it yesterday on a jib (it’s light enough to do that). It’s also light enough to use handheld, but I can’t recall if I have ever actually done that.
The one we got actually uses a little TV monitor like you see in car headrests… and it’s QUITE a good monitor… we have even used it without the prompter when we needed an extra on-camera monior for focus puller. I believe their larger monitors are actually computer screens, but this one is an NTSC TV.
At any rate, I would NEVER suggest using one that attaches directly to and is supported by the lens (the one that you linked SEEMS to work that way, but I can’t really tell from their photos). That’s just not good for anybody.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com