[Todd Terry]

Hi Cees..

That is really much much more of a Final Cut question than a Canon camera question. I think you’d have more luck asking over in the FCPX forum than in this one. And unfortunately this Canon forum gets almost no traffic these days.

Good luck,

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

It always broke my heart a little bit that I could never play piano quite well enough to master that (well, that and Chopin’s Polonaise in Ab Major Op53).

Actually it technically shouldn’t be a hard piece at all, but something about the syncopation just never gelled between my hands as it should.

It just sounds like Christmas more than anything else to me….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zypc_LhnM

T2

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

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[Todd Terry]

[Mark Suszko] “I’m going to be heretical and say I don’t always mind when color temps get mixed “

I don’t find that heretical at all, not a bit.

I’ll frequently mix color temps, especially for things like back/rim/hair lighting. I’ll often use either a warmer or cooler light for that than the key… either by the type/native color of the fixture, or with gels. Nothing wrong with that, sometimes it looks great. Many other times, too, mixed color temps can look good.

Mark is still a heretic of course, but for entirely different reasons… not for that. 🙂

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Rick is right as always about diffusing the Kinos, listen to him (I usually do).

Don’t worry about lighting temperature based on the skin tone of your subjects… either bulbs will be fine. Instead be concerned about matching the ambient light, or whatever other instruments you are using. If you are in a situation were there is also daylight light (a house with windows, etc.), then go for the daylight bulbs and use other daylight instruments. If you are in a studio setting, it doesn’t matter… match it to whatever other fixtures are being used in the scene.

I have totally given up using Kinos or any other similar instruments. They were absolutely GREAT in their day, but I think the day is passing. They are just too heavy, clunky, fragile, and I never ever use any instruments anymore that are dependent on AC power (with the rare exception of the occasional HMI).

My go-to lights of late for talking heads, interview-type setups, and narrative scenes where I need soft pretty light on people are the round bi-color “flapjack” instruments made by FotoDiox. I started using these a couple of years ago, and have several sizes. To be honest I’ve never seen anyone else using these (except online, not in person), but they give the most natural and beautiful light. Plus they are very thin, very lightweight, very robust, and not very power hungry. They are also very very reasonably-priced. Cheap, actually.

They are also a good company. I had one instrument that had a switch get broken. I had bought it off eBay. I emailed the company about getting it repaired (fully expecting to pay for it). They wrote me back that since I had bought it from an individual not from them or a re-seller that it was not under warranty (which I knew)… but said to send it to them and that they would go ahead and fix it. I thought “wow,” and sent them just the head…I wasn’t asking for a freebie, just to pay for a repair. They sent me back a full and brand-new identical kit… head, power supply, batteries, case… everything. Good company.

https://fotodioxpro.com/collections/flapjack-led-edgelights

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

If you want to sell gear, my main advice is to do it NOW… don’t wait a day, a week, or a year. In our business, sadly the value of most of our gear plummets the second you drive it off the lot, and continues its freefall.

Before there even was such a thing as big-sensor cameras, at our place we achieved the film look with a P+S Technik 35mm lens converter that let us use 35mm cine primes. The converter wasn’t cheap, about $14,000 if I recall. When I retired that camera and thought I’d just sell the lens converter, I wasn’t too happy to see that they were going for about $400. I knew they would have tanked in value, but I didn’t think quite THAT much. And that’s just one example out of a thousand here.

So… if you’re gonna do it, do it today. Or tomorrow… or this week.

As for resources, for “general” gear I guess eBay is probably the go-to source… that’s where I’ve gotten rid of some things. For real specific items, hit the specialists in those areas. For example if you have high-end lenses, ask Duclos Lenses or other high-end experts what the best route would be. For something like a Steadicam, the Steadicam Operators’ Association will let you list things. I believe Mandy.com still has classified ads, which is much more targeted to our industry.

Resellers like Visual Products will also accept used gear… but they tend to really low-ball the offers that they make.

This is definitely a do-as-I-say -not-as-I-do situation… because I’m a major hoarder and can hardly part with anything. I’ve got thousands of pounds of gear that will never be used again, but it’s really hard to part with it.

I found this slightly amusing… I recently sold the very first Sony camera my company started with 23 years ago…. sold it on eBay. I got pennies on the dollar for it, but at least it (and its gigantic case) wasn’t taking up valuable storage real estate anymore. The buyer ended up being a Hollywood prop rental house. I’m gonna start looking for it the next time I see a “news crew” in a movie or TV show scene (where the “camera operators” are invariably holding the camera wrong, shouldering it but reaching over and grabbing the top carry handle).

Oh… one thing… if you have good lenses that you are thinking of selling (and I’m definitely talking about higher-end glass, real cine primes especially), those are one of the few things in our business that does not depreciate… but rather appreciates. My set of superspeed primes was a very painful purchase, but they are worth a lot more today than they were when I bought them. So if you have good glass… hang on to it. You can sell them for more tomorrow than you can today.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m a little bit confused, that seems like apples and oranges to me.

On one hand you’re talkin about holding pricing for a future event, but really you’re talkin about locking them into a contract. Those are two different things.

Just because you guarantee pricing 90 days from now doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve committed to hiring you for the event… which is what you need in order to firmly book a crew, make rental arrangements, etc. That’s irrespective of whether or not your prices are the same or higher 90 days from now.

Sounds to me like you just need to lock them into a contract, so they are obligated to pay you whether or not the gig happens… with or without you.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I would ask, is there any reason to suspect that your costs will go up in the next 90 days? Or were you planning a rate increase yourself that you were planning to implement sometime between days 30-90? If not, I don’t really see any downsides into locking their rate for 90.

Sounds like a big job and one that you’d like to get, so I don’t really see much of a reason not to.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Daniel Waldron] “I looked up rentals comparable to mine and they range between $180-$300/day. “

Yeah, I understand, but that’s irrelevant. That’s just hardware. You’re not charging for the hardware (although that of course is a part of it and a financial consideration on your end). You are charging for your time and talent. As fellow COW Tim Knox told me a long time ago (is he still around?… haven’t seen him in forever), “Talent comes before technology in the dictionary,” and it should it our business, too.

You have to think of it as that you are not charging for the bird, you are charging for what you can do with it. If you need an operation you don’t care what the hospital paid for the scalpels (although these days no doubt they charge you for it), you only care what the surgeon can do with it.

Technology has become a leveler, because the cost of entry is almost nil now. My company is 22 years old. Thirty years ago it would have taken $10M to do what we can do, but by the time we began it in 1997 it only took about $100K. Today, you could do it for about eleven bucks.

Same with drones… 10 years ago that silky smooth cinematic aerial might have taken a $2M Bell Jetranger, a Tyler mount, and an Arri pulling 35mm film. Today it takes a thousand-buck DJI…. that can fly smoother, quieter, lower, cheaper, and much more nimble than a real helicopter. But you can’t get braggy about owning one, because your neighbor does too… and the guy across the street. But can they do with it what you can? You are charging for your talent.

A lot of it is marketing, too. At my little company we say we have a distinct advantage because the drone pilot (which happens to be me) is both a veteran cinematographer and has also spent many hours in the pilot seat of “real” airplanes… a double threat. But of course, in reality it makes no difference… I’m undoubtedly no better at it than many kids around (those darn video games) who could fly circles around me. Quite literally. It’s all in how you sell it.

And yeah, definitely find out what your competition is charging.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Mark’s advice is good as usual.

People on the COW for some reason generally seem loathe to talk about rates, but it doesn’t bother met at all and I’m happy to share.

It’s very rare that we do “drone only” shoots, I’d say 99% of the time a drone shot is something that we need in conjunction with a regular shoot we are doing. For example, we recently spent two days in a neighboring state shooting a television campaign for a credit union… virtually all of the footage was “on the ground,” but we did need two aerials, and they were snagged at various points through the shoot days. When that’s the case, we’re charging our regular base shoot rate (which is $300/hr), plus I tack on $200 if the drone is used at any point in the day. Not $200 per hour or per flight, just a flat $200 added to the day’s shooting charges.

On the rare occasions that we’ve been asked for drone-only work, I just charged the flat regular shoot rate of $300/hr.

Those have all just been one-off shots that we needed, or a shot or two for a separate project… or in the case of one client that is constructing a new $26 million HUGE building, they have us document the construction progress every couple of weeks. But no one has ever booked drone work for a day…. that need hasn’t come up here, and I don’t really expect it to. I’ve only got about an hour’s worth of batteries, anyway.

We do what I call “mid level” drone work… we’ve flown various flavors of Phantoms through the last few years, and right now have a Mavic Pro but will probably switch up to the Pro 2 soon. I’ve rented the Inspire before (back before the Mavic existed), but that’s as high-end as we’ve needed so far. If I need to fly something like a RED or 5D, I have a buddy with the “big birds” who will do that for me. He used to stay super busy doing high-end drone work, everything from corporate to feature films… but not so much anymore since now everybody and their brother is doing it. I have to say my little Mavic’s camera is pretty unbelievably excellent. If you’d told filmmakers 10 years ago that this would be so easy and cheap and good they wouldn’t have believed it.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Haaa… this might have even been the exact jacket….

https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/costumes/johnny-carson-sports-jacket-a-nice-houndstooth-sports-jacket-by-dorso-of-beverly-hills-worn-by-the-late-tonight-show-host/a/616-20521.s?ic3=ViewItem-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115

It is tempting….

T2

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