[Todd Terry]

—my assumption is that you are in the US, if not, your mileage may vary depending on the laws wherever you are—

Well, you did make a ton of mistakes… but I won’t beat you up over that because hopefully you have learned some valuable lessons and won’t go down that road again. Please.

I won’t really speak to the “Who owns the footage” issue, because that can be a gray area, depending on the terms of your deal. You’ll likely get good advice about that from others in here (that seems to be a topic that tons of people in this forum are always eager to chime in on).

But I will mention something you might find useful about contracts. You said you don’t have a contract.

BUT… you do have a contract.

To have a contract you must have three things, 1) offer, 2) acceptance, and 3) consideration. You have all three of those, an offer was made, and offer was accepted, and money (the consideration) came into play.

If you have those three things you have a contract… it doesn’t matter if there was a building full of lawyers involved, or if it was two friends shaking hands over a cup of coffee. A verbal contract is just as legal, valid, and enforceable as one that is carved in granite.

Verbal contracts are harder to enforce though, because there is no written record of it, no signed paper, and the whole thing becomes a “he said / she said” kind of thing. That’s the one thing that keeps a verbal contract from being exactly the same as a written one. One party can simply always say “No, I didn’t say that.”

But in this case you do have a paper trail… or at least an electronic one. Those emails and texts that spell out the terms are validation of the offer and acceptance. As long as they do say what the terms are regarding who does what and what is expected of whom and how much you are to pay, it’s totally valid.

Irrespective of whomever actually owns the footage, if this guy is quibbling over such small amounts, my guess is that even the first mention of you “lawyering up” over this will compel him to hand over the footage.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Yeah those rigs have been around long before GoPros existed.

One of my favs is Billy Bob Thornton’s drunk Doggicam shot in the movie “Bad Santa.”

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Yes, just confirming what Mark said, that’s how they do it.

For many years this was known as a “DoggiCam,” shot, as DoggiCam is the brand name of the rig that is most used…

…but of course no doubt it was a much smaller camera used in this example, as Mark said maybe even a lipstick camera.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Can you find a scene from a movie or TV show or something that has an environment/lighting/mood that is similar to what you are trying to achieve and post a still of it?

If so then it would be easy to tell you how to effect that lighting plot.

If not, it’s a bit hard to guess as I think we are getting some conflicting info from you as to what you want to do and how you are planning to do it.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

How exactly are you going to use your tungstens through the windows as practical moonlight if you are shooting during the day?

Also, if you have “nighttime” look to your lighting plot, do you want all your interior flos blazing? Sure, many people do keep all office lights on at night, but it doesn’t evoke a nighttime “mood” if you are tying to set one with the lighting, and definitely wouldn’t be conducive to any moonlight streaming in.

It might not be practical because of your particular crew/talent/location availability, but sounds like this scene would be infinitely easier to stage at night, if possible.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I usually spike with small crosses of yellow or orange tape. Orange ping pong balls are also commonly used.

You can see some from one of my shoots on this page….

https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news031.html

…scroll down to the behind-the-scenes shot at the very bottom.

Yes, place them on the studio wall… if you are working in a very flat 3D space and the back walls are appropriate places to composite your background to. You’d place your spikes on stands as you suggested if the tracking points need to be in some other place than against the wall, and you need to track a composited object more downstage out in the space somewhere.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

24f actually is 24p, when you shoot in HDV mode (it’s not when you shoot in standard-def mode, in SD it’s 23.976 progressive frames in a 60i wrapper).

“24f” is just not called “24p” because that was actually a trademark owned by Robert Faber the inventor of “FilmLook” (remember that company in the 90s?), and Canon wouldn’t pay the licensing to officially call it “24p.”

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Rob Gutermuth] ” Im shooting 1080i 59.97″

That’s good, because… (and I MAY be speaking out of turn here)… I think the H1 will only output 60i via the HD-SDI spigot. I seem to recall that even if you shoot 24p as I usually do (or as that camera calls it, “24f”) it still comes out of the HD-SDI port as 59.97 video (although it looks like 24p, as it has a 2:3 pulldown in a 60i wrapper).

I’m not 100% certain of that, but I think that’s the case. It’s a moot point for you since you want 60i video, but if you ever want 24p video it might not be recorded as “true” 24p video. Not that there aren’t ways around that.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Yeah, given the opportunity to take advantage, people will.

[Daniel Stone] “this usually causes a sudden rate increase for the next shoot.”

That’s another thing we do differently, apparently. I never ask someone what their rate is. I tell them what I will pay… and if they want the gig, then they can take it. If not, that’s fine, too. That goes for crew, talent, whomever. Actors, especially, are used to asking “What’s the dayrate?” rather than telling you theirs.

And to be honest, I usually offer a more-than-fair rate… generous, even. Questioning that has been known to bite people. We had a actor we used quite a bit for a continuing commercial thing. I paid him as much as I could (well well above average for this market), becuase I’ve been an actor myself and I know how it is and that’s just fair. Well, when he started whining about wanting more, I fixed that. I certainly don’t want someone to think he’s being paid too little for what we are getting… so he’s not anymore. Paid, that is. Movin’ on.

The only time I’ll be dictated rates is when I have to be, usually with higher-end talent that can command the rates they want or union positions where the rates are set. Sometimes though that is to our advantage, not theirs. We just did a campaign of several commercials and I used a national-level voice actor as the narrator. I paid him his rate, union scale, because that’s what he gets. In reality, if I was in position just to offer him the gig with no agent or union or signatory hoops to jump through, I’d have probably offered him a lot more than I actually ended up paying him.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Seriously? Breakfast?? And before the call?

Man, crews must love you.

In 20+ years as a producer (on my puny-budget productions) and before that about 10 years as a working actor (on other peoples’ ginormous-budget productions) I’ve never offered or been offered a meal available before a call.

Or after one.

In your situation, you’d normally be expected to provide lunch only.

I’m not saying it’s not a super nice thing to do, or telling you to stop doing it… but it’s pretty unheard of. In cases where budgets are tight, crews certainly won’t arrive expecting that.

Well… correction… the ones that worked for you before probably will now… ha.

T2

P.S. Makes me wonder what your craft services table looks like… the food bar at Sizzler??

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