Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Cool, glad you guys were able to connect.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think one of the issues might be that you are offering X number of rounds of revisions. What’s a “round”? Your client is obviously going to interpret that in the widest way possible. A “round” can indeed be replacing a single shot. But… as long as they are done at the same time, replacing 50 shots, re-organizing an edit, changing color grading, replacing a narrator, and re-scoring the whole thing could be viewed as a single “round” in your client’s eyes. And given the opportunity to take advantage, most definitely will.
I’d suggest that you offer X number of hours as an available revision, before the clock starts again.
That’s more of less what we do. We live almost entirely in the 30-second commercial world, so I imagine our timeframes are much shorter than yours but the same theory applies. We usually budget a day (8 hours) of suite time to cut a :30 project, maybe two if something is especially complicated, has a lot of effects, laying, or motion graphics, etc. When that’s the case we are usually totally comfortable giving away an hour or so of suite time for revisions. More than that?… we bill for it.
Some of it has to do with the type of revisions that are needed. If they are aesthetic revisions, those tend to fall in the freebie category. If a client doesn’t like a color, or the size or style of a graphic, or a music track… we’ll, that’s not math so there are no right or wrong answers, and the customer is always right. We can’t read their minds in advance, so we are (usually) happy to make those changes (as long as they are minor) gratis to keep them happy and get a project wrapped and billed.
But script revisions are different. If a client wants a revision that involves a change to an approved script, well that’s a different story. If they want to change a line, the order of some elements, add or subtract an element that changes the edit, or any of that voodoo that renders the project different from the exact approved script we were working from… well, none of those are freebies. That all gets billed.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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It just depends on how you work.
All that info could be greatly useful… if you need it. And some people probably do.
For others, like me, it’s a solution in search of a problem. I don’t need it, so I don’t use it.
I haven’t even tried to set much of that custom info that you mention. Sounds like it’s a bit clunky… glad I don’t use/need it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Ray Kowalchuk] ” Is anybody using this data”
I shoot the C300 every day, and use absolutely no metadata whatsoever.
Every now and then I might go back in the XF utility and look at something very basic (maybe to see how much ND I had on a shot, what ISO a shot was at, or the exact color temp, etc.) if I have a shot from an older shoot that I was curious about or wanted to match, but even that is rare.
I wouldn’t stretch your brain too much wondering what you should be using this for… if it’s not something you’ve been wanting waiting and itching for, then it’s likely something you don’t need 🙂
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Actually, Rich is right… and I will freely admit that I was totally wrong when I said what they were asking for couldn’t be done. It can be, and actually that’s the way I do it all the time, myself. You can indeed give them slow-mo shots that are 29.97p. I just wasn’t thinking right.
While everything I said is correct in theory, there are some things that are specific to the C300 that will satisfy everyone.
I just went and looked at my camera to make sure what I was saying is true…
This is the one thing that the C300 doesn’t make totally easy, as there are a few menu hoops to jump through.
If you go into the menu under “Other Functions” (open the menu and select the icon that looks like a wrench) and set your frame rate to 29.97p… and then under “Special Rec” select “Slow & Fast Motion” and then under “Slow & Fast Motion” >> “S&F Frame Rate” set your rate higher, say 60fps, your end result WILL be a 29.97p clip that is overcranked by however much you set it.
That should satisfy everyone’s requirements.
NOTE THIS: I personally always shoot bitrates of 50 Mbps 1920×1080 (under “Bit Rate/Resolution”). With those settings the fastest fps you can shoot is 30. If you want to go higher than that for slow-mo, you have to lower the bitrate/frame size. I usually duck it to 35 Mbps 1280×720.
Again, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG… freely admit it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well frankly that makes little to no sense.
Smooth true slow motion is, obviously, achieved by “overcranking”… that is, shooting at a frame rate faster than the intended playback. Obviously you know this, as you have definitely been doing it the “right” way.
If you are working in a 29.97 world (for post and playback), a mandate to shoot your slow-mo footage at 29.97 as well makes no sense. At all. Sure, you can slow-mo that footage, just as you can with any footage, by using it in post at a slower frame rate. But it won’t be true smooth slow motion, of course, it will look like choppy slowed-down footage. The only solution to smoothing that out would be to use some frame-interpolation software (Twixtor, etc.) to attempt to re-create the “missing” frames, but those results are uneven at best and are usually good only for very specifically-shot and framed setups. The obvious “real” solution is to simply overcrank… and shoot at a faster frame rate. Which you have been doing.
I believe your mandate there comes from someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Steve Stapleton] “Can you send me the DIY setup video you reference?”
Did you watch the video I posted further up in this thread? That’s really all I have to offer as far as instructions, etc., it’s pretty self explanatory.
BTW… you wouldn’t be able to do rear projection with seamless background paper as you mentioned. You could do front projection, but not rear.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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First question, “Why?” That’s what most people will ask you, me included a bit (I haven’t shot film in years)… but I still support shooting film… maybe not so much for doing anymore, but for learning and improving. Anyone who can successfully shoot beautiful film can shoot the pants off of electronic cameras. The reverse is not at all true.
But to answer your original question… Sure, cameras are still bing made. For example Aaton still makes the A-Minima and the Xterà , both great S16mm cameras.
That being said, one would be crazy to buy one.
There’s no point in spending tens of thousands of dollars on a new film camera (16mm, 35mm, whatever) when the used market for them is so huge. People have been dumping their film gear in such a flood that you can find great 16mm gear for sale for literally a tiny fraction of it’s original price.
I doubt it’s an exaggeration to guess that 95% of the people that were shooting film 10 years ago have dumped their film gear… me included (I sold all my 16mm gear about five years ago, followed by all my 35mm gear a couple of years ago). Hit sources like mandy.com or even eBay and you’ll find gear going for probably a tenth of original price.
And as long as it has been maintained, a 30-year-old film camera can perform just as well today as when it was brand new.
The one thing that hasn’t plummeted is glass. Great cine lenses do not go down in value… they hold steady… or even go up. My primes set is worth more today than when I bought them a few years ago. I wish I could say that about the rest of my gear.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “…really as tall and as big as you can afford is the practical answer.”
Yep… and there’s plenty of learning to “make do” if you don’t have that luxury, too.
I enjoy perusing the specs for places like Silvercup Studios, etc., just to see what kind of room they have to play with. Recently I was looking at the specs for all the Television City stages at CBS in LA.
At least one of their stages has a 40’+ height, and several of them are in the 30′ neighborhood, more or less. But TWO of them (stages 56 and 58) only have 15′ heights. You might think that would seriously limit them to smaller productions (and shows like AMC’s “The Talking Dead,” on stage 58 are pretty small), but most recently stage 56 was/is the home for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (and now with James Corden).
Even from extreme wide and crane shots you’d never guess 56 was such a low-ceiling stage with only 15 feet to play with… just depends on how you frame and use the space. I’m sure sometimes though they wish they had more room up top.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Jarkko…
In your case you’ll want 29.97fps, progressive (assuming the BMPC will shoot that, which I’m guessing it will). Obviously you will want to do all your post and mastering at that as well.
Both computer monitors/web and Blu-ray will handle 29.97 just fine. The vast vast majority of the time when people say “24p” or “30p” they are really talking about 23.976 and 29.97. It’s very rare to actually shoot or post in true 24fps or 30fps. In fact the only reason to shoot in actual 24fps, for example, is if you were going to move into the celluloid world and actually strike a real film print of the project… which virtually no one does anymore anyway.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
