Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Good work, looks like a decent build. Probably a fair bit better than the first crane I ever built (but I was young and dumb and that was 20+ years ago).
One question I’d have, does it still work (and balance) ok if you tilt the tripod head (which would subsequently tilt the camera sled)? If so, that would give you nice tilt control of the camera… which would be especially useful, since I personally probably rarely do crane moves with the camera absolutely perfectly horizontal. Could also put a small head on the camera end to give you a lot more freedom… for a camera as small as a DSLR I think the rig could handle the weight of a smallish head… it looks to be built robust enough.
Good work…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’m just piling on to what other people have said here, but not giving away project files for free is SOP virtually universally in our business…
As for “I would never work with you again out of general principle”…
To give a couple of very exaggerated examples…
If you bought a GM car (or whatever brand), would you refuse to buy another one if they balked at giving you all the schematics and CAD files to build your own from scratch?
Do you refuse to eat at KFC because they won’t tell you what the “eleven herbs and spices” are? Same with Coca-Cola and its super-secret formula?
If you hire someone to lay tile, do you insist that the installer teach yow how to do it yourself before he leaves?
When eating in a restaurant, do you expect the chef to give you the recipe so you can make it yourself next time?
Of course not.
Project files are a separate deliverable… one that comes with a price. Under most contracts, when you pay for a project you are paying for the finished work… period… unless other arrangements have been made in advance.
Some people are ok with including some source material (such as camera raw footage) as part of deliverables (we are not), but project files themselves… never.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “…the Vixia doesn’t have a fisheye lens…”
If the camera is otherwise perfect for your use, don’t discount it because of the FoV of the native glass…
https://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Fisheye-LEGRIA-Digital-Camcorders/dp/B0026JZ2AQ
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Haha… best answer.
And people wonder how Richard finds such perfectly-timed beds.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I should have mentioned this in my first response, but clicked “Post” before I realized it… so here’s an addendum …
A lot of it has to do with what particular skill or area of expertise you are trying to showcase… you didn’t really say what kind of reel this is.
Is it a cinematography reel? If so, then yep a minute’s worth of killer stuff might be plenty. VFX? Yes, you might can show that in a minute or less. Editing? No, no way. When I watch editing reels I want to see fair-sized chunks of a single project at a time (so many editors send me a two minute real that is butt cuts of clips from 40 different projects… that shows me nothing about how a person can edit). A reel from a full-blown production company? That one I’d prefer to be longer, with several larger chunks from different projects.
I’m guessing yours is purely a cinematography reel (again, you didn’t say… it shows some very nice camera work, but no editing). If so, I think the length you have is pretty good. You might shorten it a bit (and certainly don’t make it any longer), but it’s in the ballpark.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Cool… I actually haven’t seen pantographs in years. The TV station I worked for many many moons ago ditched a whole boatload of them quite a while back when they switched to poles and trombones instead. I’ve occasionally wished I had snatched a couple.
And… good cover story about Amy. It’s almost believable 🙂
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Nick Griffin] “Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what I do these days when looking for VO talent”
Exactly the same with me. When casting voice talent I’ll typically have about 80-100 auditions to wade through… sometimes twice that if we have a bigger budget (which draws more auditionees). Out of 100, probably 10 of those I will listen to completely, and again and again. Another 10 get listened to completely once… maybe twice. The other 80?… they probably don’t make it past the :04 mark before I hit “next.” Sad, yes, and I probably occasionally miss someone good, and I do feel a bit of guilt thinking “This guy took time to audition my script, I should listen to it”… but time and practicality just doesn’t allow that.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, one minute is pretty darn short… unless you are just wanting to feature one little specific thing that you are doing.
Something more in the 2-3 minute range is workable… but I’d say not a bit more than that.
However long you make it, make sure you put your very best killer stuff right at the beginning. I know so many people who want to sandbag and save something for the tail, so they can end with a “big finish.” Well, that’s all well and good if you have plenty of great stuff so that you can start like gangbusters and end with a killer piece… but if you don’t, always put the great stuff at the beginning.
As someone who gets tons of reels across my desk (and knowing plenty of other people who do too), I have to say that the sad fact is that very few reels get watched from beginning to end. It is, no doubt, a knee jerk and short-attention-span reaction, but I’ll usually mentally decide within the first seven seconds whether watching the rest of a reel is worth my time. If not, I don’t see it. I know that’s sad and unfair and I’m probably missing some great stuff…but that’s just the way it is. If I watched all of everything that is available to me I’d literally be doing nothing but watching reels all day, every day. Some reels do get watched in their entirety, but getting the first half or first third watched would be a lot more common. Even getting the first ten seconds seen is probably a lot more likely than getting it all watched, even if it is only a minute long.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I don’t know if it is considered quite the “industry standard,” but you’ll find lots of stages where the specs list 14′ from the deck to the grid… so I think that’s a pretty common height in medium or smaller size studios. It’s also a very workable height, although you’ll sometimes find some higher (some much higher).
Our stage is 11′ to the grid, and while that is perfectly workable 95% of the time, like Bill there is that occasional job where I’d sure be loving an extra couple of feet. Really big studios tend to (obviously) have higher ceilings… so considering that our stage space is definitely on the small side, it’s probably about the best we could expect in a space this size.
More us usually better… well, as long as you don’t get too crazy about it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Did you back up all the files by simply dragging the “CONTENTS” folder from the card to your computer?
If so, no problem, the XF utility can still handle that fine, you would just go to FILE > SET VIRTUAL MEDIA in the XF utility to locate the new Contents folder, and then after that XF will treat it as always… you can do another backup if you like, or merge/export the .MXF files as usual, etc.
If you’ve changed the file structure you might have to reassemble the files into the same folder/file order as they are supposed to be for it to work, but I’m not totally sure about that as I have never done exactly that.
You don’t HAVE to use the XF utility, you can always poke through all the files and pick what you need to edit with (you only need the large .MXF files), but using the utility certainly makes everything much more organized and easier to deal with.
Also, in the future even if you are in a hurry don’t just drag the files from the card to backup… always use the XF utility to make your backup (FILE > BACK UP MEDIA). It doesn’t take any longer to do that as opposed to just dragging from a card (in fact, it might even be faster), and it assures that all the folder/file structure is maintained and everything is organized as it should be.
If you are on a computer that doesn’t have the XF utility installed, and you’re in a hurry… just be sure to drag over that entire CONTENTS folder as-is and intact. Then when you do move it to a computer with the XF utility, it will handle it easy breezy.
You certainly haven’t lost anything, and everything is fully recoverable/usable with what you have.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
