Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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This just in….. Barack Obama will not support the current SOPA bill. Now maybe folks can go back and craft a law that is much more specific that all sides can agree on.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Chris Harlan] “I’ve also noticed that many of X’s supporters are also ardent photographers, as are Rick and Randy, and I wonder if there is something about the approach of X that is particularly appealing to photographers.”
The design of iMovie mirrors that of iPhoto which of course mirrors the design of FCP X. All of that on purpose so the end user can easily transition between the apps. Whether the app is “pro” or not all depends on the end user, not necessarily the app itself. I think Mark Raudonis says it best in his recent article, Apple is pursuing its path, it’s just not necessarily the path that his company or many others want to take as well.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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The “broad stroke” of the law is the problem. It’s so broad that it’s easier for sites to simply not provide information or shut down than to work within the law. Checking literally millions of links to ensure not a single one contains a copyright issue before presenting the results of a search for example, would be silly.
I found this article to be rather straightforward and in a nutshell: “Basically, under SOPA, an accusation of copyright violation is enough to allow the Department of Justice and any complainant who gets a court order, to shut down a website and websites that facilitate copyright infringement.”
https://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/07/how-threatening-is-the-stop-online-piracy-act-sopa/
So let’s say the Creative Cow has one person who asks “How did they do this?” and they link to a YouTube video showing a clip of a popular film. That YouTube user has no permission to upload that clip and YouTube has no permission to show the clip. Under SOPA, the film owner can come after the Creative Cow for copyright infringement and obtain a court order to shut down the site until the legal matter is resolved. Multiply that single person by the thousand of people who post on the Cow every day and you have the potential for hundreds, maybe thousands of court orders to be filed against the Cow each week.
Let’s say you search Google for “Fly Boys” and a single link in those thousands (millions?) of results contains a illegal posting of a clip from the feature film Fly Boys. The owner of the film can go after Google, obtain a court order to shut down the site until the legal matter is resolved. Multiple that single search by the millions of searches per day done on Google and you have the potential for thousand, maybe millions of court orders to be filed against Google each week.
Instead of going after just the website owner or the individual user who posted the illegal material, SOPA allows ANY and ALL websites that LINK to the “copyright infringed material” to be gone after in a court of law and allows the government to SHUT DOWN said sites until the legal matter is resolved.
I’m all about protecting copyright infringement, but this type of broad stroke legislation is just ridiculous and that’s why so many folks are saying it will alter the internet as we know it today.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Bill Davis] “This whole think looks to me that it happened in a “shop” of talented people – not in a “station” or in a MGM or Turner style “Studio” “
Um, as someone who visits Turner Studios on a regular basis, I can tell you that those studios are FULL of very talented and very creative people. They work in an absolutely gorgeous and fun facility that happens to be a large studio complex.
So you can go ahead and paint a “studio” with a broad brush as something that’s bad and un-creative. But in the case of Turner Studios, they are not only creative, they’re a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Steve Wargo] “I didn’t know you were a chef.”
Growing up in an Italian family, I basically lived in the kitchen. Also, gave serious consideration to attending the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY which is only 15 minutes from my childhood home. I LOVE to cook and that served me well when I met Alton Brown and started working on Good Eats. I still have dreams of opening a small restaurant one day, though if that one doesn’t happen, it’s ok. 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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For me,
Yes, you can have an indemnity clause, but quite honestly, a rights holder is going to come after the producer no matter what your contract says and they will have a good case against the Producer. If you are a professional working in the industry the very first thing you should understand are rights and the need to have clearance for anything that is used in a project. Most often the issues that arise are music and clips of previously produced material such as film and television shows. All rights and clearances are given in writing so if there is a question at all, the Production company needs to ask the client for the written clearance. So you can put that clause in there, but know that the rights holder are going to come after you and will most likely win. You have to be vigilant of your own accord.
Copyright. If you’re working for a client, in my book the client owns everything. I really don’t know where this whole idea that if you get hired by a client, do the work for the client, you somehow keep copyright control of the project. That’s unethical in my book. When you create something original and you finance it yourself, you own that.
I’ve never heard of a creative control clause. If you are hired by a client to do the work, generally you present your concept and then you work back and forth from there. That’s generally how it works. Again, you create an original concept, then generally you have full creative control. But I’ve never heard of, nor seen the need for a “creative control” clause.
Revisions – My contracts don’t include these and I’ll tell you why. How long is that revision going to take you? 2 minutes? 5 hours? 10 hours? I don’t know either. So my proposals to the clients include days / hours to complete the project that has an allowance for revisions. I know a project is going to take 36 hours of edit, so my proposal includes up to 46 hours of edit for X amount and then the client is billed Y per hour/day for every hour / day beyond the 46 hours. It’s all spelled out in the proposal so there’s no surprises, no “well you can’t have THAT revision because it’ll take too long” or “well now that’s going to put us over budget so the rate will now be Y per hour.” So now when the client asks me for something that’s going to take 12 hours to revise, I can simply say, “That’s going to push you into overtime, are you sure you want to do that or would like to try this alternative instead?”
Change of Scope – This is easily handled by making sure your contact is very specific in what is expected of you including all the services you will provide. 2 days of shooting at this location with this crew, 10 days of editing, 4 cuts of library music, client deliverable will be a DVD / QT Movie / HDCAM Master with a running time of approx. X minutes. Making the contract as specific as possible makes it very easy to show a client when a project has changed scope requiring a revision.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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I have a three part series here on the Cow about starting and running your own business. Some good info to get you started. Also a follow up article about Thinking Big.
Hopefully that will help you get started, feel free to ask more questions those article might generate.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Paul Nelson] “Ok, firstly. Does it matter which card is doing the downconvert? Should it happen on output or input or doesn’t matter? I’ve chosen on input, as it’s the newer machine and newer hardware, higher spec etc etc.”
Nope, not really, though we generally do the same thing you’re doing. Machine 1 plays out natively, Machine 2 makes the conversion and records.
[Paul Nelson] “Secondly… So I’ve now got my footage captured in, but I’m a bit perplexed as to what I’m seeing. I assume that when I do a downconvert to an SD interlaced format that I should actually see the interlacing? It all looks progressive to me both in FCP and in Quicktime. Except one clip, which is really throwing me, as it came from the same HD timeline (I stopped and started to make some separate clips). “
Ok, on Machine 2, the record machine, have you set that up to properly do the conversion? You set up the conversion via the AJA Control Panel, not through FCP. So when you look at the AJA Control Panel you should see the 720p / 25 signal coming in and then being converted to the 625i signal. This all happens BEFORE the signal gets to FCP.
So under Format in the AJA Control Panel, the Primary should be 625i and the Secondary should be 720p / 25.
You have Machine 2 set up correctly with FCP in the 625i Easy Setup. Now just make sure you have the conversion set up correctly in the AJA Control Panel.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Colton Lee] “According to my business plan I usually charge $150 an hour for camera equipment/filming and 50 an hour for editing… “
I honestly don’t know anyone who charges by the hour for videography. Day and on occassion half day rates.
Editing rate is extremely low if that includes an editing system. Once you set your rate, it’s very hard to go up from there.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.
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[Bill Davis] “The Cow’s own Richard Harrington was quoted in an Apple Insider story today indicating that…
“There was a Final Cut Pro 8, and it was 64-bit and it was done,” Harrington said. “And they looked at it and said, ‘This is not what we want to do. This is evolutionary, this is not revolutionary.’ And they killed it.””
Quote is out of context, there never was a Final Cut Pro 8. Development on Final Cut Pro X goes back a few years. A 64 bit version of what we know as Final Cut Pro 7 was never made.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“This American Land” – our new PBS Series.