Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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[Patrick Ortman] “Plus you’re one of the best guys in the southeast, plus you’re located close to, and have connections with, things going on in Atlanta- which is a regional production hub.”
One of the funny things is very little of our work comes from Atlanta. All those tax incentives you hear about apply to Production only. Almost all of the Post goes back to L.A. and Post is the bulk of our work.
Something I did very early on was to start working in the “cloud” before anyone knew what the “cloud” was. We’ve been working remotely with both clients and talent since at least 2004 for file exchanges, project reviews, etc… So while we have the nice big building here, the bulk of our work is done remotely with clients literally all over the globe.
[Patrick Ortman] “And finally, there’s a little bit of luck (we all need luck, too).”
Plus an excellent partner, which in my case is my wife. 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Neil Hurwitz] “So in conclusion, I would like to hear about how you all
moderate your Operating Expenses and not about debt load”Volume of work + Low Overhead. That’s our formula simplified.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Jim Edds] “When I open the rendered files from color in “color scratch” they have no audio. Which tells me I need to send the color project back to FCP. Now how would I export the 40 color correct clips on the timeline out as 40 individual files? I hope not one at a time. Thanks.”
Yep, 40 individual clips. Color only renders the video. When it sends the files back to FCP, it just re-aligns them with the audio from the original clips. If your client is requiring audio to be married to the clips, looks like you’ll be exporting 40 individual clips from FCP.
If they have FCP you can send them the FCP project and they can simply open the (from Color) timeline and have the video / audio married up.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Jonny Cates] “Thanks Walter!”
My pleasure. Chalk this up to “been there, sync’d that.” 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Shane Ross] ” TVs and Computer Displays are designed with different purposes in mind. The aren’t designed the same. A computer display will NOT give you a good VIDEO image. You need an HDTV at least. And there are many that are in the same price range as that Dell Display.”
What Shane says. We run Dells in all 5 of our edit suites for computer display only. We run 5 Flanders Scientific Grade 1 Reference monitors for our HD outputs
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
With a live music event, it’s always easy to sync two cameras using a music note, usually a percussive drum hit. Doesn’t need to be the first note of the song, just a very clear note that’s heard on both cameras. Line that up and you’re in sync.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[andi no] “i drop this clip into FCP then it will ask to match clip setting , i select ‘yes’. Then mark in-out the whole clip, select export -> quicktime movie (NOT quicktime conversion). Done…”
Why are you doing this? You’re exporting the entire original clip without converting it. So you”re just making a copy of the original? For what?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Andreas Lupp] “However this is going to take forever and I would like to give compressor another shot. I have downconverted successfully before but this client is extremely picky.”
How is the Io HD going to take longer than Compressor? It’s realtime and it’s hardware, broadcast quality HD to SD conversion.
I would not recommend Compressor at all for HD to SD conversions destined for broadcast. We use the AJA Kona boards for all our conversions. You have the same hardware in your Io HD. It’s realtime, it’s broadcast quality. it’s faster than anything you’ll do with Compressor.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
What do you mean “to cut drama?” Scripted? Reality? Home Video? Broadcast? Film? You a one man band or will you need to output to an audio Post mix? I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
FCP, Avid, Quantel, Premiere, they all work. They all work almost equally as well. What’s your budget? Of course what you’re shooting on also comes into play. FCP 7 doesn’t cut with a lot of digital formats natively forcing you to convert to ProRes or other codec for editing in the software.
Me, I’ve been editing with FCP for about 10 years but am strongly leaning towards moving to Avid only because I don’t think FCP X will be able to suit our needs with workflows to / from ProTools and other post houses. Of course this remains to be seen for real when X is released, but from all the information I’m getting from folks who know, it doesn’t sound like it will. Here’s hoping Apple changes its mind.
And folks tell me “oh well FCP 7 will still work.” Yes, it will still work as inefficiently as it does right now with digital codecs such as H.264 unless Apple throws an update at that software for native digital workflows. To give you an example, I spent three days converting GoPro camera footage to edit into a documentary. Three days, tying up one computer system doing nothing but converting. Not exactly an efficient workflow.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Craig Seeman] “Consider the ability to keep a BetaSP camera going for the better part of a decade to the typical good camera than may be need to be replaced within 2-3 years to remain feature competitive. Basically most microstudios don’t take into account that their price has to include enough money to purchase replacement gear in a couple of years.”
The Sony UVW-1800 is the one piece of equipment we still have running today. It’s the only thing left from our original opening of our first location in 2001.
I’ll add that there are a lot of people who don’t believe in buying new year, maybe losing a little money on a few jobs to pay for it, and then having that gear for at least two years to make money with it. that’s pretty much how I built my place so in general, we carry little to no debt load for our equipment.
That has allowed us to keep our production prices almost the same for the past 10 years while expanding the company twice. It’s not easy, you have to work like you’ve never worked before and have an incredible partner to help you along the way. In my case, my wife has been an incredible part of this ride.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media