export transparent img sequence from NLE

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I have this gig where I am going to be given 17 seconds of video of two different shots of a woman in front of a green screen.

My tasks is to remove the background and out put just the woman so that she can be used in a flash file in front of another background for a website.

I don't think I can output transparant video ...

I'm hoping it will be as easy as removing the background and then exporting as an image sequence of a highquality .png files.

Any reason this woulnd't work if I can pull a good key?

Also what should I charge for somethying like this. If its as easy as above, then I'm thinking $200 flat fee (they have budget).

(I'm on FCP by the way)
thanks

Jack

[oneinfiniteloop]

PNG, TIFF, TGA (somewhat dated), even some Quicktimes can be exported with alpha channles, but I would stick with PNG's just to be safe, much more web-friendly as well. I'm assuming you're keying in FCP? $200 seems a little on the low side, but if they're on a budget, what can you do?

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

No I mean they have a good budget ...
this is the company
http://beyondinteractive.com/
the client is 3M sticky notes.

It seems like its just gonna take me a couple of hours though (assuming the green screen is good), so $200 seemed fair.

What shoud I ask for?

[oneinfiniteloop]

If it's only going to take you a few hours to pull a clean matte, then $200 sounds fair, maybe even hit them at $300. I usually pull my keys in Shake and I generally build a little extra in for offsetting the cost of purchasing the software, but $200 is $100/hr, which no one can complain about :grin:

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Yeah, I can do it in Motion or FCP (no shake :( ) plus my laptop would choke on shake I think.

I'll quote them $200 - $300 once I have nailed down the workflow ... thanks.

[GenJerDan]

Like you said, if their key is good and all you're doing is giving them the output, what the heck. And get more work later from them.

But if you have to do some tweaking, start charging for the extra time. On top of the flat 200.

And..I'm not sure on this...but I think the PNG output doesn't maintain the transparency, and you may have to run the dequences through PhotoShop or whatever to save them out again with the alpha layer correct. I'd go for the $300 flat then (along with the above extra charges, if necessary).

[Barry_Green]

$200 for anything sounds way too cheap. If you can truly pull it off in just two hours then sure, that's a decent hourly rate, but factor in everything -- render time, client meeting time, the inevitable "fixes" when it doesn't go quite right or they see something they don't like, etc.

Basically, reiterating what GenJerDan said!

[Steve_Arm]

You all got to be kidding me! What is it Rocket Science?

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Thanks for your advice everyone. :)

And Steve thanks for your helpful post.

I can't tell if you are just ridiculing me or everyone that has offered advice as well. I find this ambiguity lends a sort of mystery to your post that draws the reader in. Nicely done! Or maybe you are just making fun of the potential client for not being able to do this potentially simple task on their own. Who cares though really? You are pooping on someone and that's so cool. But what I love most about your post is that it doesn't mention why you feel the need to imply someone is stupid. If you told us why ... then you might contribute something rather than just piss me off at the start of my day ... internet's a lovely thing to hide behind and drop little tidbits of wisdom such as yours and then go eat some feta cheese.

Or you could use the internet as a tool wherein we give each other a leg up by following Barry Green's example who, even though he has a thriving business and an insanely booked schedule, has helped THOUSANDS of people online with REAL and THOUGHT OUT answers that IMPROVE and FURTHER novices such as myself.

Your choice.

Maybe you came up through some established post facility or add agency or something and when you started freelancing you had been around this kind of work so much that you knew right off what to charge.

Not me.

To put things in perspective for you ... right now I'm running sound board for a small theatrical production 6 nights a week for $200 a week!

I have no idea what to charge for this and how the hell should I?

But thanks for taking the time to take your dump here all the same. :thumbsup:

Jack

[RichardVClark]

"But thanks for taking the time to take your dump here all the same."


HAHAHA! I was drinking water while I read that and spit it all over my scanner at work. You just made my day!

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

You just made my day!
Thanks ... that'll be $300.

[RichardVClark]

I'll have my lawyer contact your lawyer (isn't that how it works in this business?)

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I don't know.
I can't figure it out.
It's like rocket science to me.

[Steve_Arm]

To put things in perspective for you ... right now I'm running sound board for a small theatrical production 6 nights a week for $200 a week!

I have no idea what to charge for this and how the hell should I?

But thanks for taking the time to take your dump here all the same. :thumbsup:

Then I might contribute...

We are talking about 17 seconds both clips? To remove the green color? How much time will it take you to do this in FCP? First apply the effect then choose the color, some fine tuning and then export? half an hour?
Sorry Jack but 200$ looks too much for me for.
Yes the client might have no idea, but that just means that we can charge something like that for 500 if we can convince him that it's something done only by few people on the planet? And I'm not reffering to you on this one.

And you needn't write all the stuff you wrote, no point.

[oneinfiniteloop]

A few things I've learned over the years working on projects for clients...
1) It's never as easy as one might make it sound.
2) There are always revisions and/or something else that will take up your time.
3) If you charge them for the time you THINK will be spent, well, you'd be getting paid less than minimum wage in some cases, and that's not why we're doing this.
4) To get quality work and quality service, well, it costs money, and saying I'll charge for 30 minutes since it's a "30 minute" job, then, well, see 1 & 3.

So, yes, someone else can do it for cheap, charge less, be "fair" and all that, but what level of professionallism are you going to get from that?

Also, the people charging what they THINK goes into and charging cheaper because they feel like somethings cost too much, they hurt the whole industry. I think Jack is a stand up person and he is obviously doing gigs for a fair wage now with the sound, so getting some dollars from a big company isn't going to hurt anyone.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Then I might contribute...

We are talking about 17 seconds both clips? To remove the green color? How much time will it take you to do this in FCP? First apply the effect then choose the color, some fine tuning and then export? half an hour?
Sorry Jack but 200$ looks too much for me for.
Yes the client might have no idea, but that just means that we can charge something like that for 500 if we can convince him that it's something done only by few people on the planet? And I'm not reffering to you on this one.

And you needn't write all the stuff you wrote, no point.
Actually there was a lot more point to my post than that which I was responding to.

Look ... I'm not out to rip off or take advantage of anyone ... I'm only out to ensure that I don't short change myself due to my greeness.

My friend who works with the company who knows nothing about compositing or VFX or anything who got me the gig was already pushing me in the $150 range.

Based on this thread and as this my first work for this company, I'm gonna quote em $200 with a couple of days turn around. With the provision that that's for one pass and if the green screen has been done perfectly. I'll tell them if that's not the case I'll know right away, give them a new quote, and if they don't like the new quote, I'll give them their unprocessed files back.

Finally ... I have a lot of respect for Barry Green as do a lot of other people around here and if he says $300 ... then I know I'm not being a dick asking for it, so I'm certainly OK asking for $200.

Thanks.

[Steve_Arm]

Well all I can say is that I must move to NY :D

Anyway if you aiming for perfection (and if the shooting helps) then quote 200. I'm with you.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

thanks guys
as this is something of a class project now
here's what I said in an email to contact person at the company
(not my friend but the guy actually handling this)
oh ... and I asked for $250 ... that just seems like good business if I really want $200


jack's email to the guy

I experimented exporting some .png files directly from video while maintaining transparency and it looks like it will work fine.

So that part will be easy. My real time will be spent pulling a good key (getting rid of the green) before output.

I’d be happy to do this for you for a flat $250 with a two day turn around. Might even be able to do one day if I can clear that day out a bit.

Because I haven’t actually seem the footage, let me give you a worst case scenario. I assume the footage is of the highest quality, but if the green screen work is problematic due to the way it was shot then it will take a bit longer to process the footage for you. The two major pitfalls are color sampling (hi def is good but not always the best for green screen) and spill or light bounce from the green screen on the talent. If there are any problems like that I’ll know within minutes of sitting down to work, however, and will get you a new time and $ quote before I proceed. If the new time and $ quote are not acceptable for any reason, then I won’t charge you anything for looking at the footage.

As I said I assume the footage as A++ - but just wanted to let you know the color sampling and amount or lack of spill are factors which can cause problems since I am giving you a quote based on footage I have not seen.

If you want to copy the DVD and send it home with Laura, I could take a look at it before the fee is settled as well.
(laura lives in my building -- she's the skanky mom in Bone Hand and a copy writer for this company)

[Bus No. 8]

Looks good. And if it only takes you 30 minutes to do, then I see nothing wrong with being compensated for all of the other gigs you may have done for free, or for too little (like the $200.00 a week you're making now). Part of the fee passed on to a customer is the overhead cost of being available and able to do the work in the first place.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

also they are paying for the ability to know how to bump up and polish the chroma and work with spill supressors if necessary ... anyone can use a hammer, and that's all a job may require, but when its discoverd that there are termites in house's supporting structure around the door frame you hired the kids down the street to remove and replace ... you'll wish you hired a carpenter.

Although I am kind of inbetween the kid down the street with a hammer and a real carpenter when it comes to this stuff though (shhh don't tell my client).

....

yeah the $200 a week is standard for running sound board (high actually) for an off off broadway show and sometime even off broadway ... its a different world and one I'm glad to be increasingly out of for that reason.

what I really always wanted to do was film ... I just didn't know how to go about it until the DVX changed all that ... I knew eventually a fringe benefit would be the ability to make a couple of hundred bucks or more in a day vs. a week, or for an enire project!

The guy I sent the email to already passed on the quote to the budget department ... so hopefully all is good.

[novelt]

my $0.02...

first on-topic...i know you have FCP...in premiere you can export video files with alpha channels, but as mentioned above exporting frames with alpha channels may be more "user" friendly. just to be on the safe side i'd do both if they haven't specified a format. that way you can explain why and then they look at you as a genius and you get more work.

kinda off topic...$200 a week doing sound... that sounds right considering the average is $15 per hour. the lowest i saw was $10/hour. love sound so i'm thinking that's cool you've got that gig.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I exported a frame from Bone Hand that I pulled a luma key on as a .png and it seemed to work fine.

I think they like having the img sequence anyway as its ultimately going to be a transparant flash animation over a set web background.

If I can easily figureout how to export transparrent video file wth a transparrent background then that will be a bonus for them.

[Steve_Arm]

I don't know about FCP but I believe it should be able to export a 32bit avi.

Since this is going into a flash project, I would export a tiff sequence or uncompressed avi, so the guy who would put the layer in the flash file would have the maximum quality from the video, so he can decide later for the compression.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

is tiff really higher quality than .png at millions of colors + and will it maintain transparancy?

also ... is it possible to output an avi with a transparent background?

[Steve_Arm]

PNG will slighty smooth the edges in the image. TIFF is a format for printing so it's quality is best and has alpha channel too.

Now for a transparent AVI you will have to consult FCP's help files. What options does it give on the export menu for formats?

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

LOL.

So they went for the $250 with the provision that I would requote if the green screen was bad.

But yesterday the guy called and said they wanted me to output in three different sizes and that I should raise my fee.

Me: Ok make it $300.
Guy: Uhm ... I'm gonna let you think about that. I think you should raise it to at least $450.
Me: Ok make it $450. I'm not gonna argue with you.

LOL :grin:
WTF? :) But I aint gonna look no gift horse in the mouth :laugh:

I guess he is just looking out for me. If I wanted to be cynical I could assume that he was pissed at his colleague for changing what they needed saying "That's gonna cost more money I'm sure!" and he wants to be able to go back and say "See! That cost us another $200 ... anything else you wanna change?"

But I think I'll imagine him looking out for me ... it's not his money after all and $450 is a drop in the bucket for an ad agency.

I just got a 40% raise and I haven't even done any work yet :thumbsup: