Are EX-1 Shooters a Dime a Dozen ?

A

androbot2084

Carbonite Member
I was looking to upgrade my video equipment so I called some wedding video production companies to see if there was still a market for EX-1 shooters. I thought that the EX-1 would be the perfect choice for weddings because the half inch chips have excellent low light performance which is mandatory for dark churches and reception halls. However the production companies sneered at me and are telling me that work is slow and that while the EX-1 is a good camera unfortunately these shooters are a dime a dozen. They told me that get hoardes of solicitations from owners of high end equipment who can't find work.
 
Owning a camera does not make one a competent camera operator.

One needs to be able to be an artist, technician, and audio engineer to even start to do work that you can live off of. Well, maybe not always. Some of the local TV spots I see are quite cringe worthy. A big part of getting work is hustling, and often the hacks are better at hustling than the pros. Get your name, and your demo reel out there to all the possible places that may hire you. The economy is slow, and one can't always get away with only shooting one type of video. One revenue stream not often thought of is doing video depositions. You need to hear what is being said by all in the room mainly for that. Get 6 wired lavs and a little mixer, and get out there. Wedding season is almost over.
 
Androbot,

What is the point of your post?

If you use an EX camera people will not hire you because there are too many EXs being used?

Most folks want to use the most common camera so the interface is standard with the shooters and the editors.

These things are only tools. You get hired because you have capable tools but more importantly you know how to use them well.

Your only option to one-up the Ex series is to get out your wallet!
 
androbot2084 said:
the production companies sneered at me and are telling me that work is slow and that while the EX-1 is a good camera unfortunately these shooters are a dime a dozen.
Click to expand...

As far as I can see the lesson here is that bottom feeder production companies are a dime a dozen as well.

As others have mentioned, the gear does not make the cameraman.

Reminds me of a story someone once posted here of a plumber who goes into a flooding house - he looks around, sees a pipe in the basement causing the problem, hits it with his hammer once and the leak stops. He hands the man an invoice for $100 and the homeowner freaks out, demanding an itemized invoice.

The plumber takes it and writes...
"$5 - Hammer"
"$95 - knowing how to fix the leak"

There will always be those who value the gear more than the talent, experience and knowledge behind it.
The key is to sell yourself not on your gear, but on your knowledge and talent.
Someone else will always have better tech than you at some point... but no one else will have your exact set of skills and experience.

Find those clients and companies who value your skill set - and forge relationships with them, based not on technology but on communication and the talent to get them the work they need without doubt. This has as much to do with them as it does with how you present and sell yourself to prospective clients. Sell yourself...not the gear.

The 'lowest bidder' jobs will inevitably lead you down a road that is hard to come back from - and for the most part those clients will drop you the moment they can save ten cents elsewhere.

Sell yourself and a decade later you'll find you have a decent career going with a good set of contacts based on real relationships. Meanwhile, those companies who constantly seek out the lowest bidder will still be doing the exact same thing they're doing today...

Just my 2 cents.
 
Yes I think that the problem is not so much the doom and gloom of the recession although the recession is a big problem but rather that because wedding season is almost over it might as well be the great depression as far as wedding work goes.

I think it is true that it is not the camera but rather the cameraman however the camera must at least meet the minimum requirements. My present camera shoots high definition at 30p and standard definition at 60p but most gigs today want high definition with 24p and 60p capability.
 
Actually the National Footbal League NFL shoots with 16mm film at 120 frames per second. 60p is good for overcranked slow motion played back at 24p or if you want a live look rather than a film look. During the 1980's music videos were filmed at 30 frames per second.
 
The last two jobs that I got were BECAUSE I was shooting EX. These were quality-aware clients, not your average penny pinchers.

That said, I haven't booked a wedding in two years. Clients inquire frequently, but after they see the price list, I never hear back from them. Just as well. Weddings are a stressful kind of video to shoot well, and the clients can be annoyingly nitpicky about people that were edited out of the video, or not central to the focus, and I'm not talking about the B&G.
 
It's the same old story: the chicken or the egg? Is it the camera, or the man (or lady) behind the camera with the experience that comes first. Also, clients are like chicken farmers, some make a lot of eggs for the lowest price, while others want the better and biggest eggs, that looks and tastes great, and is the best product. I guess it's just a matter of taste that the farmer (client) has! -- the fourth Marx brother, Carl
 
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Yes but showing up at a gig with a single chip HDV camcorder simply means that you will not be taken seriously as a professianal. Now don't get me wrong, in the hands of a very talented individual I am sure beautiful images can be obtained with very humble tools however there will come a time that the limitations of the camcorder cannot be overcome such as low light shooting situations which require the EX-1.

And remember this is all relative. I am sure that many shooters will claim that you are not a real professional unless you own a Red One. However common sense tells you that as seasoned professional armed with an EX1 will produce better footage than an inexperienced Red One user that can't pull focus and can't get the exposure right. Although Red One is the Rolls Royce of cameras it is far cry from a truly automatic camera that can shoot footage right out of the box but rather requires a lot of practice and experience to get it right.
 
androbot2084 said:
Actually the National Footbal League NFL shoots with 16mm film at 120 frames per second. 60p is good for overcranked slow motion played back at 24p or if you want a live look rather than a film look. During the 1980's music videos were filmed at 30 frames per second.
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Hi

I'm aware that the nfl likes 60p. But you said "most" gigs want 24p and 60p. I do TV and DVD projects, and have never been asked for 60p. I do overcrank when I want slow motion, but that's an effect. 60p is the norm in maybe sports, but nothing else I'm aware of. And though it's true that 80's videos popularized 30fps, aren't music videos also 30fps in the 90's and today? Isn't 30p / 60i more the norm still at this moment?

Wikipedia
60i (actually 59.94, or 60 x 1000/1001 to be more precise; 60 interlaced fields = 29.97 frames) is the standard video field rate per second that has been used for NTSC television since 1941, whether from a broadcast signal, rented DVD, or home camcorder. (When NTSC color was introduced, the older rate of 60 fields per second was reduced by a factor of 1000/1001 to avoid interference between the chroma subcarrier and the broadcast sound carrier.)

* 30p, or 30-frame progressive, is a noninterlaced format and produces video at 30 frames per second. Progressive (noninterlaced) scanning mimics a film camera's frame-by-frame image capture and gives clarity for high speed subjects and a cinematic-like appearance. Shooting in 30p mode offers video with no interlace artifacts. The widescreen film process Todd-AO used this frame rate in 1954–1956. For video, this frame rate originated in the 1940s for recording current events or recording shows that were not shot in 24p film as well as TV commercials. However, this frame rate became popular in the 1980s, with the popularity of music videos.

* The 24p frame rate is also a noninterlaced format, and is now widely adopted by those planning on transferring a video signal to film. But film- and video-makers turn to 24p for the "cine"-look even if their productions are not going to be transferred to film, simply because of the "look" of the frame rate. When transferred to NTSC television, the rate is effectively slowed to 23.976 frame/s, and when transferred to PAL or SECAM it is sped up to 25 frame/s. 35 mm movie cameras use a standard exposure rate of 24 frames per second, though many cameras offer rates of 23.976 frame/s for NTSC television and 25 frame/s for PAL/SECAM. The 24 frame/s rate became the de facto standard for sound motion pictures in the mid-1920s.[1]
 
People with a copy of Word are also a dime a dozen, less than a penny, even, but yet as a great screenwriter you can still make top dollar.
 
It should be reminded that Red is also a single-chip camera. ;)

What things really boil down to is what to say in marketing that will weed out the bottom-feeders from responding, yet interest those with the budget and the desire for quality production work.

Any magic words to suggest?
 
No magic words. Just a certain attitude, a certain expectation. Don't be too personal, too "familiar", that's what Youtube is, that's what all really low-budget guys are. I'm blunt and standoffish, and I get work despite no website at all (haven't updated it in 6 years).
 
Luis Caffesse said:
...He hands the man an invoice for $500 and the homeowner freaks out, demanding an itemized invoice.

The plumber takes it and writes...
"$5 - Hammer"
"$95 - knowing how to fix the leak"
Click to expand...

I think your math's a little fuzzy there, Luis. :)

Robert Ruffo said:
People with a copy of Word are also a dime a dozen, less than a penny, even, but yet as a great screenwriter you can still make top dollar.
Click to expand...

I'd rather write a script out by hand than try to format it in Word or Pages.

I knew the R1 would come into this discussion eventually, (especially when there are literally dozens of productions, on CLToronto alone, claiming to be using the "super hd red camera"), but honestly, it's just another tool (albeit an awesome one) in the box. Unless you know how to use it, and use it well, it's allure will only take you as far as sh*tty footy sticks out in "super hd".
 
You pay peanuts you get monkeys... Simple as that.

We got a stringer to shoot an interview about 150km away from where we are base, because the client didn't have the budget. Well, the stringer (based there) had a JVC HD201, sennheiser wireless kit. Charges $100 for the 10min interview. So one would think that a person with 15 years of production experience with so so gears would know what to do. Yes he owns a bottom feeding production company.

However, the footage that we got back was so bad that I had to send more time in post to fix it. Can you imagine, he didn't lock the camera when he is on a tight shot. There was wobble here and there during the the interview, didn't even set the desk or location to look better.

So the client didn't want the look of the Lapel sticking out of his collar and ask if he could use another mic instead. Instead of try to hiding the lapel under his tie or his shirt, He took a shotgun mic instead. That was fine, but when you see the shotgun mic in the left side of the frame, that is bad. The echo was bad, because the room was bear. Find a better location or position the mic in a better position like can you at least place the mic above the client's head and the mic pointing down wards and not straight at him from the left.

So the point is , So what if you have a red camera? You gonna get more jobs if you can show your skills as a cameraman with a showreel and not a picture of the camera and gears you got.

BTW, There are lots of so called cinematographer out there that doesn't know what Film is. Ask them of the type of exposure for different types of film grade, or ask them to measure the focus distance and they will give you a blank look, . If you have at least 10 years of film making and a few (films not video movies) under your belt. Then call yourself that , otherwise , please be humble and call yourself a camera assistant or camera operator or videographer.
 
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