commercial shoot

J

jackfate

Member
shooting my first commercial on my new HMC-150 in a few weeks. will air on local cable TV. just trying to gather some tips/ hear you experience in terms of format, delivery, camera settings for a :30 second spot. the location will be an interior retail store with some exterior shots of a strip mall.

i'd be curious about HMC light set-ups as well.

let me know what has worked for you guys...

thanks,

jack fate
 
Might want to call the stations you anticipate it will play on... I get different responses from everyone as far as formats and medium...
 
Dealing with local cable can be very... "educational." 5 years ago I had to deliver commercials and programs to our local cable system... they couldn't take miniDV... but they could take 3/4 (umatic... for you old-timers. Oh!- they also didn't realize that their DVC pro decks could use an adapter to play back miniDV tapes). They started using a server that used mpeg2 files- I offered to deliver in whatever bit-rate they needed- poor guys had no idea what their video-server used. They told me that the machine handled all that... I remember being in a meeting with mid-level folks and getting to say, "but I thought you were our friend in the digital age?"

Find out what they need for a delivery format first thing. Don't tell them what you shot it on. It only confuses them. They think you need $30,000 cameras to make video (I know, I'm generalizing- but after arguing with engineers for hours about digital switchers and gen-lock... ugh.)
 
Yeah, Voxwerx is on to something.

I can't bad mouth local cable enough. Expect the worst, and expect some kind of transfer to BETA tape. Definately get their specs before you plan anything -- and as Voxwerx said -- don't tell them what you're using.

There are also all sorts of things you need to know to "dummy-proof" your ad for their systems. Most importantly, make sure your audio is meticulously compressed -- because one single spike of anything will cause typical cable systems to reduce the volume of the entire ad to compensate for any spikes.

Good luck!
 
I've done a lot of commercials with HMC 150 for local stations across the US. Most wanted Beta sp and the rest wanted digi beta. We usually letter box the video overlap the graphics into the black. This camera looks great on TV if you have good lighting.
 
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