C100: I need a New Look for 2017. What's your fave interview lens besides the 70-200?

For you freelancers in this discussion, how many of your projects/gigs are one man band oriented? What kind of crew situation are you usually working in?

-gl
 
gkantziper said:
I remember early my career when 16mm was still shot regularly in the circles I worked in and hearing the slang term "vidiot" to describe the "lowly videographer".
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Yes that was a well known phrase decades ago.

"Director of Photography" is the job category name on the union rate card: OCC code 1901.

On larger jobs, with larger crews (camera and G&E only- I've had 15 person crews, not counting PAs) managing the crew and the flow of the day is a definite part of your responsibility. The name "director" makes linguistic sense because you are directing people working under you, and also many people in other departments, like art, props, greens, wardrobe, makeup and of course giving technical notes to the talent and director. You are also giving notes to post production. In other countries the responsibility is very different. Many countries employ a "lighting director." In the american system lighting is typically the primary responsibility of the dp.

On small shoots, down to one man bands, you are doing it all, so the name doesn't really apply, though it is typically used. Field Producer is a more appropriate title when no producer is present on location. Because you end up doing a bit of producing, in addition to shooting.

On a personal note, on small/tiny shoots, I just refer to myself as the "camera guy." I don't use the term cinematographer or director of photography unless I have a deal memo, crew, etc. A true measure of when to use the term "cinematographer" is craft services. If there's a PA stocking craft services then the term DP or cinematographer applies. I've also called myself the "vidiot" on a few occasions.

So at the end of the day, craft services, or lack thereof, determines my title.
 
Hey Paul, I will look at the forum this weekend, swamped now, prepping for my shoot tomorrow. It's 2 camera but just me and a soundman, a TV show with a host interview. But I am charging an extra $400 for the second camera, it's an ENG camera and this is a TV show out of LA. At least TV shows they expect to pay extra for a second camera.

As to retirement, we being freelance, or what the SSA calls "Self employed", it seems to be more complicated than I thought, and I have a lot of books out on SS including Idiot's Guide and Dummies. We have to guesstimate how much we will earn over the next year over $17K and then be penalized, so I may skip semi retirement and just go straight to the real thing, except I'll do free videos for small local charities.

It seems every day it's looking more appealing, this biz is going down. Couple of weeks ago I had to infuse my business checking account with a big personal loan because most of my large ARs are slow paying. Every day I go to my mail box and I just get madder and madder, checks aren't there, lots of excuses for not paying. I think: What kind of business is this now? Wasn't like this in the Old Days. These are the kind of clients that would have paid on time, if not half in advance, in the past. Now I have to hassle for my payment a lot of the time.

George, it's hard to say but I suppose a third to half of my shoots are now solo, it comes in waves, depends, I have high SEO so I get inquiries from all quarters. I just booked two half days next week where I sneak into special ed classrooms so I will be stripped down and no room for a soundman, especially with a boom, the kids will look up at the boom. Some clients want me solo because they're cheap, some want me to be solo to be inconspicuous. Others, it's the only type of video crew they have ever hired, so if I start trying to talk them into more crew they get flustered. There are some gigs I just have to turn down if they want me solo because I can predict a train wreck, especially with complex audio such as having two wirelesses going. Although my Frankenrig can handle two radio mics coming into the receiver, I just can't monitor the audio well, especially if the mics are hidden and we're doing exteriors. Or, if I'm doing a live event and have my feed from the venue's board, I may turn those down because I have my hands full shooting. A few months ago I was shooting a professional speaker at a swank hotel, but it was a Set It & Forget It system the house AV guys set up, so once it got started, he starts bellowing much louder than his audio check, and he's distorted. Nothing I could do. So...I only accept gigs where I know I can handle being solo and if I demand another crew member I will lose the job. When I am not solo my other crew will usually be Soundman and/or Grip and a Make Up Lady, and now I'm trying to get everyone to bill the clients directly because so many of them are slow paying. I have found that once I do a good job solo, it is very hard to get that client to agree to more crew on the next jobs because they saw I could handle it myself previously.

The Term Videographer: After my last post I remembered why that term screws us up a bit, it was originally used by the wedding shooters. This means, if you try to use Google Ads for marketing, or hope to rise in SEO, there is a tremendous clutter of wedding shooters, so it's hard to stand out, Google thinks that the searcher is looking for somebody to do their wedding.

ERIC: Looks like the death of the Stedicam:

http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/01/...-the-exhauss-exoskeleton-and-letus-helix-pro/

KLK: Yes, on set when intros are being made, I too refer to myself as The Camera Guy, or The Cameraman. Gets to the point. No pretensions.

See ya,

Ned
 
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nedcam said:
ERIC: Looks like the death of the Stedicam:

http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/01/...-the-exhauss-exoskeleton-and-letus-helix-pro/
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Ha, no it doesn't. Different tool for different look and purposes.

The article even says they chose that setup because, "They didn’t have the budget for a Steadicam for the whole thirteen week shoot and were looking for alternatives." I'd much rather be the guy that is not chosen for the lower budget shoots, and instead be the guy that only the higher budget shoots can afford. Steadicam ops still get good rates in the high end and gimbals have done little to nothing to effect that, as gimbals are not a very common tool on high end movies like Steadicam is.
 
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SteadiCam isn't going anywhere. On the low end, handheld gimbals have made huge in-roads and they have even been used on big budget movies, but they are NOT the same. I'd say a SteadiCam(in the hands of a good operator) is like a surgeons scalpel and a handheld gimbal is like a hunting knife. Both can cut, but which one do you want them using on you in the OR during your surgery?

I'm not saying they aren't useful tools, but they ARE different tools.
 
Sorry, lots of sloppy framing in that video. Tell-tale sign is when the headroom floats to high, or chops off their heads.
 
Bill,

There was a time I never worked alone and turned down solo gigs. There was a time I would never have accepted a "half day". But my client base has changed and I can make the decision of make a half loaf, full loaf, or no bread at all that day.

I like to eat. There is a magic number I have in my head which I will not go below, but it is squishy depending on my accounts receivables, what work I have coming up, how much is in my checkbook, how many bids are out that I might land and if I need a new furnace or roof.

Around here, every offer is different.
 
My new years resolution is to do much less one man banding. Last year, it was about 50% of my shoots. This year, so far, I have produced three shoots, all with a crew of 3-12. My only one man bands this year will be sit down single cam interviews, but even those will have hair and makeup. But it looks like I will be shooting a doc here and in Brazil that will have a PA, grip gaffer, sound mixer, hair and makeup for every shoot with talent and me, producer, director, PA and grip in Brazil. Also looks like I just landed a new healthcare provider as a client. They already shoot with five other production companies and do a TON of video production. They specifically hired me to NOT be a one man band, they like crews and want production performed at pretty high production values, I will be doing research, writing, producing more than actually behind the lens. Luckily I have several friends who are GREAT DPs so I will be hiring them and will only operate on some of the multi-cam shoots. The client's exec producer went to film school and knows the limitations of one man banding it and was very clear that one man band guys are a dime a dozen (here in LA, they truly are), he is hiring me for my vision, knowledge, directing and writing skills, not my DP skills, which is fine with me as I can actually be in control of a decent budget and budget myself to make good profit while keeping quality high by hiring my best crews. Yay. It's looking 2017 is going to be a good year.
 
The above was a big factor in me retiring from shooting this year. I just sold my F65 and PL mount lenses, although I'll keep a small camera kit for personal projects. It had gotten to the point where crew sizes went from acceptable to nonsexist. Oh sure we want a 3 or 4 camera shoot, but we are only going to pay for 1 because hey, those young guys will shoot with 4 cameras and operators for less than your day rate. Or, we have found an agency which will not charge us for production as long as they get the air buy. That and the fact that I have had enough of doing real work on projects only to get burned on payments. I know some folks think I am the voice of gloom and doom, but there are others here who remember better days. I know I have said this before, But I truly believe that the middle has all but disappeared from our business, leaving only the true high end projects, and the bottom of the barrel. My closing words might come hard to the younger guys and gals who have dreamed of becoming filmmaking icons. But my advice would be to choose a different field as your source of income.

All the best!

Dave
 
George Loch said:
For you freelancers in this discussion, how many of your projects/gigs are one man band oriented? What kind of crew situation are you usually working in?

-gl
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Not a freelancer (yet), but I'll chime in with my unique situation that I've gotten myself into! One man band: 100%

I'm very happily employed as a software/devops engineer at a very large organization. Up until late last year my hobby was actually photography for the most part, specifically product photography and architecture. When we had an internal video project come up at work last Fall and were subsequently quoted something wayyyyy outside our department's budget by the company's internal media team, I volunteered to do the video if they rented the equipment. So long story short on that, we rented a bunch of stuff to shore up my own D750 for shooting, I did a terrible job on the video and audio by any standard, and it thrust me into an immediate interest in shifting my photography over to video.

Fast forward to now, the company gave me a small budget to work with to buy a permanent set of equipment for all of my department's internal training/promo videos, and I'm now the proud one man band for all of that, learning as I go while I still do my regular work as an engineer (though my priorities are actually starting to shift more towards creating an entire training program inside of the organization). It's a very fortunate and very specific scenario, but I'm really happy that I'm going to get a continuous, low-stress stream of corporate video work now that I can use to build my skillset out for anything I might like to do outside of work. All my gear questions in the other threads I've posted here have been working towards the initial kit I'm buying for myself in a few days!
 
I was actually the company that quoted craftyphoton's company a number which was supposedly outside of their budget. Since I didn't get the job my wife and kids starved so now that I'm single again I'm spending money on equipment instead of people I love.
 
craftyphotons said:
I'm very happily employed as a software/devops engineer at a very large organization. Up until late last year my hobby was actually photography for the most part, specifically product photography and architecture. When we had an internal video project come up at work last Fall and were subsequently quoted something wayyyyy outside our department's budget by the company's internal media team, I volunteered to do the video if they rented the equipment. So long story short on that, we rented a bunch of stuff to shore up my own D750 for shooting, I did a terrible job on the video and audio by any standard, and it thrust me into an immediate interest in shifting my photography over to video.

Fast forward to now, the company gave me a small budget to work with to buy a permanent set of equipment for all of my department's internal training/promo videos, and I'm now the proud one man band for all of that, learning as I go while I still do my regular work as an engineer (though my priorities are actually starting to shift more towards creating an entire training program inside of the organization). It's a very fortunate and very specific scenario, but I'm really happy that I'm going to get a continuous, low-stress stream of corporate video work now that I can use to build my skillset out for anything I might like to do outside of work. All my gear questions in the other threads I've posted here have been working towards the initial kit I'm buying for myself in a few days!
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Not to be rude, but this is exactly one of the reasons I have stopped shooting.

Companies have decided to not pay scale on jobs, and instead are using someone internally who is willing to do their job as well as yours for a single job rate.

All you have to do is buy a nice shinny camera for them to play with and promise they can use it on weekends to shoot their indie film.

Good Luck!
 
Hope I didn't rub anyone the wrong way with my story there! The company that quoted our department for that video is actually the centralized media department in the company itself, and these are all internal videos that my company would never have dreamed of hiring out for anyway as it's in the financial services industry so the amount of legal things we would need to go through to hire out for even a thirty second training video would be a non-starter there. Cheers everyone!
 
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