Frequently Asked Questions…

Q. Your website looks great. What hosting service are you using?
A. Thanks, I have put a lot of time into this site so that I can sell my services as a freelance television professional. My hosting service is Blue Host and they can be contacted at www.bluehost.com. I have unlimited bandwidth and hard drive space. This is perfect for a creative professional because it allows you to post gig after gig of HD footage. With no limits on download bandwidth, I have no worries about my site going down due to high demand. Blue Host has excellent customer support, which is hard to come by with hosting companies and they give you lots of extras for free (like tons of MYSQL databases for forums and stuff). My plan costs about $150 a year.

Q. Are you using iWeb for this site?
A. I was. My previous website was created with the Apple Software, iWeb. This new site is using the Wordpress interface for web publishing. The PHP code is excellent and all you need is one MYQSL database. It is almost entirely free, but I do recommend donating money to the open source developers whenever you can. Since the code is open source, there are many people who are writing plugins and themes for the interface. These plugins let you do almost anything and they account for the interactivity and other cool stuff on this website. Check out www.wordpress.org. A big thanks goes out to Flynn at Bytes For All.

Q. What web compression settings are you using for this website?
A. I am using “Quicktime Conversion” in the file-export menu of Final Cut Pro.
My settings are:
Format: Quicktime Movie then click “options”
Video:
Settings:
Compression Type: H.264
FPS: Current
Keyframes: Auto with Frame Re-ordering checked
Compressor Quality: High with Best Quality Multi-pass selected
Data Rate: Restrict to 3000 kbits/sec
Optimized for: Download
Filter: n/a
Size: 1280×720 HD uncheck “Deinterlace Source Video” and “Preserve Aspect Ratio”
Sound Settings:
Format: ACC
Channels: Stereo
Rate: 44.100 kHz
Render Settings: Normal at 128kbps
Check “prepare for internet streaming” and select “Fast Start”

Q. I want to shoot sports like you, how do I get in?
A. The best way to get into this business is to know someone in the business (other than me). You must find out if the market you want to work in is union or non-union. If union, you must contact that union and join. This will cost money and you will have to pay union dues. You also must find out who crews the position you want in the sports television business. Look online and try to find the crewing company in your area and contact them. You must remember that there is seniority in this business regardless of the presence of a union. You will have to start at the bottom of the list and also work the jobs most people do not want to work. If you want to be a camera operator, you will probably have to pull cable as a utility or run tapes to the truck before you get actual time behind the camera.

Q. Can I use your footage that you shot (on this website) in a project that I am doing? Do I have to pay?
A. Please email me your request and we can discuss this.

Q. What editing program do you use?
A. I use Final Cut Pro 6.0.4

Q. Should I Buy the Panosonic HVX200 or the EX1?
A. I own the EX1 and I do not know enough about the HVX200 to comment on it. Please check my forum to see if the question was answered in the “Panosonic Camera’ section.

Q. Why should I spend $4,500 on the Letus Ultimate when I can get the Letus Extreme for $1,500?
A. The Letus Extreme is a steal for $1,500. It does have limitations however. You cannot stop down past a certain amount or add shutter without seeing artifacts from the ground glass element inside the Letus. Also you cannot easily backfocus the Letus Extreme. All of this is corrected with the Ultimate. The Ultimate is also much sharper. If I had the extra cash, I would buy the Letus Ultimate.

Q. I have a project coming up, do you freelance? What is your rate? DO you rent gear?
A. Yes I do. Please email me the specifics and I will write you up a proposal.

Q. Do you know about Philip Bloom? Your stuff looks similar.
A. Yes. Phil inspired me to get away from cookie cutter television (specifically sports) and try new creative methods for digital film making. His website is http://www.philipbloom.net.

Q. Can I join you on your next shoot?
A. I am always looking for help. Especially grip help. If you are in the area and have the day off, you are welcome to join me. I cannot pay but if you are looking for experience, I might be able to pay you with that. Keep an eye on my main page or my forum for job postings.

Q. Can you explain your tapeless workflow?
A. I use the EX1 for most of my jobs now because of the look, feel and options that the camera provides. This camera is tapeless and uses Sony SxS memory cards. These cards are expensive and I am constantly dumping them to my Apple Mac Book Pro and reformatting the cards to continue to record on the EX1. My tapeless solution is to carry my computer with me and constantly back up the cards. Since the footage is already on the hard drive, I just edit right off of that. If a client asks me for footage, I simply tell them to bring an exteral hard drive with them so that I can pass the data over to them. Soon, I plan on using Blu-Ray media to back up everything on disk, but for now all of my creations exist only as 1’s and 0’s on cheap USB hard drives!

Q. What picture profile settings do you use for your EX1? Your videos are amazing.
A. Believe it or not, everything you see is set at factory default. The only thing I have done was to crank the HiSat to +99 for a very oversaturated look done in the camera. I do some work with color grading software like Magic Bullet Looks to sweeten it even more.

Q. How do you back up all the stuff on the Sony SxS media cards?
A. I use cheap external hard drives or put the footage on DL DVD+R disks (soon I will use Blu-ray)

Q. What do you use for color grading?
A. I use Magic Bullet Looks Suite. It is very easy and I am very happy with the results.

Q. How do you get people to look so comfortable in front of your camera? Do you get their permission before you shoot them?
A. I simply tell them what I am doing and why I am shooting. I almost always have my business card with my website address on it so that they can check out the final cut. I also ask them to give me verbal permission to use their faces and voices on my videos.

Please use the post comment boxes at the bottom of this page to ask more questions.
…more FAQs to come.