FAQ Section
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.
Hi! Tom,
First of all, i am lucky that i found your website, amazing videos excellent job Mr Tom.
I live in New York and wants to upgrade my SD camera to HD. Actually my plan is to buy a Hpx 170, but Hpx 170 doesn’t shoot the PAL So, most of my project i have to send it to asia with SD PAL.
So, my question is if i buy a EX 1 can i convert in FCP 6.02 to SD PAL i know that EX1 is a HD.
Please put some light
Dorjee
@Buddha eyes:
The answer is yes. Final Cut Pro has many export options. All you have to do is export to PAL 4:3 DV and you should be all set.
hello Tom
Congratulations on your work, beautiful, creative. I’m a portuguese cameraman, I do mostly soccer broadcasts, normally operating the big lenses for players close-ups and slow motion, and some studio work, with my sony digibeta. I love what i do, but I dont get such a varied scope of work. It was very inspiring to see somebody not limiting itself to just executing one type of job, but also go out and experiment and produce amazing images,some just for the sake of it, with nice editing and superior taste for music(I’m a NIN fan and loved the classical music also).
My only question is: where can I see pictures of your dolly rig, did you follow some net advice to build it?
That’s it.
Thanks, man , you motivated me to do more. And great site, too.
@Vasco Silva: Vasco thanks for the message and kind words. If you read my webpage, you can see that I want to move away from the big lenses of broadcast sports and do more work with 35mm film lenses and digital/film cameras shooting documentaries or nature films.
As for the dolly, look in my blog and check out “Spring on the Kancamagus”. I posted pictures of the homemade dolly in that post. I will do an entire blog entry on how to build one, so stay tuned!
Hi Tom !
Your work is amazing, keep going ! My name is Martin from Montreal, I do video editing as a hobby. I only have a Sony DCR-HC21 MiniDV camcorder. I’ve watched few videos you posted on Vimeo. I was wondering if you do zoomins / zoomouts with a remote control or via an automatic fonction on your camera ? Specially in slow motion. Also, is your tripod automated to do slow motion pans ?
Thanks
Once again your videos are very high quality. I’m speechless.
Martin
@MARTIN LANDRY:
Martin, thanks.
I almost never zoom using my camera. Since I use prime lenses, all the slow pushes you see are done in post using Final Cut Pro and the motion “scale” tab.
Simple eh? Cheating?…naw.
Hey Tom,
real quick, love your work, real great stuff.
Just a quick question, I really love your Downhill Mountain Biking short from a little while back. Very interested to know how you got clean sound as a one man band? Do you always use lapel mics? I find using the Letus Extreme and a Shotgun, the vibration is too much to get clean audio.
Thanks Tom,
Keep up the good work.
Andrew
@Andrew:
If you use the shotgun on the camera and turn on the letus motor, like you said, you will get a deep rumbling sound.
I like to work alone, most of the time, because I know exactly what I want. So to get the audio clean when doing it all myself, I carry around a wireless lav mic (body pack) and just throw the mic on the person real quick. Most of the time, the wire is running down the person’s chest, so I just frame it out.
I highly recommend the Sony UWP-V1 wireless ($499 at bhvideo.com) or the Sennheiser Evolution G2 series (SK500G2). If you can afford a Lectrosonics, those are the best.
Good luck!
Tom,
I am thinking of setting up a blog and want to include a video player like you have here. I am starting to learn wordpress and may even use the atahualpa theme…is the video player you are using a plugin or how does that work?
Thanks
Andy
@Andy:
I use two different plugins for video on this wordpress powered website.
The first is a quicktime plugin. I use this on all “My Work” pages. it can be found here:
http://www.mobvcasting.com/wp/?p=118
For my “blog” portion of this site, I use a flash plugin called “simple flash” so that the videos play out as a separate window as the main computer screen behind darkens. For this look here:
http://www.simplethoughtproductions.com/2008/07/09/simple-flash-video-plugin-15/
Good luck, send me a link when you are done with the page. You can find the newest and greatest version of the Atahualpa (version 3.1.7) here:
http://wordpress.bytesforall.com/?p=64
Also, wordpress is much better now with the new version 2.7.
You can find that here:
http://wordpress.org/
Thanks, I appreciate the help! I do a lot of freelancing now so most of my work is for others but you have certainly inspired me to do some more work just for fun and start building up a little more of a portfolio for myself. Thanks! andy
Do you have experience with Countryman lav mics? If so, from their small size one can guess they are handy for this reason, but how do they sound?
Would you advise using countryman lavs?
thanks, Tom!
@david h:
I have heard of them and I betcha there is a ton of stuff online about them, but I have no experience.
I use the Sony ECM-77b all the time.
Tom,
This is Andy again. I love the link for the quicktimes works great. Now I am trying to get photos to load up as a link to the page where the video is (similar to what you have done) are you using a plugin for this as well? How you you get it to be that wide?
@Andy:
I use the nextGEN Gallery plugin for my photo page. You can find it here: http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/
Thanks Tom
@All Users:
Hey everyone. I enjoy helping you all out and answering questions, to the best of my ability…BUT…
It is hard to answer detailed questions using this comment system, so, if you have a question and then follow-up questions…. it is best to register and use the forum on this website.
It only takes a second to register and I will try to get back to you asap. Please click on the “FORUM” link in the nav menu or just go here,
http://www.tomguilmette.com/wp/forum to get started!
hi i was wondering if your going to be shooting any of the boston celtics games for the playoffs?
@innerfire13 yea i will be there doing something. why do you ask?
i was going to be at one of the games, but its not going to happen anymore, im pretty disappointed.