Posts Tagged ‘freelance’
It costs money to make money. In most cases that is true. To be a doctor, lawyer, etc. you need an (often expensive) education. To own a machine shop you need tools. To work in video production you need equipment.
It seems that nowadays, though, that cost of entry into the professional field of video has plummeted to an all time-low. The 2-year old “HDSLR Revolution” has spawned an amazing number of new video makers into the industry, snatching up these highly affordable cameras and going out and creating content and landing jobs. Our inexpensive cameras are being used by the big boys, and we are seeing prime-time tv shows, commercials, and movies being shot on cameras that you can buy at WalMart. Suddenly it doesn’t take deep pockets, bank loans or strong business plans to buy your way into the industry. Read more…
Posted Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 in BlogTags: business, cost of entry, equipment, freelance, HDSLR, Panasonic AF-100
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Let’s talk about music. I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now but am finally getting down to writing it. Music is arguably one of the most powerful mediums we have; it can so strongly help to create a mood or emotion and can stay with you for hours or days (even when you don’t want it to). But film or video might even be more powerful a medium because it can benefit from having music AND visuals. I am a big fan of music and it has always played an important part of my life; prior to starting a career in video, I was working and heading in the direction of being a music engineer. (In fact, I met my wife through music production.) Read more…
Posted Monday, August 30th, 2010 in BlogTags: editing, freelance, music, music libraries, post-production
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So this week I added a new piece of gear to my arsenal. Unfortunately this piece of gear won’t make me much money, but it will get me from point A to point B. I bought a new car, a minivan, in fact. As anyone in production knows, having a good sized production vehicle can be essential. Even though our cameras and a lot of other gear have gotten smaller, there is still a ton to take on shoots. My previous (now second) car was a Mazda 3 wagon. A great, fun, zippy little car. I could pack A LOT of stuff in it. I used to joke that this car could JUST barely fit whatever was needed. Read more…
Posted Friday, July 23rd, 2010 in BlogTags: car, equipment, freelance, Mazda, Sienna, Toyota, travel
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I think anyone who works for themselves long enough will run into a case of non-payment. It sucks. It makes you mad. It makes you feel betrayed. I have been fairly lucky, though, that in my three and a half years of working for myself there have only been two cases of this. The first time was in my first year as a freelancer and it was a half-day shoot for a company from Florida. Everything seemed legit, and it probably was. I imagine that nobody was setting out to screw me or scam me. But in the end, a few months after the shoot, after the tapes were sent to them, it seemed as if this company no longer existed. Read more…
Posted Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 in BlogTags: business, freelance, invoices, payments, Quicken
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Recently, several bloggers I follow have posted about different storage workflows and solutions, so I thought I would add my two cents. Hopefully this will help people tasked with storing a large amount of data. (I write this knowing full well that storage solutions are a HOT topic for many who feel strongly that THEIR solution is the best and other solutions are DEAD WRONG, so hopefully I will stay out of the line of fire.) Read more…
Posted Monday, June 28th, 2010 in BlogTags: backup, data, freelance, hard drives, HD, MacPro, RAID, storage
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I am experiencing the lull that often happens in January. Now that I am entering my fourth year as a freelancer I am more comfortable with this lull and feel confident that things will pick back up. Fortunately I’ve had some editing projects for shoots I did at the end of the year, a few shoots in the past week, and some bookings for bigger projects in the upcoming months. Plus it’s been nice to have a little breather. (Too bad, though, that this annual lull happens to coincide with the crappiest Boston weather, as it’d be lovely to spend this time outdoors.) I’ve been able to do a some long-needed housekeeping on my computer, and gear storage and also start to flesh out some fun personal projects I hope to do this year. But it’s also given me some time to think about the biggest change that will be happening later this year: the birth of my first child. Read more…
Posted Friday, January 22nd, 2010 in BlogTags: family, freelance, pregnancy
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Well it’s a brand new year, new decade, and a good time to reflect on the past year and come up with goals for the next one. I had the good fortune of spending New Years with my wife and some other folks in sunny Jamaica, on a work/pleasure trip. A friend of mine is developing some property in Jamaica into a resort/tourist attraction and he hired me to come down and do some video and photos of the progress. I went down 2 years ago, when he was just starting out, to do a video, and he wanted to update people on the progress. It was not a lot of work, and frankly spending some time (especially in the winter) in 85 degree weather was a treat. Read more…
Posted Friday, January 8th, 2010 in BlogTags: Canon 7D, director of photography, DSLR, freelance, photos, travel
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The other week I had a long week of travel, shooting videos for Kiva Systems. Kiva makes robots and software used in order fulfillment distribution centers. I have been working with them for about two and half years now; they were one of my first clients when I went freelance and also one of the only jobs to come through Craigslist. (I have done about a dozen videos for them now, so it just goes to show to keep your eyes open for all possible job leads.) This particular job was to do two case study videos on two of their clients, DJO Medical Devices and Diapers.com. Our plan included shoots in three cities (Indianapolis, San Diego and Reno) Read more…
Posted Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 in BlogTags: director of photography, EX-1, freelance, Kiva, travel
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I am sitting on the plane headed to Las Vegas for Blogs with Balls. With me is Rob Baker of Kabimba Media (who designed this website) who is going to be helping out with the videos. Should be a fun time, with some work mixed in for good measure. My friend Chris, who is one of the organizers of the conference, has put together a good group of panelists and some fun events for the next few days and I’ll capture as much of it as I can. Read more…
Posted Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 in BlogTags: Blogs with Balls, Canon 7D, EX-1, freelance, travel
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I am writing because I am excited. I just booked my flights to attend/work at Blogs With Balls 2.0 in Las Vegas next month. My good friend Chris Lucas started Blogs With Balls (BWB), which is a conference for sports bloggers and people in new media, and they hosted their first conference in June in NYC. I offered to go to the event and do some filming for him; I figured it’d be a good time, and I wanted to help him out. It turned out to be an amazing event! They had a great turnout with over 300 people in a great venue, Read more…
Posted Friday, September 25th, 2009 in BlogTags: Blogs with Balls, freelance, travel
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