New Productions Your Business Can Offer
We're discussing new forms of productions that we've been working on a lot at Miami Video Services. Broadcast-form productions are quite different than your typical sit-down interviews for documentaries. This requires a different set of variables to consider when taking on a new job.
Follow MVS on Facebook or Instagram.
-
We are finally back once again, welcome back to the Miami video podcast. My name's Ariel Martinez. Yes. It's been a while. We just got out of an entirely crazy season and these seasons are few and far between, but it was nonstop. We're talking like two anywhere between two to four. Video shoots a day. Yes.
You heard me correct. Two to four video shoots per day, four months. And it was nuts. So very grateful for that season. But now we get a little bit of time to kind of, sort of catch up, maybe put out some more episodes. Um, we really don't have any post production on these shoots, which is just nice. Yeah, it's it was nuts.
It was nonstop. There were a lot of sleepless nights on these shoots. So I wanted to kind of take some time and put out. Um, I haven't been able to sort of. Get more guests to kind of come on the show and, and talk about these things. So I figured I'd, I'd go through all these shoots all these jobs and how my business is sort of transitioning and share that with you guys.
So these episodes are not going to be probably 45 minutes, not even 30 minutes, it's not gonna be an hour for sure. Like, I just wanna sort of put out little snippets and bites of how sort of my business is transition. Uh, the new format and, and sort of what kind of work we're doing now, we're still doing absolutely everything that we were doing in the past with some added business, if you will.
So, um, on this episode, I, I wanted to talk about sort of more of a broadcast streaming type of, uh, production that we've been doing a lot of and. Things like conferences and concerts, basically anything that involves a stage and cameras pointing to a stage. Uh, these jobs I've been getting a lot of those as well.
And although they're not the most, I guess, exciting, uh, jobs to do, they're still very profitable. More and more, I see my business kind of forming and transforming into a full production house, meaning, you know, offering anything video, uh, related. So from documentary interviewing, which is what we get still get the majority of, uh, to.
Concerts conferences, uh, podcasting, any sort of video production service that you might need hence than to change my business name, Miami video services. Um, so I wanted to kind of walk through a few, I guess, questions that I would ask my clients regarding. These sorts of jobs and how to sort of assess if a job is right for you or like what equipment you need and how to handle these kinds of jobs.
So for example, uh, you know, we've done major, major jobs like trier Fest. Uh, you guys have heard me talk about trier Fest in the past huge concert, huge concert, and basically. There are several factors that you need to consider with a job like this. So you wanna consider obviously equipment. What do you need?
What do you have? What do you have to rent? Um, and how flexible is the client with each of these equipment? So for example, the client says, Hey man, we want some good cameras, uh, pointed at these stages. Let's say we want three cameras. We want to be cutting back and forth between three cameras. Um, sure. Not a problem.
Uh, do you think you need 4k more often than not? They don't need 4k for these kinds of jobs. Um, Now I do have the FX nine, which I've used before. I do have FX threes, which are capable, but not a preferred camera for these kinds of jobs there. Sure. You can get away with it and, and kind of use it, but it's not the ideal camera to use.
Ideally you want some long lenses, you need to be able to zoom in all the way. Most times you wanna be prepared to zoom in very, very far. And I've had stages where my camera is 20 feet from the stage, and I've had stages where the camera is 150 200 feet from the stage. So it's been pretty far. And so you wanna be able to carry.
Uh, a wide range of these lengths. So lens and zooming is, is something that you definitely want to consider. Like, you'll want to know how far is the camera going to be from your subject and how far in you want to be zoomed in? So if you're okay, if the client is okay having a fixed camera full screen the entire time on stage.
You'll have some great options for that, but if you really need to get in there and kind of get a sort of a close up or an extreme close up or a medium close up, whatever it is, you'll need to make sure that you have enough zoom for that. Now, an important aspect of, uh, of kind of capturing this is where is the signal gonna go?
So if you're simply recording these events internally, That's it. That's where your job is done. If they say we just wanna record it, that's it. That's easy. Now, oftentimes they're gonna wanna tell you, Hey, we need to send this to livestream. and sometimes they'll already have a livestream person in charge of the livestream where you have to now send them the feed.
Now that kind of adds another element. Now you have to coordinate with this person, Hey, what system are you using? Do you need an H D M I or an SDI feed? SDI is preferred, but you can make H DMI work. Now there are pros and cons with each, and we'll get to that in a second. Um, So you you'll want to send a feed and you'll want to make sure you have long enough cables to get it to whoever is get taking the feed.
Now, sometimes it's not even for live streaming. Sometimes I they've used my shots to put it on the jumbotron whenever they have it, uh, available, they'll say this is only for the jumbled Tron feed. Uh, so basically long story short, you just want to know where the feed is going. And so I was talking about SDI, H D M I earlier.
Um, there, there are pros and cons with each. Um, I think whenever possible, SDI is always the best way to go. Uh, it's a very secure connection. That's not coming off the camera. It, you lock that bad boy in there. Um, And SDI can generally go farther than H D M I, uh, you, I, I, if I'm not mistaken, uh, H D M I, you can only go up to like 50 feet or something like that.
Uh, per cable, um, SDI is. You can go far as heck. Like , I don't think I've found a cable that I, I have never not found a cable that can go the, the length that I have needed and I've gone 300 feet. I've had to run a 300 foot cable, uh, for SDI. Um, obviously we needed to use a coup uh, some couplers couplers are just basically they connect two SDI cables together.
Um, so yeah, those are, um, those are always, uh, preferred, um, and so you you're gonna have to run the cable, make sure you have the proper appropriate cable and not all SDI cables are the same. Um, I generally, I, I went ahead and I purchased, um, a bunch of different sizes for 12 G S D I cables, meaning I can handle anything from 4k 60 down.
Uh, so if it's HDMI, I can handle all of it. If it's 4k 60, that they want to do this in, I don't know why they would. Hey, I'm prepared for that. Um, and so with these kinds of jobs, uh, they're oftentimes pretty straightforward, pretty straightforward now, live streaming and, uh, what's it called live streaming and, and the jumbotron you'll want to make sure that there's communication, communication, meaning headphones, intercoms you, uh, the person that is handling the, the feed.
Switching back and forth. They're gonna want to sort of signal you some way and communicate with you to let you know what they want you to look at. Are you live? You know, and, and making sure that they're, they're coordinating with you now, I've been able to offer that service to my clients. I've whether I'm doing it myself or I hire somebody to do it.
Um, it's always good to, to sort of learn all those positions, to know how it's supposed to be done so that you can hire the right person for that job. Um, and so it it's something that I I've done many, many times, whether it's live streaming or a, a feed for a jumble Tron, for example, either one is gonna co is gonna require a switcher.
but anyways, you wanna make sure that you're, you're communicating, uh, with whoever is receiving the feed and, um, making sure that they're telling you what shots you want. So these are questions that you're gonna wanna ask your clients, you know, are we gonna have, where is the signal going? Uh, how many operators do you, how many cameras do you want?
And you'll need that many operators as well. Factor that factor, the, uh, the cables that you're gonna have to run, make sure you use GAF tape to, to tie those cables down or some sort of, uh, cover to, to sort of not have cables running all over the place where somebody can trip and potentially pull that feed.
Uh, so that, that, that would be a hazard. Oh, another important thing about these things. I guess people don't think about it's the tripod that you use. Now. I use regular standard tripods in just about 90% of my work, my tripods, they work perfect because they're not moving. I set my, my cameras. I set my shot for an interview, for example, and that's it.
I don't have to worry about anything else, but the problem with this, with, uh, doing, uh, conferences and concerts. Generally the subject or the target that you're, you're sort of following on stage, probably zoomed in. They're gonna be Mo moving left and right back and forth, whatever it is. If you don't have a good tripod and a good tripod head that shot's gonna be shaky.
And the more zoomed in you are, the shakier it'll be. So that is very important to get a really good, solid, heavy duty tripod to use for now. I recently. Purchased a SEARU, uh, tripods, uh, tripod system. It's a huge one. It was like $1,300 a tripod. I got a couple of those. Um, and those things are solid, solid, solid.
I love those things. Um, not that you can't do it with the other ones you could, you could get, you could get away with a very standard tripod if you're very, very, very careful, um, It, it could get done. I I've done it for years. Uh, but yeah, you definitely wanna make sure that you have a good, solid tripod.
Whether you have to rent one, it might be worth renting a very good, heavy duty tripod for these kinds of events, especially if you're gonna be super zoomed in. Um, that's important now also equally as important is the platform that you're gonna be on. This is something that you'd want to get from your clients.
You wanna make sure you let your clients know or ask them. Are we gonna have a platform because what you don't wanna do is be on the ground floor while you're shooting on something that's happening on stage. And now you have a sort of a low angle type shot to your target. And that is generally not very appealing.
It's not a pleasant shot. You're looking upward. Um, you wanna be at eye level with your, your, your, uh, subject. Or as close to it as possible. So you wanna ask them if there's gonna be a platform, if or if not, can we rent a platform, right. And not all platforms are the same and make sure that they put it together.
I've had. Issues with so many different platforms everywhere from their way too shaky and unstable. Uh, we can't get a good shot. So they had to kind of secure it better. They had to attach two platforms together, uh, to, to make sure that it has more stability. They had a platform where the middle was the.
I guess the, the middle of these two platforms that were put together started to cave in that was an issue. Um, ideally you want to either a solid platform or have two platforms, one for the camera and the tripod and one for you to stand down. So that way you're not shaking the camera. And I'm telling you, these, these pipes are granted.
I'm, I'm a very, he heavy person. I weigh 250 pounds. A mirror shift in weight for me would kind of shake the camera a little bit, especially if you don't have a heavy duty tripod, all that vibration, all that movement transfers over to the image and you don't want that. So these are a bunch of things that you definitely want to consider.
And obviously not all camera operators are the. um, there are some camera operators that are just not good. I personally I'll admit I'm not the best at following a subject or on stage and, and, and sort of cuz I just don't do that too often. Um, normally I'm hiring people to do that and yeah, look, it's good practice.
I can practice that all day and, and I can get really, really good at it. Um, it's just not something that I kind of aspire to do. Uh, however, I'm, you know, it's work is working. I'm not gonna sort of give that away. So either I get better or I hire people that are better than me. Um, and there are a lot of people better than me at that.
So yeah, that, that kind of camera operating is definitely like something that you want someone skilled to do, because that will be the difference between a horrible, uh, conference, uh, recording or a really, really good one. Um, so you wanna make sure that you have that position covered well, So with all that out of the way, these are the kind of the factors.
And I'm sure that there are more, um, things that, you know, you can offer. Sometimes I, I use my Sumo 19 and I offer my clients a live video switching. They take advantage of that a lot. They love that feature where I can give them already a cut up program feed. Uh, that's already cut between cameras. In addition, I can give them all the individual ISO ISO cameras, uh, recording.
So that's. Something. I like to offer them now, in terms of profitability on these kinds of jobs, it, it could get quite profitable, especially if you own the equipment that you're using. Um, so I've gone ahead and invested in, uh, a bunch more equipment to be able to tack on those rental fees, uh, to my jobs.
And basically all I'm doing is just hiring the operators to, to sort of. Operate the cameras and, and the equipment that I've been purchasing. Going down the list, the cameras that I've decided to use are the cannons XF 6 0 5. Um, those are really, really good cameras that have a nice one inch sensor, uh, 4, 2, 2, 10 bit.
You guys know how much I love 4, 2, 2, 10 bit. Uh, it has cannon log, but almost never shooting in cannon. With those broadcast cameras, uh, it they're they're best for on stage stuff. You know, I cannot expect those cameras that cost 4,500 bucks a pop to be as good as the FX nine, the FX nine significantly better image quality in terms of sharpness, um, and dynamic range.
But they're very, very different use cases. So the reason I got these cans, XF 6 0 5 S is because I got tired of. Searching around, I don't own long lenses. Um, and kind of my, my arsenal of cameras include the cannon FX nine. I'm sorry. the Sony FX nine, uh, two Sony FX, three S and the Sony a seven four. Only one of those, the FX nine are capable of shooting a really, really good conference, but I only have one of those.
And then I only have one 70 to 200, sometimes 70 to 200 is not nearly enough for what I need. So what I decided to do, and also it was a very pricey to rent that out as opposed to a regular cam quarter for the. So my, what I decided to do is I went and got cam quarters, which are the cannon excess 6 0 5 S cuz they have already a built in lens.
They have a really great image, quality, really good cannon colors. Um, they're meant for that. They are built for jobs like that. Um, You have H D M I out S D I out 4k whatever's needed, basically I'm covered on everything in addition to the really, really good auto focus. Um, so I got three of those cameras so that, you know, every time I'm going out, I'm, I'm tacking on a rental fee on each one of those.
So it's really to make me money. Um, and then additionally, I got the steroid. I, I still don't know how to pronounce that, but the Siri, uh, tripods that I had mentioned earlier that has a rental fee, the long SDI cables that I have that has a rental fee, uh, Sumo 19, that has a rental fee, basically everything I come out with has a rental fee.
Um, and, and then additionally, I am, uh, hiring my operators. Whoever is, uh, available. One thing that I've been starting to do is actually, I, I sort of invest in, in my guys. I love to shoot with the guys that I shoot with. Um, they're awesome to work with. So. Knowing that they're very, very smart people. They know video production and they're willing to learn.
I go and I teach them. I show them how to operate those cameras, how to do the video, switching, how to do all that stuff in a late, in another video. In another episode, I'm going to go ahead and talk to you guys about live streaming, which is a completely different monster. But yeah, essentially these are the jobs now that I've, I've been getting a lot of and you know what, it's a production house.
You know, we want to be able to offer all kinds of video services. Uh, name of the company is Miami video services, and we want to be able to provide all kinds of services at the best quality possible. Now there are setups that are, you know, could, could be $150,000 per camera. Per camera, uh, in terms of how much that costs, not for rental, but just imagine how much that would have to rent for we're not at that level yet.
uh, but you know, hopefully that, that would be the dream to be able to have a team and arsenal and a fleet of camera operators of cameras and, and whatnot, and just be able to send 'em out to jobs. And so these are things that you definitely want to consider. When kind of looking at cameras, uh, I'm sorry, looking at jobs like this and how to price them out.
Um, generally you want to charge anywhere between five and 10% closer to the 5% range as a rental fee for each equipment that you own. So whatever the price of that equip. You charge 5% of that, roughly generally you could decide what number is comfortable for you, but that's normally the industry standard, uh, pricing model for equipment rentals.
So, uh, that's kind of what we've been doing a lot of lately. So imagine that tacked on to interviews and B rolls and all the other jobs that we get. So we've been very, very busy with jobs like that. And. It's to be honest, it's been fun. I've my role has generally been more of a managerial, uh, uh, role than a, sort of a shooter creative type of role.
Uh, but in that it really, really helps to know each and every responsibility that is needed on set, because then I can. Work better. I can delegate responsibilities better. I can see and, uh, assess who is best suited for which position. So that's very, very important. Um, again, I'm super glad and happy to be back on the, on the podcast here.
And, uh, I hope to be able to continue to do these, and we have a ton of episodes in the, in the. In our log that we need to sort of get out. We really want to put out this information and I think it's really, really beneficial. Um, so if you guys have any questions you could sort of reach out to me also, uh, at Ariel Martinez dot Jr.
Now , I have to sort of change the name of my Instagram. That's on Instagram, by the way. Uh, but if you want to continue to follow the podcast, it's at Miami video services on Instagram. And then, uh, Miami video services.com. So thank you guys for tuning in on this episode, and I will see you on the next one.
