Film / TV / Media Crew - Technical, employment opportunities and ranting

My portfolio is a fabrik one, so it has easy integration with Vimeo, one of the reasons I haven’t moved away from it.

I fucking hate vimeo, I reluctantly renewed this year because I couldn't be arsed to swap out all of the vids on my website/reel. Definitely not renewing next year (although there's a good chance I completely forget about it again until it's too late!)

For me Vimeo is £16 a month and all I really use it for is feedback. I used to use it to embed a hosted showreel onto our WordPress website. Now I use Webflow and don't embed whole videos - our case studies are just some text, some gifs from the edits, done.

Honestly this was largely down to me not knowing Webflow well enough to get embeds to work exactly I wanted. But actually in the 6 months the site has been up I've won some big projects with new clients (not recommendations or anything) and all I've done is shared some links to Instagram and some links to hidden videos on Vimeo. The latter of which I could easily do on Frame.io

I can actually host videos directly on Webflow too (I think with audio, though I don't use audio - the vids are just for use as backgrounds on the homepage) and the load time and compression is very impressive.

Vimeo is not easy to navigate. It has added more and more quirks (like searching from your home page it will default returns results from the entirety of Vimeo unless you tell it to search just from your own uploads!?). It's clunky and prone to weird upload bugs. It's quite slow to ingest. Creating the correct permissions for sharing folders full of content (e.g. projects with multiple variants etc) is a faff and counterintuitive. Also, I just want a dashboard where I can clearly see my own work, not have to scroll around a load of other stuff I have no interest in. I also don't want an arbitrary 20GB a week cap on uploads. Some weeks I have lots of deliverables so having to compress the hell out of edits or delete previous versions just to get them seen (or pay for the next tier) is some bullshit.

The whole thing has become a noticeable ballache to use and I feel for something that's a crucial part of our workflow the approvals process should be invisible.

I logged into Frame for the first time in a couple of years this morning. I'm already 2 projects in. It might be honeymoon spectacles but so far I'm convinced. Seemingly no cap on weekly uploads. They also seem to have tons of integrations so you might have some luck there, most likely seems to be some kind of Zapier route:

https://frame.io/integrations

WeTransfer is £100 a year.

Frame Transfer (a desktop app but you can do the same thing in browser) seems to do faster uploads than WeTransfer from the same connection and seems to even have some kind of checksum stuff built in.

100GB account free for Adobe subscribers with 5 max projects or unlimited projects and 2TB for just £11pcm.

Funnily, I just typed in "alternative to Vimeo hosting" on Google. They know the game's up if they're sponsoring results like this:

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(although there's a good chance I completely forget about it again until it's too late!)

This is exactly what I wanted to avoid and I put a note in my calendar last year warning me it was going to happen as I missed it last year and the year before :D

Be good if you can embed videos elsewhere without loads of branding, that’s why I use Vimeo as it works with my Format hosted website, I don’t use it for anything else.

Get out of here with your fancy planning!

Can you get embed links from frameio? I've used it alot but only for client reviews. I really like it for that, good for keeping notes disciplined and on point. I've now clue of it's other uses though.

Be good if could swap all my embed codes to frameio ones considering I already have it with my Adobe subscription.

I've seen some comments on reddit they can get it to work with iframes but haven't tried myself.

Bit of a funny one this. I work effectively as a videographer (ie from start to finish, from storyboard, to shooting to editing) for a large institution but my contract will be up next year. I'm worked my way to this role within the institution, so I've always plight my video trade here.

Starting to think ahead to what's next with a good few months to spare and wondering if any of you has any word of advice as per where I could be offering my services?

While I have experience doing the work, I've never been inside :the industry" as it were and have no contacts in regards to freelance gigs or production companies who regularly hire videographers/editors, so making that step feels a bit daunting, if also quite exciting in many ways. Currently, the easiest scenario would be looking an in house job elsewhere, possibly using my experience of both social media-oriented and documentary style work within heritage as a selling point, but obviously that narrows the field significantly...

Bit of a ramble, but thought I'd put the feelers out as I'm sure many of you will have a broader view than I do. And of course, if anyone is in need of help with any project, I'm keen to start to broaden my scope as of now with a few side projects, so thought I'd put that out too :)

Get yourself a website up and running with your work/skills?

As @Mr_Smyth says get yourself a portfolio site up and running with the best bits of work you’ve done, and direct anything and everything to that, mine is through Fabrik.io, it’s got piss easy integration with Vimeo and YouTube and other social media sites where you may have posted work before, have a look at yunojuno as a way of getting some initial freelance work, and obviously LinkedIn to start and widen that network.

There is also Kays but no idea how effective that is or how much to be listed.

Still loving frame.io

Only thing is now I'll actually have to upgrade to pay for the full thing. Had been using the 'hobbled version included with Creative Cloud (only 5 projects, various limitations on sharing/review)' but happy to upgrade as I had an email from Adobe saying my promo price was coming to an end - (I'd been on the 'the threatening to cancel/getting the automated half price offer' dance for the past 5 years or so). This time no such offer. Adios.

Will half heartedly look for a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator for the sporadic times I need to access something as part of an animation. I use Acrobat a bit as well for invoice/doc review. Lastly occasionally a client will come to me with a PPJ or AE file but can always just get a single month sub and bill to the project.

Have some stuff not touched in over a year which is a sign it should go. Pick up in Devon or can post at cost. Can potentially arrange to meet when I'm up for a shoot or something.

RS2 Pro Combo - £300 (very good cond)
Tilta Float (with various extra bits) - £500 (very fun - comes with a belt and a few other accessories).
ThinkTank Production Manager 50 - £250 (bomb proof - can fit at least 2 crew members inside)
Aputure 120D mk2 - £300 (good condition, still a great single source for its size)
Aputure Spotlight Mount (26 degree) - £250 (no iris but otherwise here and good. Heavy. Would only recommend if you know why you want it).
Aputure Nova P300C - £1000 (stupidly big case, doesn't give off a ton of light but it does have a lovely quality)
Aputure 2x fresnel - £75 (handy for 300/120ds, maybe 60d as well)
Canon EF 100mm macro 2.8 - £400 (very good condition)
Canon EF 40mm 2.8 pancake - £90 (good condition)
Laowa 12mm zero d T2.9 EF - £900 (excellent condition but have bought the PL one instead)
Tilta Nucleus M kit (2 fiz sticks plus motors, hand unit etc) - £750 (hate these, but ultimately they're pretty good value for what they can do. Used to use them on Shape bars for shoulder work and was great controlling everything with thumbs)
Westcott scrim Jim cine 4*4 w a couple of rags - £150

Can anyone recommend a sound recordist based in Glasgow?

For recording what?

We use a sound guy from Edinburgh but he travels that’s really good

Would have taken the aputure 120 and fresnel but not rolling in cash right now #trussbudget

Recording a voiceover in an office, 2-3 minute script. Queen St area.

This photo sums up our business perfectly- slave all day under shit deadlines for no thanks, clients turn up last minute to pat themselves on the back and take selfies.

That’s my boss on the right holding the cable looking throughly miffed.

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I have seen this on my Instagram (not sure of the account) did wonder if it was one of yours.
I find expecting thanks is pointless but it’s nice when it happens, not hearing anything afterwards is usually a good sign as it means nobody complained!?

Yes. We absolutely operate on the no news is good news principle.
We get no recognition for our work 99% of the time(we’ve had artists hire our pieces and just stick them in galleries before on numerous occasions).
That was a soulless corporate job this week at the roundhouse so definitely don’t expect recognition or being tagged because who cares?
The private commissions for cool people usually make up for endless being beaten against the live events machine. Everyone who matters knows who were are but outside the industry people are like ‘wow, I thought they just came from a a factory somewhere’

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Currently making the biggest single piece mirrorball capable of going in a tour truck and not requiring our team to assemble it on set.
It’s fucking absurd but it’s what the clients keep asking for. It’ll also fit in a high top shipping container so we can sell them internationally(at least 75% of sales go to US currently).
The flight case is proving to be a much bigger task than the ball itself. Easy to throw it on a curtain sider(80mm clearance at the top), but most tour company artics are rear load only so I’ve only got 20mm each side to play with while forking it. Will be fun on a windy day 😝
My colleague is short but it really is a fucking big box.

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As long as you make enough from them, standard thing from clients

Not really posted it anywhere else and not in a massive rush so hmu if you want me to put anything aside for the future.

Updated list after looking through a few more boxes:

Motion stuff:
RS2 Pro Combo - £300
Tilta Float (with various extra bits inc belt) - £500

Lensey stuff:
Canon EF 100mm macro 2.8 - £400
Sigma 18-35mm art EF - £500
Canon EF 40mm 2.8 pancake - £100
Laowa 12mm zero d T2.9 EF inc hard case - £1000
Panasonic 12-60mm f2.8-4 Leica m4/3- £500

Camera stuff:
Pocket 6k (half cage) - £900
Pocket 4k - £700
DJI Mini Pro 3 with the fancy remote- £450 dibsed / alex_s

Other stuff:
ThinkTank Production Manager 50 - £250 dibsed / platypus
Tilta Nucleus M kit (2 fiz sticks, motors, hand unit etc) - £750

Lighty stuff:
Aputure 120D mk2 - £300
Aputure Spotlight Mount (26 degree) (metal flight case) - £250
Aputure Nova P300C (comes in the huge hard case) - £1000
Aputure 2x fresnel (inc soft case) - £75
Westcott scrim Jim cine 4*4 w a couple of rags - £150
Aputure AL-MX (inc soft case / aks) - £40
2 x Aputure AL MC (inc soft case / aks) - £50 each or £80 for both

Will do 10% off to forumengers and 10% of sale will go to forum.

Don't really want to go down the ebay route and am not on facebook etc for sale groups so will try a few regional owner-ops/indie hire places at some point but tied up with edits for now.

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That really sucks, sorry to hear. What's their argument against paying out?!

ThinkTank Production Manager 50 - £250

Interested if you can dropoff in East London?