Oliver Ojeil Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 Dear All, A company I know are wanting to do an infomercial, which would be displayed on their website. They are willing to spend 10k to 15k on it. Length would be 1.5 to 2 min. It would only show a doctor talking about his product and a 5sec shot of a molecule done in CG. Would this budget be enough to shoot it on highend HD? (Cinealta etc.)? Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Collins Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 I would not do high end HD for a web video at that price. A Sony Z1 or Canon H1 would do just fine. It would be overkill and a waste of money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Ojeil Posted February 23, 2006 Author Share Posted February 23, 2006 I would not do high end HD for a web video at that price. A Sony Z1 or Canon H1 would do just fine. It would be overkill and a waste of money Well it will be also on a DVD for them to hand out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael LaVoie Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 If there were any chance of them viewing the final product on a HD-DVD player or a Blue Ray disc player, I'd say go for it. Otherwise, I agree that it's not worth it. Hopefully by the end of the year that format bullshit will be worked out and there will be an audience with the access to equipment with which to view material shot on HD. Till then, there isn't much point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Collins Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 You also have to look at what the consumer has a home. Most people still have regular DVD players and regular TVs, Not HD DVD or HD TVs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Tanner Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 I disagree with the previous posts. Aquisition is the most important step in production. Why would the television that a consumer uses to view this project matter in choosing the format? NTSC is the standard in the U.S. but commercials, tv movies, music videos, documentaries, etc. all shoot on film or HD. Just because the final dubs will be handed out on DVD doesn't mean that shooting on film or HD is a waste, in fact its quite the opposite. Everything that you do to your footage after aquisition degrades the image and it will never look that good again so why not start off with the best format possible? If the fact that John Q. Public is watching a 1985 television was the basis for choosing a format, there would be no film or HD. We would all be shooting our projects on S-VHS since it has as many lines of resolution as his televison. My advice is to always fight for the absolute best format that can be afforded. It does make a difference...a noticable difference. Respectfully, Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Ojeil Posted February 24, 2006 Author Share Posted February 24, 2006 Dear Jeff, I totally agree.. When I first thought of opening this thread, it wasn't to debate the formats that I'd shoot on, rather the affordability, but the topic got sidetracked onto formats' selectiveness. I am quite firm about shooting on highend HD, since they can not afford film at this stage, and all I wanted to know was whether 10k/15k would be enough for a job as such. As you all know, the format you shoot on, regardless of your output, makes the picture looks the way it "looks", from DOF, to saturation and richness, etc... Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted February 24, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted February 24, 2006 All I can tell you from my days of shooting informercials that most were shot on basic betacams. A few cheap ones in DV. More expensive ones in Digital Betacam or Super-16. And some really high-end ones in 35mm. This was before HD was an option though, but unless you have some sort of killer deal on an HD camera, seems a waste of the budget to shoot a $15,000 infomercial on that -- those shoots tend to require that you pay the crew decent wages for one thing, unlike a low-budget feature. No one shoots infomercials for the "love of it". So it all depends on what's the best equipment you can get for the budget. Just remember that with HDCAM, you may have to budget for downconversions. I know a small commercial company that made a slew of local spots using the 24P SDX900 DVCPRO50 camera (4:2:2, 2/3" CCD's, etc.) To me, that would look just as good as 24P HD if the distribution is just standard def video. One question to ask yourself is if the spot needs the "film look" of a progressive-scan camera. Trouble with using an interlaced 60i HD camera like the Sony HDV, with its 1/3" CCD's, is that the downconversions end up looking more like regular 60i Mini-DV, only slightly better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Collins Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 By all means fight for as high as quality as you want but can you make money at the 10-15k budget? In my market a DVCPRO infomercial project for web viewing is around 30k. But there were alot of other items to pay for. Spokesperson (actor)fee, pre-production, editing, GFX, authoring... Is the 10-15k just the shooting budget? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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