Freelancers: What's Your Process When Turning in Your Shot Tapes?
 

When you shot some EPK, wedding, event, or other and you hand the tapes to the person who hired you for the gig, how do they capture your footage?

This is the big dilema for me with HD/HDV cameras. Right now, I stay busy with my XL2 and sending my tapes in has never been a problem because just about any mini-DV camcorder can capture the fooatge, 60i,30 or 24p. Now with every HDV camera on the market, JVC, Sony, and Canon, the way to capure 30p or 24p is a different process. Which means my old method won't work.

What do you folks do?

So what you guys editor all of your XL H1 footage yourselves?

When working over various video formats most freelance camera people check which format the client wants to shoot on.

On the HDV the main differences will be between the JCV 720p and the 1080i found on other makes of camera. Some camera people go for the interlace because they're dealing with different clients and they're less likely to have problems in post. On the other hand, I also know quite a few people who have gone for the JVC cameras.

You mark up the tapes, giving all the information regarding the format details.

Basically you discuss all this with the client in advance, if you think they don't seem to understand, press them to clear it with their editor. You'd also do this for the high end HD formats as well.

The option that I've gone with is purchasing a "cheap deck" That I factor into the price of my rental. They get my HV-10 for a day or so with the rental of me and my XL-h1 if they decide to shoot 24f. Another option (that I've had to do with particularly slow digitizing clients) is to just offer to digitize in their project (I use fcp) and hand them the hard drive as well as the tapes. (note this should probably add a little to my rate as well.) If they're shooting in 60i or happen to have another canon hd camera I don't usually need to offer up any digitizing in solution.

Most people I've worked with understand that if they're going to work in HD(V) there is going to be an added cost though.