Do clients ever ask about your equipment before hiring you?
 

For non-event work, do potential clients ever ask you about your equipment? In other words, do they ask about progressive versus interlaced, 4:2:2, or anything like that? Again, I'm talking about industrial, commercial, documentary work, television work, etc. What about your editing gear? Do they ask if you use Avid or FCP?

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Well I do weddings mostly and I get gear question just about every time. I can only think of one time I wasnt asked and they were a young couple.

shawn

When I'm looking for someone to shoot something, I always ask about equipment. I ask about there use of auto and manual mode. I don't really ask about progressive or interlaced. Sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by the tools they use.

There was one guy I talked to about shooting for me. When asked what kind of camera he had, all he could say was "a cinema style camera." Upon further questioning he said he thinks its a panasonic, but didn't know which model and would have to check when he got home. Needless to say, i threw his number away.

I think every person has asked me execpt for one and when he saw my camera he just said "wow". They have never asked the details such as progressive and such except "can you film in HD." I find that one odd as every person who has asked for HD wants final delivery on a SD DVD.

I would think that a television station and other video companies contracting out work would want to know whether you at least shoot 720p or 1080i, as well as how you're delivering the product. I work for RFD-TV and they said they only want 1080i and not 720p for their HD stuff.

Indeed that would make sense. Most of my cleints however fall in the educational field and just want to be able to put the video online. A few of my sporting events have made it onto the local news and cable channel College Sports TV.

I educate my clients so they know what they are paying for. Most of my clients don't know much about the technical aspects and would easily hire someone with "crap" value/equipment. I find it's important to inform them why I'm the right guy for the job. If they don't understand me, I just put my cam on a SteadyCam and that usually impresses them, lol :P

I've done editing for Fox Television and similar companies, and generally they don't care what you own because any real production house will have their own equipment that they will have you work on. They WILL want to know what equipment you are used to, because if you are an FCP guy and they are all Avid, that will obviously be a problem.

If you're getting hired by a client who does intend for you to edit their project on your own equipment, I've still never found your setup to be a make-or-break situation unless you own abysmal equipment. As Nicholas has said, most clients don't know much about the technology. HOWEVER many of them THINK they know a few things and will often expect for you to own something that uses a "buzzword" such as HD, 1080p, G5, etc. Clients will want to know that you have capable equipment, and as they don't know as much about it, they'll likely just listen for the buzzwords for confirmation. :)

When I have done any network shoots, the client typically specifies what they want. In the past, it was usually BetaSP. I have had some jobs where they supplied the gear, but that is not very common for me. Consumer type clients might want to be reassured that they are getting a good value (expensive/hi-tech camera) for their money. They usually don't understand that the cameraman is the key to getting good footage.

Oh Greg, you hit the nail on the head there. I can't even begin to recap all the times I've been horribly frustrated from having to save a film by editing crappy footage.

Basic question only, not so many details