Two sets of envelopes are on stage at all times. One PwC rep on one side of the stage and one on the other, each with the exact same set of envelopes. The rep who handed the envelope to Warren Beatty inadvertently gave him the unused envelope for the previous category, Actress In A Leading Role, which was Emma Stone for “La La Land.”

And what did Price Waterhouse Cooper do? They owned the mistake, almost immediately and without reservation.

A human error was made, the wrong envelope was given, and instead of looking to blame everyone else, PwC took ownership of the mistake immediately. This is called taking responsibility and the hallmark of outstanding leadership. It’s a great lesson for any company, but especially for small businesses.

No person and no company is perfect. Well all fail. We all make mistakes. We all fall short of client and consumer expectations. It’s the response of you and your company that makes the difference in your reputation and client retention. When you do not, or simply cannot, deliver what is expected, you owe it to yourself and to your client / consumer to own the shortcoming. It’s then up to you to provide the resolution up front and without reservation. Throwing the blame around to others will simply lead to frustration and ultimately loss of client / consumer support of your brand.

PwC went 83 Academy Awards without a major mistake. Yes there was a minor hiccup in 1964 but that was a music category and long before social media. Nobody is perfect. I sincerely hope The Academy retains the services of PwC and for the rest of you, use this as an outstanding example of how to handle a client shortcoming. Own your mistakes, learn from them and grow from them. Your reputation and business depend on it.

The post Price Waterhouse Cooper offers a lesson in responsibility. appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

The Gingerbread House is typically associated with Christmas but I don’t see why you couldn’t use a gingerbread design to celebrate many of the Holidays we share this time of year.  It doesn’t even have to be a house, the beauty of gingerbread is you can carve it and make it into just about any design you desire.

Now it all starts with a good, simple recipe that is easy to cut into shapes and holds those shapes well when it bakes.  I found this one on Epicurious.  This makes plenty of gingerbread to build a good sized design.  If you plan to eat the gingerbread, I would add more of each of the spices.  It’s good as is, but for my tastes, it would be better with a bit more spice.  Oh and you don’t need to let the dough sit for 6 hours.  1 hour is really all the dough needs.  So start out by making your dough and get it into the fridge to chill.

Now create a design.  That same recipe offers a great starting point with a simple house.  I recommend actually drawing out their house on paper or cardboard and assembling it to give you a sense of scale and how much the gingerbread will build.  I felt like I had enough gingerbread to make about 2 of those houses from the amount of gingerbread the recipe made.  Now that you know the scale of the original house, design something yourself.

I was inspired by a classic 1970’s TV home.  No particular reason other than it seemed like a silly, fun thing to build.  So I started by drawing and cutting out the various pieces.

You really need to draw it all out AND assemble the house to make sure it all comes together.   I highly recommend an Xacto or Sheetrock knife to cut the paper using a straight edge.   Just tape the pieces together and make sure it comes together like you want it to.  Oh and label all the pieces so you remember what they are when you break the template apart to cut the gingerbread.

The roof was the trickiest part because it’s a two piece roof with a long slope on one end of the front of the house with a side roof coming in at a steep angle.   I was able to make it work, not perfectly but good enough to cover the mistakes with icing later.

Now it was time to cut the shapes into gingerbread.   I put parchment paper on either side of the dough as I rolled it out to keep it from sticking to the board and the roller.  Then laid the template shapes onto the dough and cut through both layers of parchment.  Remove the top layer of gingerbread, but LEAVE the bottom layer attached to keep it from sticking to the baking pan.

Something to keep in mind is that any pieces that will be inside the house and not seen, such as supports for the roof, can actually be cut out of stiff cardboard.  There’s no need to bake interior supports.  This was my very first gingerbread house so I didn’t think of that, but I will next year!

Now you bake the pieces, let cool completely and start assembling.  Well actually I recommend you do a bit of the decorating while the pieces are flat as it’s easier.  The royal icing was always a bit too thick, it really does need to be a bit thinner to be more sticky to hold the pieces.  Just cut the corner of a ziplock bag to use for piping the icing.  As you assemble, anything that you have pre-attached to the walls may fall off, but you can just stick them back on.

Be sure to have a nice solid platform to build your house on such as a thick cardboard base.  I cut a piece of thick cardboard and covered it with parchment paper.  This makes it easy to move the house around once it’s built.

I’ll admit the initial assembly of the house was a bit ugly.  Could not get the first three walls to stand up square.  I ended up putting a piece of cardboard in as support to help these first pieces stay up and used a few coffee mugs to keep the very heavy “gumdrop wall” from falling forward.  Then it was actually fairly easy to get all the walls up.  Some of the baked walls didn’t quite line up, but that’s what icing and decorations are for!

For trimming the baked pieces, you need a REALLY sharp knife, such a straight razor knife and a light touch.  Just let the sharp blade do all the work with just a little pressure.  It took me about 10 cuts across the gingerbread to get it to cut all the way through, but I didn’t break anything and got clean cuts.

So this project took one day.  A lazy Sunday afternoon and it was fun.   It was a reminder that the Holidays should be fun.  So get your hands a little dirty, make something silly and have a little fun!  Save the stress for when you’re back in the office.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, it was “The Brady Bunch” house that was the inspiration for my design.  I drew my design from this photo.  Why be normal, right?

The post Take Time for Fun over the Holidays! appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

New client calls asking to meet and discuss a potential project using my services, which happens to be media creation and creative design.

Meeting goes great, runs well past the original scheduled time, good discussion all around. I promise a proposal for the project.

Proposal is sent, client responds with thanks and……………. radio silence. Instead of telling me “no we’re not going to use your proposal” the company simply goes radio silent.  

Not only is this behavior unprofessional, it’s just plain rude.  You called ME. YOU asked me to come in and give you a proposal. Now that you have the proposal, the very least you can do is respond with a simple yes or no.

Many of my colleagues say it’s a result of the younger generation now moving into positions of responsibility that’s degrading the professionalism from companies.  In my experience, I don’t see that. This unprofessional behavior stretches far and wide from young to old, small / startup to multi-national, billion-dollar companies.  It’s now the norm to simply ignore a proposal rather than give a proper response.

Maybe companies are scared to deliver bad news? I really don’t know what started this level of unprofessionalism throughout the business world for such a simple task as responding to a proposal. But I’ll offer some advice to those of you who choose to hide behind emails.

Business owners are Ok with “No” or “Sorry we’re going with someone else.”   It’s part of doing business. All of us own “big boy” and “big girl” pants, we can handle rejection.  Besides, the sooner you give a definitive answer, the sooner we’ll stop annoying you asking for an update.

So stop hiding behind your email and phone barrier. Be a professional and provide an answer. I’d love to hear from others on their experiences.

The post The Business of Hiding (behind emails and phone screening) appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Whether you own a production company or you’re a freelancer, we’re all independent contractors and it’s important to understand and document the full scope of work and fees to be charged for a project.   In other words, creating an accurate budget.   

In this course, learn how to plan and create professional budgets and proposals for video projects.  I provide detailed information and advice that’s applicable to the various types of projects video professionals handle in their business operations. Learn how to tackle client assessments, develop a working concept, put your budget together using Showbiz Budgeting, and present your budget and proposal.

The ability to properly budget time, people and materials will help to make sure you don’t get stuck paying for all those “little things” that can turn profit into loss. 

Topics Include:

Completing a client assessment

Discerning between client needs versus wants

Developing a working concept

Creating time and crew assessments

Coming up with the budget

Presenting the proposal

Revising the budget

Knowing when to walk away

Duration:  2h 15m

This course is built upon my over 25 years of experience in the video production industry and I really hope it helps you to grow your business.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.

The post “Video Budgeting” – My first training course from Lynda.com appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

It seems that Microsoft has decided to take advantage of the current stagnant nature of Apple in the computer world.  Oh sure Apple introduced a “touch strip” calling it “new” but PCs have had a version of the touch strip for a few years now.   And of course, Windows PCs have been available with full touch screen displays for years now as well.  But Microsoft sees an opening to not only the creative world, but the general public through some very innovative and “Mac-like” products.

Apple has, rightfully, become a lifestyle company built around “things” with the centerpiece being the iPhone.  The iPhone put Apple on a completely new track arcing away from computers and towards consumer goods.   The iPad, the Watch, the AppleTV.  All consumer goods designed to make the lives easier of those who own them.  They’re all mini-computers to be sure, but they’re consumer items with more or less specific purposes.  And consumers have rewarded the company well.  So it appears that Apple’s current position is the general consumer doesn’t need much more than a laptop these days and they don’t really want a touch screen.  I personally believe Apple is just waiting for the death of the “computer” as an item in the home and you’ll just use your phone / tablet / watch as all the computing you’ll need along with a wireless keyboard to use cloud based apps via your TV or tablet.

Now how did Apple come to be “THE” lifestyle company to the masses?  Well it wasn’t through blazing computer sales.  Apple computers sales ALWAYS lagged behind PCs.  Generally far, far behind PCs because you could only get them from one company, they were more costly than PCs and you couldn’t just build one easily of the shelf.  Only “artists” would use a Mac because….. well we liked working with them and they were generally “cooler” than PCs.

That “cool” factor helped Apple when it was ready to make the leap from computer to lifestyle company.  Enter the iPod.  10,000 songs at your fingertips and in your pocket.  No matter what the competition threw at Apple, the iPod was too cool to beat and Steve Jobs was the ultimate cool salesman.   The iPhone sent the company to the stratosphere and suddenly computers were no longer front and center at Apple.  The iPads and MacBook Airs followed along with the Watch as the old bread and butter towers of yore faded to the background.    But it was those cool computers that gave Apple the clout and the consumers the confidence that their innovative devices not only looked good, but would work reliably.    And now we’re at the point where Apple is no longer a computer company first.

I believe Microsoft sees an opening into the hearts and minds of both consumers and professionals alike by re-inventing the computer experience around touch screen.  Consumers are already used to touch screen tablets and phones.   While the Surface Tablet has steadily improved, sales are far behind the iPad, though Apple is no longer the dominant tablet maker with less than 25% market share as of Q2 2016.   So by taking a step “back” and re-invigorating the personal computer experience with an over the top Surface Studio and more powerful Studio tablets, Microsoft has suddenly become the “cool” computer company.    Their Surface tablets run full desktop software putting it on par with the MacBook Air.  Microsoft has a buzz around their products that resemble the Apple buzz of old.

So taking a page from the Apple playbook, Microsoft could use the reinvigorated computer experience which includes Windows 10 as an entryway into the full lifestyle experience.   The Windows Phone failed to catch on and the Zoom audio player never got anywhere.  But the living room is probably the next great battleground with streaming video services and devices.   If Microsoft gets the Surface re-launch right, they could re-introduce Microsoft as an innovated lifestyle company.   Right now Microsoft, HP and other PC companies are getting noticed for innovation in the computer space while Apple treads water.

As for me personally, I have probably made my final Apple purchase as I’ll trade in my current MacBook Air for a Surface Tablet.  For my professional computers, the 27″ 5k Retina iMac will be my final Mac for work.  What will replace it remains to be seen, either a custom PC desktop or the Surface Studio.

Where does the computer and lifestyle space go from here?  It will be interesting to see how this Apple / Microsoft story plays out over the next 2 – 5 years.

The post Could 2016 Be The Year Everything Changed? appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Now this is my PERSONAL MacBook Air so I didn’t mind being a guinea pig for this new OS.  It would not affect my paying work.     I would NOT install Mac OS X Sierra on a professional workstation or any machine you use to make a living at this time.  

Observations so far:

Overall operation of the entire MB Air is slower and hotter.   One fix Apple Support suggested was to restart in Safe Mode to force the machine to clear out a lot of cache and it sounded like it did a bit of cleaning up on the startup overall.  After doing that and then restarting the machine it does seem to work marginally better.  The machine continues to run hot for no apparently reason.   That area of the keyboard just below the “MacBook Air” name is almost continuously hot.  Prior to installing Sierra, the machine would only really heat up if I was doing a render in Premiere Pro or After Effects which would be expected.  But generally I’m only using this machine for writing and organizing photos.

Battery life is definitely degraded, seems I’ve lost at least an hour to 90 minutes of battery working time on the Air.  Now this is probably connected to the hot machine since that’s due to the CPU working hard so something is making the Air work harder than it should.

Mail app is much slower to retrieve incoming mail and slower to open each piece of mail.  It also has a weird refreshing behavior each time I open a new piece of mail.   The entire screen refreshes when I look at a new piece of mail.

Safari and Opera continually shut down a page due to a non-working extension or other similar error.

Printing to an HP wireless printer is not working, but printing to an Epson is.   It’s an HP OfficeJet all in one model that’s about 5 years old.  I can’t print to it.  But I can print to an Epson all-in-one wireless model we got earlier this year.

I have NOT launched any Adobe software on here yet.  Am

On the upside, Wi-Fi connectivity seems to be better.   I have several networks at my office and for whatever reason the Air would NEVER connect to one particular network.  Now it does.

So if you want to dive into the OS X Sierra pool early, proceed with caution.  ALWAYS CHECK WITH SOFTWARE MANUFACTURERS BEFORE UPDATING AN OS.   The folks at ToolFarm have created a great Sierra Compatibility Chart that’ll get you started.  But just because you don’t see your software on your list, doesn’t mean it will work.

The post Mac OS Sierra; Proceed with Caution appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

One of the biggest problems for me is keeping track of all my recipes.  Not only family recipes passed down, but even those I find online.  Bookmarking online recipes and storing printed recipes in files and such, well it became frustrating to find anything when I literally have 1000’s of recipes around.

2 years ago I found the Paprika Recipe Manager and holy cow, did that bring a complete change to how we store recipes,  cook and shop.   It works on pretty much every device and every OS which is great when you have Mac, Windows, Android and iOS devices in the house like we do.    I have the app on my MacBook Air, Samsung Galaxy Tablet and my iPhone.    Here’s what it looks like on the Mac.

Not only are all of my recipes stored in the app, but you can see everything is easily categorized, even with subcategories like you see in Dessert and Indian.  My wife is a Vegetarian so for each cuisine I separate the Vegetarian dishes to make it super easy to find those.

The BEST part about this app is the Browser feature.  It’s a built in web browser so I can search for and save online recipes directly within the app.   Here I’m on the Food Network website and I searched for grouper and selected this great sounding recipe from Bobby Flay.

  You see down on the bottom right of the page the “Save Recipe” button.  Simply click that and….

Paprika grabs all the pertinent information to create a new recipe card in the app.  I’m selecting Seafood from the drop down category list.    Click “Save” and…..

I have the full recipe card ready to go including a funny picture of Bobby Flay and his cat.   That was the only photo on the page so Paprika grabbed it thinking it was the photo of the plate.  I can easily change that photo when I make the dish or go look for a photo of it.   If the app can’t grab the recipe automatically you can go see in the earlier images the buttons for “Name,” “Ingredients,” “Directions” and so on at the bottom of the screen.  This allows you to manually highlight the individual elements of the recipe on the page and automatically bring them into a new recipe.  It’s quite easy for sites that for whatever reason won’t automatically import.

My wife found this AWESOME gooseneck tablet stand for the Samsung Galaxy tablet that we keep near the stove and use it like a cookbook stand.  It keeps the tablet raised up off the counter so it’s out of the way of ingredients and the base weighs about 3 pounds so it’s solid and won’t get knocked over easily.   It’s a universal stand so it works with multiple types of tablets.

Most recently I’ve been loading up a lot of mixology recipes as I have been exploring the wonderful world of cocktails.  So if you like to cook or only cook on occasion, I highly recommend this app to get you organized and allow you to be more creative in your cooking.

The post Managing your Recipes. Another “Get A Life” tip appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

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It was another fun NAB Show for #WallyCam though this year was decidedly more low key.  Fewer videos and most all of them from the Media Motion Ball.  It was a much more casual and relaxed time for me this year spending more time actually chatting with folks and less time getting the camera out at every opportunity.  So this year you’re getting more of the family reunion, social networking vibe of what it’s like at NAB Show.   If you’ve never been, do try to get out at least once in a while to actually be able to put faces and voices with those you interact with on social media.

#WallyCam is decidedly low tech and casual.  This year with a fedora.
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First off it’s Sean and Stefani Mullen from Rampant Design Tools.   This husband / wife duo are the team behind what I feel are THE best style effects on the planet. For NAB 2016 they released 14 new products. Here we are in front of the Diablo on The Strip chatting about their products and NAB Show.
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What I love most about NAB Show. Meeting folks who I know through social media. This is Khoren Mirzakhanian’s first NAB Show so of course we talk about that and what he’s looking at on the show floor.  Find him on Twitter @KolorLux
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When Dan asks “What is WallyCam” that’s my cue to turn on the camera and go. It’s Dan’s first show and of course Michele is an NAB veteran so we got to talking about Toolfarm and what they have introduced at NAB Show 2016. Dan’s kinda fun too.  Follow Michele on Twitter @MicheleYamazaki or @Toolfarm
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I meet up with LONG time NAB Show Veteran Brian Scott and relative newcomer Amy Wilson as we discuss NAB Show, Media Motion Ball and what Amy was doing 26 years ago….. in Ontario.
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I ran into the man behind the Premiere Bro fansite, Sean Schools at the Media Motion Ball. An NAB Show rookie, we talk about his work to promote Adobe Premiere Pro and his experience as a first timer at the show.  Find him on Twitter @PremiereBro
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At the Media Motion Ball I ran into Adam Bedford of the Going POSTal podcasts and Atlanta Cutters alum Chris Johnston who now calls Las Vegas home. We chat what we’re liking at NAB show and dessert.    Find Adam on Twitter @GoingPOSTalAdam and Chris @goCMJ
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I run into longtime friend Ron Sussman and Bill Garmen at the Media Motion Ball where we chat NAB Show gear and the Motion Ball.   Follow Ron on Twitter @ronsussman and Bill @bgarmen
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Sitting a table of Canucks at the Media Motion Ball, the discussion turned to the lack of Canadian teams in the NHL Playoffs for the first time in a very long time. We also go for Extreme WallyCam. This is a #WallyCam Extra….
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The post #WallyCam NAB Show 2016 | The Casual and Relaxed Tour appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

As someone who first edited video in 1986, I have borne witness to a wholesale revolution and evolution of the creative industry. Well actually, just creativity as a whole. Amazing creative work now comes from all corners of the globe, all age groups and all skill levels.

Creative professionals used to have very defined roles. Producer, Director, Writer, Camera, Lighting, Sound, Editing, Graphics, Animation and so on. When I started at CNN in 1990 I was a video editor. That’s it. I arrived at work each day and when I left 9 hours later, the only task I did all day was to edit video. In Hollywood, New York, Georgia and other locations were major film and television project are happening, those roles still exist on set, in part mandated and governed by unions. For the rest of us, however, being a creative professional is wholly different.

Read the rest of the article here.

The post The Evolution of the Creative Professional appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Picture this scenario.  You’re ready to build a house.  You pick out the contractor and the first thing he says is, “Ok, here’s a list of tools you’re gonna need to buy at the hardware store and here’s another list of things you’re gonna need to rent for me to be able to do this.  I’m happy to do the work, but my little toolbox isn’t enough to build this house.”   

Yet there are editors who will say, “I’ll edit your show / documentary / feature but my little editing system can’t handle it.  You buy the system and I’ll edit on it.”  And the client does it.   With money that could have been spent on other things or simply saved and not spent at all.

Building a proper system to take on a job is the cost of doing business.  You want to take on larger projects, you need to set up a system.  You work the cost of a system into a job or a series of jobs.   I didn’t build a 96TB NAS with 10Gig E connectivity to 20 computers overnight.   That has slowly been built over time with incremental investments so right now, we have no problem taking on multiple features and episodic television at the same time.   Nor would we ever ask a client to purchase extra hardware just so we can work on their project.

Editors, if you need additional hardware to complete projects you want to do, then it’s your responsibility to purchase it.  If you can’t afford it, pass on the job.  Clients, if a contractor asks you to purchase the tools to do a job, move on, there are plenty of smart creative businessmen and women who are willing to invest in proper system setups to take on your projects.

Now before you freelance editors jump all over me and say “well it’s easy for you to say you’ve got a big facility and all this awesome equipment….”  I started my company in the bedroom of my house in 2001 with a $30,000 loan to outfit a spare bedroom with everything I needed to work with anticipated clients.  I was also $50,000 in the hole from a failed previous business partnership.  So I started this company $80,000 in the hole for a standard definition Final Cut Pro system with a whooping 240GB of RAID storage.   I’ve never asked a client to purchase anything just so I can take on a job, if it needs to be purchased, that’s my responsibility.

The post I’ll Do The Work, You Buy The Tools. Wrong. appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.