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Read about them here

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A while back I visited an animation exhibit in Vancouver which included actual props and characters from Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 animated feature film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed.  This was the first true feature animated film that came out 11 years before Disney’s Snow White in 1937.  As with Snow White, this film used a multi-plane camera and just simply spectacular backgrounds that appear to be ever moving watercolors.  Now the big difference is that The Adventures of Prince Achmed has no dialogue.  It was also never recognized as the first feature-length animated film.

Ever since viewing the characters and film clips, I have wanted to make a short film homage in her style.   I even purchased the film on DVD to study it and I’m enthralled by her watercolor backgrounds each time I watch it. You can see some of Act II here and I encourage you to purchase the entire movie.

Well now I want to move forward and actually create this short film.  Probably 7-12 minutes, it’ll be a silent film, music only, just like the original.  We’ll create the main characters in shadow puppet form just like the original and animate them either for real in stop action or in a stop action look.  The only reason to make this film is just because we want to.  The plan is to utilize Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects for the bulk of the art and animation.  Either Premiere Pro or possibly DaVinci Resolve for the editing so we can edit and color grade in the timeline.   There’s no budget, no pay, just something to have some fun on the side and create a good film to submit to short film festivals.

You notice I keep saying “we” and not “me.”  See I’m looking for help from those who want to join me and make something for fun.  Scriptwriters, artists, animators, photographers, editors, composers, professionals, students, hobbyists, you name it, if you want to join the team, let me know.   Doesn’t matter where you live, we can all work remotely.

I’m going to start kicking around ideas with the hope to start into pre-production after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  So what do you say?  Wanna make an animation?

Ping me walter (at) biscardicreative (d0t) com and put animated short in the subject line.

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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.

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First off, the software does NOT retain any settings when you quit the app.  Zero.  So every time I launched the app, I had to set my frame size, resolution, destination, audio input, etc….  That was super annoying.

The app just quit constantly.  I could generally shoot 2 or 3 movies and then the app would just disappear.  Or would I hit the Home button on my iPhone to use another app, then double click the Home button to retrieve Filmic Pro and it would be gone.   Then of course I would have to reset everything on the app.

I found the focus drifting a lot even when I would manually set and locked it.  Almost seemed like the Camera was competing with the App for control of the focus.  The exposure worked as expected but the focus was problematic.

When using 24p mode via Filmic Pro I found the video quality VERY stuttery and staccato, especially with the pans.  It’s not really an enjoyable experience to watch the 24p material that was shot with it.

So I used Filmic Pro for the rocket launch and the first three days of my cruise and then abandoned it.  I went back to shooting with the Apple Video mode in Camera.  If you DO plan to use Filmic Pro, avoid the zoom feature.  I thought it was awesome when I was playing with it, but the resolution falls apart very quickly as you zoom.

I plan to check out Mavis soon so I’ll report back after I’ve had a chance to really test that app out for more than just a few days.

Now the Shure VP83 Shotgun mic DID perform brilliantly and that was a great investment.

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