Nice variety of subjects.  Well shot.

How much did you outlay for this "early stuff", including the DP, camera crew, etc.  Has it paid back, and in how long?

I wonder which camera we, run-of-the-mill, contributers should consider for video clips?  Are there any photographers uploading anything from point and shoot or prosumer cameras?

great work!
Diego

Very nice showcase of your work. It�s good to see the concepts brought to life.

 Hi All,

 Thanks everyone for the support it is truly appreciated. It is so new for us you never know how it's going. Your positive feedback is a great gift for the holiday here in the States. We are spending about 50 dollars a clip/still and each clip runs between 20-30 seconds trying to offer several options to each buyer. They generally only use a small piece from that 30 seconds so hopefully we will see some good sales. We have had 17 clips up for the last two weeks of the last pay period at Getty and we sold two clips for a total of $320 of which I split half with our production team. Way to early to tell but we are taking the advice of others we know about what to expect in revenue from the life of a clip. They say the returns take the longest to build we should start to regular sales inside of six months to a year. I'll keep you updated as the clips upload and the sales data comes back in.

Best,
Jonathan

I agree with Vonkara,

You really need to produce 1080p at this point to extend your sales opportunities but the 5d mark 2 does some great stuff at 1080p. Check out the new 1d mark 4 it is even better. It costs less than the 1DS Mark 3 we shoot our stills on.

Best,
Jonathan

Nice work Jonathan, as always

Thanks for sharing this.  I have been thinking of getting into video too.  I was planning to get a video cam.  Nice to know that 5DII video will pass muster. 

There is so much for me to learn though.  Maybe a project for the new year.

Hi Surpasspro,

 Yes you have to be exclusive to sell motion in RR or RM these days but only per clip. If I want to shot RM clips for Corbis one day and then shoot RR clips for Getty the next as long as they are not similar then there is no problem. The one nice thing is if someone like myself wants to go exclusive at Istock with my motion I still can because I don't put my motion into RF anywhere. High end and low end as soon as we see Micro motion start to take off more.
 The average return on a Macro motion clip shot correctly for the buyers needs is well over $1000 dollars in the clips life expectancy so paying out $50 a clip is like the old days of stock again, better returns.
 Producing at the level it takes to achieve these sales takes some time but there is no reason you can't learn the curve through practice. I have a great group of guys that have run the camera for years and all I do is light, write the scripts, produce, and direct. They run the camera as I ask them to. Racking focus is an art unto itself.
 I enjoy directing and I think that is the part that really separates what your work looks like from the rest, it is the emotion and realism you can get coax out of your talent and directing is an entirely different ball game than stills, at least for me. My father was a director so I was weaned on the stage from the day I was born I think that has helped in the transition also we shoot our stills very much like motion. We have always choreographed our shoots down to the smallest detail that also helps when directing a motion shoot.
 Micro motion has lots of room for quality growth and I think if you start into today getting educated you will be right at the head of the line when the gates open.

Hey Lisa,

 yea, A good one to just whittle away at while still shooting your stills to pay the bills, that was our approach. Don't want to take to big a steps when what you do is already working but I know you would have a blast. Remember even though you don't record sound their are good lip readers out there so I keep my talent talking about the subject at hand. At first they just spoke to one another until we saw the F' bomb when playing it back : )

Hope this helps,
Jonathan

$50 a clip x how many clips = what's the total you put out for that $320 so far?

Also, is it a work for hire that you own copyright or does the production company hold it?  Why wouldn't they go ahead and shoot their own stuff to sell now that they've seen how it works, or how do you get them to keep working for you?

( happy SL?   )

PS - as I remember from some early video work (for hire), the gear to make those smooth travelings and walking shots (hydraulic suspending, carts) would be many times the cost of the cam.
I also noticed a change of focus in one of the tracks (hospital room) from the foreground (laptop) to the background (senior in hospital bed). Can you actually do that on a 5DMKII? (changing focus point while recording).

I don't know if there's an automatic way to do it, but manually, you get one of those rack focus knobs and figure out the start and end points.  That's where costs mount, because you need another person to rack focus.  I don't know what a focus puller makes though as part of a crew.  Maybe someone here does.

Wow, these are some awesome shots, great work.

In regard to the 1D Mk 4 - where would you see the advantages for video compared to the 5d Mk II? I understand the ISO and frame rates, any other advantages you see?

Thanks for sharing!

It looks very clean and professional. Congrats.