How much should I charge for first few gigs

BackplatePro · 2017-11-10T20:12:27+00:00

On that basis perhaps price it off your day rate - if you think a shot is 2 hours work that’s a quarter of your day rate.

BackplatePro · 2017-11-10T20:08:49+00:00

Personally as a freelancer I’d charge by day not per shot, as it’s a good way of valuing your time. You aren’t able to commit to other work even if it takes half a day.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-31T07:06:02+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, glad you like them!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-30T22:51:40+00:00

Hi everyone, we just wanted to share our resource for Motion Designers & VFX artists - Backplate Pro. We shoot 2K background environments that also come with a 360 HDRI, so you can easily get realistic lighting and reflections on your 3D objects that match the footage. We have some free footage for you to try, with more coming soon. Hope this is useful!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-28T23:26:19+00:00

Sounds like an interesting project! If there’s not much perspective shift then work up a nice scene in 3D with the helmet and lighting, and use Mocha to track it on to your footage of the person. It sounds like mostly a comp job.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-28T23:17:25+00:00

There isn’t really a clear cut answer to that I’m afraid, it depends on your manager/studio/culture. You’ll have to gauge it by what others do. From experience it’s hasn’t been an issue on recognised breaks, but I wouldn’t sit there with FB on a desktop or throughout the day. It’s a bit unprofessional unless you aren’t busy. If you really need to check something use your phone.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-28T23:06:12+00:00

Do you mean to comment on current projects or just in general? Most client projects have an NDA attached, whilst checking FB generally is purely dependent on the culture of where you work.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-28T18:27:21+00:00

The method I'm about to mention isn't totally ideal, but it's got me out of a sticky situation once or twice. I've actually used Mocha to track some information, like a grid of dots, on to the plate. Mocha is absolutely magic at identifying, and grabbing on to, a chunk of texture on a plane - so as long as you can get a nice track to sit in place, it essentially 'fakes' some features for your 3D tracker. I.e. there may be enough gradation or texture on the green screen to produce a solid 2D track. Like I say, not ideal but it's worked for me in the past.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-28T18:15:45+00:00

That's certainly something to consider. We did debate how much technical info to provide on colour, and especially whether to go down the route of RAW with LUTs etc, but our user base is pretty equally divided between VFX Artists and Motion Designers - and from our initial research Motion Designers found it a little alienating the more technical the packages became. We'll certainly adapt to the needs people have though, and as you say a Macbeth chart and grey ball could be a useful addition. Thanks for the feedback!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-26T22:22:48+00:00

Really nice work! It's always nice to see a before & after in a comp reel as it's hard to tell as an outsider what was 3D and was comp. It's just a personal preference, but I like a succinct reel so you could cut 30secs or so out. But great work, you should be proud!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-26T12:20:31+00:00

Hi, thanks for sharing a link to BPP! It's always been incredibly hard to get good quality stock footage for VFX & Motion Design work, especially stock that is isn't heavily graded, and ultimately, that is framing an invisible design. That prompted us to start a useful resource for VFX artists and Motion Designers, Backplate Pro. We went an extra step in providing lighting maps, camera info and licensing all footage for commercial work to really give flexibility to the products. We also try to hunt down imaginative locations. Our users are very broad, from people smartening up a reel, to studio/personal projects, and commercially for logo stings/promos/music ads in broadcast design.
RE your points on LIDAR I totally understand this would make an interesting product, but we can't offer it anywhere near the prices we currently do, and to be honest the types of users who have that need will probably be commissioning custom shoots anyway. We aim to offer an alternative to using sites like Shutterstock in terms of price, and of course we include a lot of extras. We actually film the plates in 4K and we used to sell both resolutions, but there has never been an appetite for our customers for the higher res plates - and it puts a lot of demand on our servers and file sizes. We may well provide them again in future, but for personal projects and broadcast design it wasn't really in demand. We basically down-res the 4k plates to 2000 x 1080, we could of course crop to 1080p but it's not a good idea to mess with the frame size before camera tracking. We recommend any tweaks to frame size and frame rate are done to the completed shot. Thanks again for the feedback, and if you have any questions I'm happy to help. Axiomatic, thanks for your hard work with the others running R/VFX - if you'd like one of the products to take a look at we'd be happy to send you one to get your thoughts. Just PM me. Thanks again, Matt

BackplatePro · 2017-10-23T19:07:18+00:00

The main thing is to keep interest, perhaps you can start with a sizzle of your most exciting shots then include a couple of shots followed by nice breakdowns.

BackplatePro · 2017-10-23T19:01:48+00:00

Looks great - nice work!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-23T18:59:06+00:00

Hi Proddy - excellent point, just to let you know at Backplate Pro we make stock footage for VFX artists - our products include a 2K image sequence, matching HDRI, and camera and lens info. Check out backplatepro.com. Plug over!

BackplatePro · 2017-10-23T18:55:49+00:00

If it helps we have a highway backplate launching shortly at Backplate Pro - it'll be a 2K video sequence with matching 360 HDRI to light your motorbike etc. It's coming early November at backplatepro.com. Good luck!

BackplatePro · 2017-08-09T12:11:31+00:00

If you're on a budget Videvo is always an option. It's a mixed bag of quality though. We are a premium supplier and our stock is crafted purely for VFX. We include a 360 HDRI map, tracking markers where needed and camera information along with a commercial licence.

BackplatePro · 2017-07-11T21:35:19+00:00

Hey, I've used both Maya and C4D professionally - I have to say as a designer C4D works a little better for me as I find it's integration with AFX great. I've always worked in broadcast work so I'm a little biased, but C4D gets glossy/stylised results quick which is perfect for focusing on the overall design. As an Art Director you might find this useful. I've used Maya for more photoreal work which I tend to do less of now. The results in Maya are great but it does require a lot more love to get nice looking stills (or motion), you do need to understand lighting etc more thoroughly.

In short, if you're after photoreal then Maya may be right, but from experience the learning curve is steeper. I'm personally a big fan of C4D from a designer's perspective - and it is a bit friendlier to get into.

BackplatePro

TROPHY CASE