
 20-plus years writing, directing, shooting, editing corporate video, government video, commercials, PSA's, DVD's music videos, forensics and the occasional wedding.
I shoot news, documentaries, and many, many training pieces. I have some minor r... [ more] 20-plus years writing, directing, shooting, editing corporate video, government video, commercials, PSA's, DVD's music videos, forensics and the occasional wedding.
I shoot news, documentaries, and many, many training pieces. I have some minor regional awards. I also rent out the best teleprompter deal in central Illinois within about 100 miles of Springfield.
I work with Grass linear editing, Final Cut Pro, and Discreet Logic PC NLE editing and compositing with Combustion and Boris. I run beta and DVC-Pro cameras. I am learning Lightwave 3d animation and Discreet Combustion compositing.
I specialize in champagne looks on a beer budget, also writing great copy with an emphasis on smart humor.
My dream is to someday be known as the greatest second-unit director in the history of Hollywood;-) | | | | Member Since: December 22nd 2002 Location: Central Illinois | | | | |
Friends:  Abraham Chaffin  grinner hester  Ronald Lindeboom  Tim Wilson | | | | |  | Star Toursby Stephen Smith 4 days agoSince this is the Star Wars Pancakes forum I felt it was best to post this here: I just got back for Disneyland and loved the updated 3D Star Tours. If you haven't been it is a must. For those that do | | | | |
| | | |  | Mac users: just curious...by Alan Okey 1 week agoWhile I hope to take advantage of the recently announced Smoke 2013 lower price goodness in the near future, I do still use Combustion on occasion mostly due to my familiarity with it. Every time I op | Re: Mac users: just curious... by Mark Suszko 4 days ago I had it but stopped using it when I got Motion. This week had to replace the system drive and re-load everything from scratch, and I did not bother to re-load Combustion, as I hadn't touched it in li
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| | | |  | Building an in-house studio...by Mike Little 6 days agoHi! I have been doing some light video work for my company for a couple of years. I usually just go into someone's office and they talk about something important to our clients, I edit it a bit, then  | Re: Building an in-house studio... by Mark Suszko 4 days ago Don't paint the walls white. You want flat black or at least neutral gray. Black keeps down stray light reflection and lets you also shoot limbo shots. Gray is almost as good, also you can wash gray w
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| | | |  | Another switcher questionby Doug Collins 7 days agoI am going to be working on a contest next August and need a very simple switcher that can handle a camera and a computer (for power point graphics) to go out to a projector. Preferably something inex | | | | |
| | | |  | Dark Shadowsby Mark Suszko 2 months agoI didn't think this looked very good at all until I saw the trailer for it this week. The trailer, if true to the film, suggests a delightfully quirky and comedic romp, rather than an attempt to do st | | | | |
| | | |  | Profit Percentagesby Sam Lesante Jr. 1 week agoHi fellow cows, I posted this in the Indie Doc forum but maybe you guys can give me some insight too :) Is there a standard % that is suitable for the "talent" in your doc I am already giving 15% to t | Re: Profit Percentages by Mark Suszko 7 days ago Before you shoot another frame, get something down in writing and signed. For docs, some give their material interview for free, others get an "honorarium". Calling it an honorarium allows it to sound
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| | | |  | Motion problems/ kernal panicsby Mark Suszko 7 days agoApple Motion 4 is crashing from kernel panics every time I ask it to do anything like save, export, import. Re-loaded the OS. Re-loaded Motion 4 and ran the updates. Still happening. FCP7 and FCS 3 is | Re: Motion problems/ kernal panics by Jerry Hofmann 6 days ago Sounds to me like a clean install needs to be done. "Reloading" isn't clean don't think if I understand what you did... you need to erase your startup disk to perform a clean install or use a new or e
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| | | |  | Kernal panics in motion 4 - what do?by Mark Suszko 7 days agoApple Motion 4 is crashing from kernel panics every time I ask it to do anything like save, export, import. Re-loaded the OS. Re-loaded motion and ran the updates. Still happening. What do Engineer is | | | | |
| | | |  | Map Zoom Plug in or Resource?by Lucky Haskins 1 week agoI have to do a segment in a film I am doing where I start at a global view of a state (say California) and then have to do a quick zoom to a city, say Sausalito. Could be a Google type aerial map or a | Re: Map Zoom Plug in or Resource? by Mark Suszko 1 week ago You don't really need a plug-in, you just set 2 or more key frames to fly your 3-d camera down to the close-up. This works best if your initial image is as high-rez as you can get. If you have to jump
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| | | |  | audio copyrightby Kevin Gilfillan 1 week agoFirst post, and video editing is 1% of my job -- so please be gentle. :-) I used an audio clip I found in FCP X for a video I uploaded to YouTube. I got a notice of copyright infringement. The track i | Re: audio copyright by Mark Suszko 1 week ago It's been a while since I read Apple's shrink-wrap agreement, but my gut says those effects are free for us to use for broadcast. Lord knows, I've heard them on the air enough times. It's not at all u
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| | | |  | How would you handle this?by Alex Vachon 1 week agoHi all, I shot some testimonials using a white backdrop. In my wide angle shots, I can see a few shadows and ripples on the backdrop. How would you get rid of them Your help is appreciated. Here's a p | Re: How would you handle this? by Mark Suszko 1 week ago 8-point mask with the edges highly feathered, over a layer of white gradient, the gradient sampled from the original wide shot. You could also try playing with the blending modes. You could also hand-
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| | | |  | How to test SD Title Safe on an HD TV?by Scott Rinehart 2 weeks agoIs there any way to show someone definitively on an HD flatscreen T.V. that my graphics are going to get cut off (here in the office) BEFORE it goes to broadcast So, I've been going back and forth wit | | | | |
| | | |  | Tutorial: Save This Script By John Morley and Mark Suszkoby Mark Suszko 3 weeks ago Indie Film & Documentary Save This Script By John Morley and Mark Suszko Great videos start with a great script. Sometimes, the scripts are not so great. We're script doctors, come watch us operate. +3  | @Jeff Breuer by Mark Suszko 2 weeks ago Jeff, we're interested in any specific problems readers like you want addressed for the next installment. Just leave actual names out of it, but if you have faced a script problem, tell us about it an
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| | | |  | How to fill a forest with Fogby Ty Yachaina 2 weeks agoHello Everyone, Ok, for my next step in this film im making I need to have a "Foggy" forest. The foggier the better. We dont have a budget, so at our dispospal will pretty much be 3 basic fog machiene | Re: How to fill a forest with Fog by Mark Suszko 2 weeks ago It's not optimal, but yeah, I think that's what I'd do. Then I'd spend quite a bit of time in photoshop masking between trunks and branches and adding layers. Then throw the whole mess into a composit
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| | | |  | Lighting kit for Interviewby diyana tahir 2 weeks agoWhat are the recommended lighting kit to get this quality of video interview shooting http: www.youtube.com watch v=LjVBM5y2BzM Thank you www.diyanatahir.com | | | | |
| | | |  | Soon.by Mark Suszko 4 weeks agoI can't say more just yet. But it's not a joke. A gimmick, sure, maybe, but not a joke. | Re: "Soon" is Now. by Mark Suszko 2 weeks ago And here: http: magazine.creativecow.net article save-this-script-by-john-morley-and-mark-suszko I've used what I've learned from John's corporate scriptwriting book for years, so it is really a treat
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| | | |  | Reality TV Show Pilot - Artist Feeby Nicholas Cook 3 weeks agoI am an attorney who does not deal with a lot of television contracts for artists. I have a new client who has been approached by a production company to film a presentation for a reality tv show. I'm | Re: Reality TV Show Pilot - Artist Fee by Mark Suszko 3 weeks ago Probably the best advice to give him or her, in their best interest, is to decline the task and put him or her in contact with an entertainment lawyer; these things are too specialized for a general p
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| | | |  | LA County 571-Lby Laurent Phillipe 4 weeks agoHi Everyone, Has anyone encountered the 571-L unsecured business property tax in LA County, California It is the most asinine anti-business tax we've ever seen. You're required to itemize every single | | | | |
| | | |  | Zooming on multiple clips (FCP 7)by Jordan Morris 4 weeks agoHi all, Scouring the internet to no avail, but I'm looking for a way to use a keyframed zoom (scale in the motion tab) atop multiple clips. More specifically, I've got an animation built on the timeli | Re: Zooming on multiple clips (FCP 7) by Mark Suszko 3 weeks ago Copy-pasting the date from a master clip *should* work. You could try another workflow like having iphoto or Keynote, Apple's version of Powerpoint, do the slide moves and export them into an already-
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| | | |  | No Convergence of iOS & OS Xby Andrew Richards 4 weeks agoReading MacRumors reporting on today's Apple financial results conference call, this jumped out at me: Q: Can you talk about how you think about the markets for tablets and PC devices going forward Yo | Re: No Convergence of iOS & OS X by Mark Suszko 4 weeks ago I have to chuckle at Apple Prognosticators because they remind me of the "Kremlinologists" at State, NSA, CIA, etc. who's job was to use whatever ouija boards and other data sources they could find, t
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| | | |  | Talking heads with zillions of cutsby Anthony Atkielski 4 weeks agoWhy are there so many videos around these days that show a person talking to the camera with cuts every second or so I thought it was bad to cut to an identical shot. The cuts are often between senten | Re: Talking heads with zillions of cuts by Mark Suszko 4 weeks ago MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!MOM!... ...so you see, it IS pretty MOM! damn MOM!annoying..... and only to be used MOM! sparingly.
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| | | |  | Eggcratesby Harry Bromley-Davenport 4 weeks agoHi there - I own three 2k Ianiro Blondes with barn doors and I'm looking for a better way to control them, so I'm looking into Egg Crates Grids. B&H sell a 1" grid and a 2" grid (about $100 each) whic | | | | |
| | | |  | Creating Music video - Editingby Pavel Pavlov 4 weeks agoHi! I want to start editing music video. I have a media(a lot of clips video from 5D with singer in other make-ups and clips with dancer and master audio clip). Can you share with me your workflows, t | Re: Creating Music video - Editing by Mark Suszko 4 weeks ago You have framed the question in such a broad way, it is hard to give an all-encompassing answer. The edit will be driven in part by the style of video you want to make. Is it all performance Is it all
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