How venues and vendors can make or break your production.
You cultivate relationships with talented, reliable people who add value to your team—but have you thought about the role that venues and vendors play? Relationships that are peripheral to your production also influence productivity, creativity and the overall culture onset.
Ask yourself 3 Quick Questions to see if a potential venue or vendor is worth working with:
Do they really understand your project?
Unless you’ve walked a mile in a producer’s shoes, it’s hard to appreciate the everyday challenges of running a production. For example, if you’re talking to a soundstage manager who doesn’t have a clue about budget line items (or the importance of giving VIP clients more than folding chairs in front of a folding table...)—it’s wise to see if you can do better.
Do they really care about your project?
You care deeply about the quality and success of your production, and it IS possible to find supportive, sincere helpers. We keep a running list of committed gaffers, grips, technicians, artists and others—but it’s not just about who’s local and competent. We prioritize by working with people we can count on to be reliable, resourceful and just plain cool to work with.
Are they “culture killers?”
Good attitudes and bad ones have one thing in common: they’re both contagious. When something unforeseen happens during production—and it always does—positive people pitch in and make it right. Others follow suit. You can’t control everything, but the simplest way you can elevate your production across the board is by protecting the vibe onset.
The Takeaway
Create an environment where excellence and cooperation can thrive. The mood matters! (Mood spells doom backwards when we don't get it right.) Toss out any bad apples before they spoil your production, and cultivate relationships with service providers and suppliers who care.
7 Ways to Bring Your Film / TV Project in Under Budget
If you’re a producer, then you know how challenging it is to create excellent work without going over budget. Before you compromise on a creative concept in order to control costs, it pays to investigate some out-of-the-box strategies for elevating your project without breaking the bank.
Read on to learn our Top 7 Cost-Containment Strategies for bringing your production project in under budget.
1. Prioritize Previz
“Happy accidents” have their place in every production, but paying extraordinary attention to planning will always save you money in the end. The previsualization process includes photography, storyboards, animatics and shot lists. The more complex the execution, the more powerful the solution you’ll need. Fortunately, there are user-friendly tools and methodologies for making the Previz process as painless as possible—and some of them even have short learning curves. When your plan has a lot of moving parts, you might want to use a strip board—a low-tech, and rock-solid method that’s stood the test of time. If the project requires camera complexity, consider getting good at a program like SketchUp or working with someone who is.
2. Hold Out for Helpful People
Our Industry is the same as any other—some people are in it to serve you, some are in it to gouge you. In production, everyone is under pressure, and if a venue or vendor makes an already-stressful process feel unnecessarily adversarial, go with your gut. If your initial conversations feel more hostile than helpful, it’s not going to get better when you’re locked into a contract. Work with cooperative, sincere people who value long-term relationships, and when problems arise, they won’t let you down.
3. Use Stations on Stage to Save Crew Time
Crew hours are expensive. To maximize efficiency and come in under budget, don’t work sequentially—work simultaneously. We advise setting up multiple stations so lighting/rigging crews, grips, electricians, set carpenters, prop people and your art department can stay busy (instead of taking turns). If you’re locked into one set-up, you can’t chip away at your close-ups, which might require rigging or high speed lighting. Instead, consider building a few smaller ”setlets”, each considering the unique needs of the shots. This way, your crew can be working while you’re shooting the “main set”. You may have to invest extra in props, product or lighting, but by setting up stations, you can significantly save in crew costs.
4. Don’t Skip the Morning Kickoff
We can see why meetings get a bad rap. Everyone hates sitting through a meeting when an email would suffice. That said, holding a daily morning kickoff meeting is a key time (and money saver) on any shoot. On the surface, it gives you a chance to go over the day’s work, and to align everyone with your Vision. But there’s more to it than that. Morning Kickoff helps every department to understand their impact on each other’s work. In an interdependent workplace like a production set, this is a major opportunity that empowers everyone to fine-tune workflows, update plans based on current conditions, and maximize the efficient use of time and resources—all of which will impact your bottom line.
5. Consider Owning Production Tools
Here’s an easy trick for cutting production costs. First, review a year’s body of work, and look at your equipment rental costs. Then, if you keep renting the same things over and over, see if it makes sense to buy them. Some production tools require heavy maintenance, and some technologies evolve so quickly that investing in them doesn’t pay off. But, if you’re seeing cheap, durable tools you can buy and keep, you can save significant money on rental cost—plus the time and cost of equipment sourcing, tracking and transport.
6. Find a Turnkey Studio
In a similar vein to owning your own tools, you can also save a lot by sourcing a soundstage that can provide a chunk of your production needs. Sourcing and transporting every last table, chair and cooler a la carte is more than tedious—it’s labor intensive, time consuming and expensive, too. Economies of scale can save you a lot, when you work with a studio that can package a substantial amount of their onsite resources into your deal. And, we’ve never seen a single production that hasn’t needed some random thing at the last minute. A turnkey soundstage is likely to have what we call “emergency expendables” like tape or plexiglass—things that can hold up your production when you’re working in an empty warehouse environment.
7. Shoot on the Outskirts
If you are smart enough to consider shooting in Romania (off-shore), why not 20 minutes out of any city? It’s a smart move to consider other nearby options where overhead costs are lower. Consider the total cost savings when you take into account parking, catering and everything else that’s cheaper on the outskirts.
Cobalt Expands!!!
We now have an ADDITIONAL FACILITY!
We’ve expanded to serve you better.
You asked, we delivered! We’re pleased to announce the launch of “THE HOBOKEN HOUSE”, our new annex at “Hollywood on the Hudson!” Cobalt’s newest property is a mere three blocks from our soundstage, making it the perfect place to park your productions! Set up shop (or shoot if you wish) in this private oasis while leveraging our nearby soundstage—a controlled environment for using our Virtual Set, Motion Control, and other onsite production tools—the absolute best of both worlds!
Make yourself at home.
“Hobo House” (as we like to call it) is a chic, sun-drenched 2000 square foot Carriage House with 3 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms—perfect for makeup, wardrobe, etc. Make our secure breezeway your own private shipping & receiving area; set up a food tent or talent holding in our private patio/garden; and shoot in our modern, Euro-style chef’s kitchen. The possibilities are endless.
Location is everything.
A brilliant location in its own right, Hoboken House is also conveniently close to a wealth of offsite location options! When you “set up your entity” here in New Jersey, you can shoot on location anywhere and still take advantage of the New Jersey Film and TV Tax Credit. Located 15 minutes from Midtown and a short drive to the Jersey Shore and the Catskills, you’re sure to find the right setting for every storyline nearby.
At Cobalt, we strive to do more.
In a world of warehouse-type spaces, we add in a layer of hospitality for the ultimate client experience—comfortable, convenient, and conducive to the creative endeavor. Episodics like Alex Gibney’s Showtime docu-series “Enemies” have made their “homes” at Cobalt, and with the launch of our Hoboken House property, we’re now better equipped to host longer-term productions. Kick back, relax… Yes, make yourselves truly at home… Cobalt’s NEW facility is here. Hoboken House welcomes you.
Schedule a tour today and check out our ever-expanding roster of capabilities, amenities, and facilities.
Unleash your imagination...
And save time, money and the planet by doing it!
Virtual Set is trending and it’s no surprise.
Virtual Set is an invaluable production tool offering camera tracking, keying and live compositing of computer-generated environments with live action green screen contents for a fraction of the time, cost, and environmental impact of “practical” sets. We put together this quick guide to help inspire and educate everyone who might be interested in exploring this useful and simple-to-use technology. So without further ado...
Phase 1: Unleash your imagination.
Practical set building usually limits creativity because your budget and real-life parameters dictate what can and can’t be done. On the contrary, with Virtual Sets you can shoot a scene in any environment you can imagine. Recently, a client came to us with a challenge… They needed to shoot an actor in a massive, spotlessly-clean warehouse, and as we all know, “pristine warehouse” is an oxymoron! Very few productions have the budget to build such an impractical set. With Cobalt’s Virtual Backlot, the challenge was easily met. This impractical, nonexistent space could be created virtually—for less money than feeding your crew bagels on location. Even better, instead of lighting an entire 300-foot deep, 100-foot tall warehouse, they only had to light the live action talent—a major time saver. With Virtual Sets, you’re finally free to create without limits. If you can dream it, you can have it.
Phase 2: Design your environment.
Now that Virtual Set technology is ubiquitous in Hollywood and popular worldwide, there’s no shortage of great 3D artists who can create or customize environments for any concept you can dream. Unbound by traditional budgetary or logistical concerns, we will point you towards a range of trusted CGI providers who can create beautiful and efficient 3D solutions for you.
Phase 3: Combine your “practical” set elements into your CG.
Say you plan to shoot in a virtual log cabin where people are sitting around a table. While the whole “world” of your production can be CG, you’ll want the table and chairs to be “practical” set pieces, so your cast is sitting on real chairs—at a real table. It’s always a good idea, whenever possible, to have your talent connect with live props. Also, grounding your actors to a practical floor saves time with matte cleanups and shadow restoration. Now, you’re ready to roll!
Phase 4: Shoot in your Virtual Set.
Like a practical set, you and your cast can walk through your 3D world and see your composite IN REAL TIME. With real-time compositing, actors, directors, and DPs experience the seamless merge of both worlds. This is such an extraordinary time-saver! It’s also one of many ways that Virtual Sets can make your life easier and more productive. Instead of struggling to try to fit your story into a budget challenged 2-wall set, why not have an entire villa/ castle/ Mars/ or the Moon??… to tell your story?
Phase 5: Post-Production Work
When you use our Virtual Backlot, we supply three deliverables in addition to camera footage: 1. camera move metadata 2. a rough composite to edit offline 3. a matte to combine with your source footage. The move metadata is used to marry your source footage with the CG environment, and the matte we supply facilitates the composite. With the rough composite, you can edit offline, and then, proceed to color correction for matching your hi-res CG renders to your green screen elements. Lastly, take your footage online for final compositing and finishing! That’s a total of two extra digital steps to substantially save you on the time, money, and environmental impact of traditional set building!
Set yourself free!!
Let’s talk about elevating your next project with Cobalt's Virtual Backlot.
From Tax Credits to Virtual Set…
We can save your production serious money!
Your Plug & Play Production Solution
Since 1995, we’ve been perfecting Cobalt Stages. This is how we've become greater NYC’s all-inclusive production paradise. It doesn't happen overnight! With 23 years to work out all the kinks, we’re extremely well-equipped to serve the diverse needs of the production community. Because a key part of our mission is to save you money, our comprehensive package comes with a generous inventory of extras—just take a look at our 8 page list. While most soundstages come with a bare stage and nothing else, we go waaaaay beyond lighting, grip and distro. From our woodworking shop to our well-appointed client suite, we include more so your budget goes farther!
The NJ Film and TV Tax Credit
Save up to $10 million a year per production! New Jersey’s newly-reinstated tax incentives include 30 percent of qualifying ABOVE AND BELOW the line production expenses for productions who park themselves here. While this is a massive deal in its own right, experts say New Jersey’s incentives can save you even more than New York’s (which pertains to only below the line expenses). The program includes credits of $75 million per fiscal year for TV and film projects. So, now is a great time to lock it in. To learn more about the incentives, check out these FAQs or read the legislation in its entirety here.
Virtual Sets: Cost Savings & Creative Freedom
Virtual sets are a brilliant solution for cost-conscious productions.
Example 1:
Say you’re doing a vignette project, and you need to hit 5 locations in one day (outrageous…). Making 4 company moves in a day means spending more than half your time traveling instead of shooting. OR… Stay in one spot at Cobalt and bring the locations to you. AND you’re not chasing the sun.
Example 2:
Remember the Netflix show "Sense8” ???
As an attempt to salvage a very expensive episodic, we were approached by the producers… They completely saw the wisdom of using Cobalt’s Virtual Set capabilities to solve a location & travel budget that was way out of hand. Their idea was to shoot the show at Cobalt using our Virtual Set technology instead of continuing to fly the cast and crew around the world. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled before we could help.
Our Virtual Backlot means no travel costs, no location fees, no set construction costs or waste—just unrestricted camera movement, amazing production value and complete creative freedom.
To learn more about Virtual Sets and our Virtual Backlot, read our blog posts here and here.
From episodics to still photography...
We’re equipped to host every kind of production.
We power diverse productions.
Our turnkey facilities are the right size to host TV, film, and advertising productions. We welcome smaller projects, too! A studio’s versatility comes down to one simple thing: the ability to deliver POWER. While smaller studios that cater to web, stills, and social media may literally offer a mere HANDFUL of 20 amp OUTLETS, we offer 1500 amps of dedicated power on our main stage. We’re uniquely-equipped to host episodics and feature films, as evidenced by our recent clients.
What production genres does Cobalt serve?
We’re always thrilled to support features like our recent involvement in the remake of “Nosferatu”! It was very exciting to work with legendary VFX supervisor, John Bruno, and actor Doug Jones (“The Shape of Water”). We also welcome the entire spectrum of production genres including web, still photography, and social media, alike.
Episodics, Tax Breaks & Big News
We love episodics! We’ve been fortunate enough to host some great ones like CBS’s “Young Sheldon” and Apple’s “Dickinson” (a new comedic coming-of-age story starring Hailee Steinfeld as the poet, Emily Dickinson). We also recently hosted a project with producer/director, Alex Gibney, of Jigsaw Productions—the Showtime docu-series “Enemies: The President, Justice & The FBI”. We’re also expanding our ability to host episodics and helping productions take advantage of New Jersey’s Film & TV Tax Credit.
Music Videos & MoCo
We had the pleasure of producing the ‘blur’ motion control effect for the Ariana Grande video, “Breathe”. In the video, Ariana is singing in a train station amidst a blurry flurry of activity created by our Gazelle MoCo crane, which enabled the director to illustrate the passage of time via blur motion figures. This is an effect similar to the one we executed for Eminem’s video “Walk On Water” with Beyonce.
Commercial Capabilities & Client Comfort
Producers love bringing commercial clients to Cobalt with client areas that are spacious, comfortable, and well-appointed. We’ve hosted numerous commercial shoots for household names such as Walmart, Amazon, Squarespace, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, Contigo, Taco Bell, LG, Verizon, Weight Watchers, Bank of America, United Health Care, 3M, Kay Jewelers, Blistex, Cacique, Budweiser, and the Metropolitan Opera.
The list goes on...
Celebrity Promos & Unmatched Hospitality
Our clients trust us to deliver next-level hospitality for their celebrity talent who seems to “love our boutique hotel-inspired client suite”! It’s well-appointed and inviting for stars who travel with an entourage or for those that simply enjoy privacy. Our craft service food bar even serves 40+ people! From fashion designer, Tory Burch, to celebrity chef, Aaron Sanchez, we’ve hosted luminaries from every imaginable genre. We’ve also had the honor of opening our studio to icons like Whoopi Goldberg (for the Academy Awards), Tim Gunn (host of Project Runway), and legendary filmmaker Ken Burns! Take advantage of our versatile, turnkey soundstage and elevate your next project with us
We over-prepare so you don’t have to.
Explore our complimentary tools, amenities & extras.
With our vast equipment inventory and comprehensive capabilities, we’ve been compared to a Swiss Army Knife—and yes, we do have a corkscrew. From our onsite scissor lift to our well-stocked woodshop, our space is equipped with thoughtful amenities that we offer our clients, gratis, for productivity and convenience.
All-in-one efficiency.
Cobalt’s turnkey soundstage includes a level of access and support that’s rare in the Industry. All our tools and amenities are hand-selected by seasoned professionals who understand precisely what’s needed to deliver the optimal turnkey client experience.
Comprehensive and cutting edge.
We’re early adapters - always investing in cutting-edge production tools. In particular, our motion control tools and Virtual Backlot are the most diverse and extensive on the East Coast. Schedule a tour today to explore the creative possibilities.
New Jersey’s Film & TV Tax Incentives ARE BACK.
And shooting at Cobalt is better than ever!
NJ’s Film and TV Tax Credit is back!
After a three year hiatus, New Jersey’s film and television production tax credit is now in effect for the fiscal year of 2019. According to New Jersey’s Motion Picture and Television Commission Associate Director, David W. Schoner, the program includes credits of $75 million per fiscal year for film and television projects. Get a load of that, NY ;-)
Better than NewYork’s tax incentives!!
Analysts tell us that New Jersey’s Film & TV Tax Credit is even stronger than New York’s incentives because it applies to a broader array of expenses. The NJ incentives include 30 percent of ABOVE AND BELOW the line on qualified production expenses for productions in New Jersey; whereas, New York’s tax credit pertains to only below the line expenses... It’s a great time to have us host your production here at Cobalt - Hollywood on the Hudson!
Want to save even more?
Working at Cobalt means never having to create your workspace from scratch! As a true Turnkey Soundstage, we offer cutting-edge production tools, onsite, like our cost-saving Virtual Backlot and motion control capabilities —the most comprehensive on the East Coast. Last but not least, we add even more value with our fully-furnished home ec kitchen, craft service kitchen, client suite, production office, conference room, and hair/ makeup/ wardrobe areas.
Schedule your tour today and we’ll show you what else we have to offer!
Get the NJ Film and TV Tax Credit to save up to $10 million a year! WOW!
For more information on the incentives, check out these FAQs.
To read the legislation in its entirety, click here.
To apply for the tax credit, visit njeda.com.
Benefit from backgrounds You didn’t think you could afford...
Now available at Cobalt Stages
Masterful solutions to real-world challenges.
For the better part of a decade, Hollywood filmmakers have used Virtual Sets to place stories in any setting they can imagine, for a fraction of the cost, time and ecological impact of shooting on location or set-building. Our Academy Award-winning technology has supported Virtual Set productions such as “American Gods”, PBS’s “Cosmos” with Neil deGrasse Tyson to Disney’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”. (The list just keeps on growing...) Whenever you want to set a scene somewhere that’s inaccessible or cost prohibitive, Virtual Sets are a practical and economical solution.
Using Virtual Set on a TV commercial.
Here’s a story that illustrates the usefulness of Virtual Set technology. A creative agency we work with had a client with a tight schedule and location needs that were well beyond that particular budget. The client, Cacique, needed to shoot two spots, in two days, in three different kitchens. Typically, a well-appointed, full-featured kitchen set runs about $22,000 to $25,000. They looked at location options, but the three kitchens were very specific and they couldn’t make it work. Plus, they needed a home ec kitchen to prepare all the on-set foods. Virtual Set at Cobalt Stages was the only way to make it happen. So, the agency engaged one of our post house partners to build the three virtual sets from existing, royalty-free assets. The client was able to secure the low res FBX files and the high res renders needed for less than the cost of ONE practical set. Performers were shot on green screen with nothing more than a propped foreground counter. Our Epic Dragon was on a jib-arm, completely free to move around, while clients and agency watched a FULL composite of the on-camera performance within the Virtual Set LIVE...IN REAL TIME.
Experience the benefits of Virtual Sets.
Get on board with this progressive technology now to save money, shoot sustainably, and make your productions look bigger and better. Our Virtual Backlot means no travel costs, no location fees, no set construction costs or waste—just unrestricted camera movement, amazing production value and complete creative freedom. To learn more about Virtual Sets and our Virtual Backlot, read our blog posts here and here.
The ultimate life-hack for producers: Rent the soundstage that gives you more.
Created by producers, for producers.
Producers, production managers and production coordinators love working here because we understand their challenges far better than your average soundstage rental company. Our many decades of combined Industry experience gave us the insight we needed to create the most comfortable, convenient and complete production experience possible. Cobalt has everything you need to support your clients across all of their creative endeavors.
Hospitality on a higher level.
Established 25 years ago, we’re the opposite of a bare-bones warehouse space where every last thing needs to be brought in from somewhere else. You don’t often hear the words “hospitality” and “soundstage” used together, but we’ve changed that! We’re generous with our support and supplies because we know how little things can add up to costly delays. In addition to our fully-furnished client suite and generous free amenities, we also stock a vast inventory of emergency expendables to minimize downtime.
Last minute? No worries.
Every production has a few last-minute needs. On a recent shoot, for example, our client was in need of repositionable glue sticks and a coffee table. In a blank-slate warehouse, dealing with this type of minutia might be a headache, but having been here for over 20 years, we were able to easily grab the required items on-site with no impact to our client’s busy schedule. Done!