In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
Studio set up for chroma key shooting. Using an open Tota light for the green screen, though I'd like it to be hanging from the ceiling rather than shining up from the floor.
I knew all along that DV/HDV were not going to produce incredible keying results, but I have been able to at least get a half-decent result so far. HDV has actually worked better than SD DV. Still tweaking the settings to deal with the common fringing issue. Unfortunately there's no getting around the fact if I get many keying jobs, I'm going to have to drop the $1.5k on After Effects and a nice keying plugin package. If this goes well enough, I will also be investing in a new camera, most likely a Panasonic P2 model. That's at least several months away (got to build up some capital first). My current cameras can hold their own, but they are more suited for news gathering rather than production work. Such is business - always something more to buy to keep things going.
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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