Choosing between them

Two ideas that sound alike should be told apart early. A shot requires one of them, and identifying which after the plate is shot costs a sequence. Each page of this section takes a pair that people routinely confuse, sets them next to each other, and identifies the one question that decides between them. That question has nothing to do with quality or taste. It concerns when the work happens, what it has to survive, and what it costs to change once it exists. Concept art and matte painting are told apart by the plate. Painting and geometry are told apart by whether the camera moves. Building and extending are told apart by what the actors touch. In each case the deciding factor is physical and can be resolved before anyone quotes a price, so the comparison belongs at the briefing, not at the first review. When the answer is genuinely both, the pages say so and explain what ordering both actually looks like. Two pages here make a different choice: who does the work, and in which province it is done. Hiring a matte painter is read off the reel, so that page lists what a reel can prove and what it cannot, and how a freelancer differs from a vendor once files and rights change hands. Placing work in Vancouver, Montreal or elsewhere in Canada is read off the tax-credit rules, so the second page sets out what each province actually checks, which is usually where the artists live and not the city printed on the vendor's letterhead.