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Creative Cow Jobs – the do’s and don’t – some advice please
Hey all,
I’ve just recently discovered Creative Cow has this cool thing – jobs!
Now i have read through several of the job ads posted and thought – gosh i can do that – and that… and oh i can do that too.
Granted i haven’t look heavily at the High paying jobs listed – figuring i’d start small – take one step at a time.
And I’ve been wondering how to get off the ground with everything i’ve been learning – all these tutorials i’ve been completing and experimenting i’ve been doing creatively and to me this seems to be a great way to start
– i don’t know – maybe it is, maybe it isn’t…So i need some do’s and don’t on how to go about this – protecting my self and the customer from having a bad experience from those with experience dealing with the jobs posted here at Creative Cow / and online in general.
I want this to be fun – make some money and every one smiles in the end…
the biggest question i have is – How do you get paid? Or know you will be paid once the work is done?
any help or How to’s and Don’ts and advice for me and others that want to get started or our feet wet and participate in the jobs listed here at CC or online will be greatly appriciated.
Thanx
chase -
17 Replies
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Some general rules of thumb, in no particular order. Feel free to add to the list.
Do not promise things you can’t deliver. Be honest about what you are good at and what you are still learning. Don’t stop learning. Ever.
Production communities are remarkably close-knit communities; everybody knows everyboy else’s business, and your reputation means everything. If you shake hands on something, cut off the hand rather than go back on your word. This means eating a loss if your estimates were bad.
Pay your workers and suppliers before you pay yourself. In exchange, these people will often go to the mat for you when you need them most. If you get a reputation as a slow payer or unreliable payer, your support system dries up and you find you can’t get crtical stuff done.
Know what things cost before you make estimates or bids. Nothing worse than having to contradict yourself when telling a client what things cost. They will decide you don’t know anything or are a scammer.
Research the COW archives for how to establish your day rate and base your estimates on the day rate. Resist the urge to lowball your rates, even though you are less experienced. You just depress the business for everyone when you lowball, and you hurt your own rep if you start out working at a loss; it becomes really hard to raise the rates later. Also, if all you ever do is lowball stuff, you get pigeonholed for that and never even considered for bigger things.
When negotiating, if you hear these magic words: “Cut us a break on this first one, and we’ll give you all our lucrative future business”, you need to smile, get up from the table, and walk out of the room. Because they have just told you they are scammers, that they think you are a bumpkin, and these promises of future business are lies. I’ve never seen a situation where they weren’t. Might happen somewhere, but incredibly rare. If you still want/need the gig so bad, tell them the discount happens on the LAST gig, not the first.
When negotiating, the first guy to say an actual figure loses.
When negotiating, they have to believe that you are willing to walk away from a bad deal. If you can’t believe that about yourself, and make them believe it, you are not really negotiating, just waiting to surrender to whatever they will give you.
Be nice to everyone you deal with in this business, because this week’s PA is next week’s exec, and vice-a-versa. And it’s just easier to be nice than not.
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[Mark Suszko] “When negotiating, if you hear these magic words: “Cut us a break on this first one, and we’ll give you all our lucrative future business”, you need to smile, get up from the table, and walk out of the room. Because they have just told you they are scammers, that they think you are a bumpkin, and these promises of future business are lies. I’ve never seen a situation where they weren’t. Might happen somewhere, but incredibly rare. If you still want/need the gig so bad, tell them the discount happens on the LAST gig, not the first. “
My response is usually, “Let’s talk about a contract and deposit for that future work.” I like pulling down their pants before leaving the room. After the humanahumana I may finish with, “in business a “promise” is fulfilled with a contract.”
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More rules of thumb:
Get everything in writing before the job starts. Client expectations and needs have a habit of mutating over the length of a job. If you’re not careful, you get locked into a fixed price while the hours you spend on the job climb up and up until you’re losing money but can’t stop.
Have clear boundaries and mileposts for a project: you get paid in thirds, for example: One third up front deposit to start the work, onr third at the first rough cut stage, final third at completion. The deal is to deliver a rough cut, one revised cut based ont heir feedback to the rough cut, and then further changes are a new contract. Mistakes YOU make, like misspelled titles, YOU eat. Mistakes THEY make, like giving your the name spelled wrong, in writing, THEY eat. This must all be documented.
Changes after the fact beyond what was agreed require at least a change order on paper, admitting they know they are altering the deal and thus adding costs. You skip this documentation at your peril.
Things can go wrong in any situation, your fault or not. Make it clear in advance how a deal is cancelled by either party, who owns what and for how long. What is the policy for weather days, weather cancellations and re-scheduling, how close to the shoot they can cancel without paying a penalty, is there a rescheduling charge.
Establish if this is a work for hire BEFORE you start the job. Make them understand if this is not a work for hire, you own the footage rights, not them. Establish, if needed, their permission to use some of the work you did for your portfolio and demo reel purposes.
Establish what pa4ts of your IP you include in a paid job: do thyey have the rights to your project files and templates? Make this clear in advance if you don’t want to give away your tradecraft to someone who will take your templates and files elsewhere to make the next project cheaper.
You don’t release your footage until the bills are all paid in full – you must make this clear and never waiver from it. The master footage is your only leverage against those who would rip you off. If they need samples or approval copies to review, always mark the footage with a visible overlay of time code and/or a watermark, so it can’t be pirated. An honest client won;t complain about that. Explain the time code windo burn is there so they can be framepaccurate in telling you where to make their changes. When their check clears, the clean master copy is delivered.
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Great tips and advice – I’ll be honest, some things mentioned i wouldn’t have thought of, nor knew exactly how to protect myself or scale job pricing.
I’m not a production team at this point ready to do large scale productions. But i did feel – if i do this it may lead to eventually either growing on my own to a larger business – and/or – having a good client base to join another team. Adding to my port as you mention above.
Further more as mentioned – i’m small – just starting – looking to start with smaller jobs listed in the Low Pay Job listings here at CC. I want to get a feel for how things work – a system for getting payed – the work flow of creative works and working with clients even on a small scale. To me, with out a house to do all this for me adn just being handed the work, this seems a great way to not only start but to gain first hand a further insight and understanding of the business as a whole and how to go about doing business like this line.
Let me ask a couple direct questions.
Given that i’m going solo on this…
Are you suggesting 1/3 deposit even on a say a job listed here at CC that by example that say only offers $10 to $25 dollars for the project?
For online jobs here at CC – or i presume anywhere, but for now here at CC… and not to be totally nieve – but wanting to structure a small business venture like this correctly…
Would you suggest a pay-pal account for collecting payments such as deposits etc etc. or just use a personal account and perhaps have funds wired or electronically transfered or some similar means?
Or does a Pay-Pal account as a payment method suggest to the client or aquate to a client a sense of un-proffesionalism? if so or perhaps even if not, Is there a better suggested method payment for online work that is suggested and would suggest to a client that you are more professional or handle things professionaly…
I could be wrong about the Pay Pal thing but i usuially aquate it with ebay
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[chase canadé] ”
Are you suggesting 1/3 deposit even on a say a job listed here at CC that by example that say only offers $10 to $25 dollars for the project?”Jobs that pay $10-$25 for the WHOLE PROJECT? Are you serious? What sort of work? That doesn’t even meet my hourly rate…BEFORE I add in the cost for my equipment. And yes, you add in the cost of your equipment. Your rate is you+equipment…unless you are working on THEIR equipment. You paid money for this equipment, you get to bill for it. Otherwise they need to buy the equipment. They don’t get you for a set amount, and the equipment for free. That stuff costs money to buy and maintain.
Who the heck pays $25 PER JOB?
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
A: Craigslist pay crap wages like that. They prey on newbies.
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chase should figure out what a base survivable wage is. There’s absolutely no point to go below it unless one wants to spiral into bankruptcy or homelessness.
https://freelanceswitch.com/rates/ -
yeah i kinda thought the mentioning of the 10 to 25 dollar job offer would get a slight rise…
Actually it wasn’t on Craigslist – it was here on CC and in the CC newsleter a couple weeks back.
though i agree about Craigslist – so many scams claiming jobs it’s unbelievable – i refuse to answer anymore on Craigslist…Here is the link to the job offer: CC Job Offer 864451′>CC Job Offer 864451
and seeing it again it was actually an offer of $5 to 25 dollars not 10…
Keep in mind as stated – I’m just starting out. I’m just trying to get started… I learned everything i know from CC and VCP and CGArena and dozens of other sites and my own experimenting with apps. I don’t have a piece of paper from college – though that doesn’t hinder my thinking of my abilities…
– it seems to hinder houses doing the hiring. So I thought hey 15 to 25 bucks to do this i should be able to knock this out pretty easily – though this is my thought sight unseen of the job and it would add to a port and a bunch of these could lead to bigger things.But… i thought well before you do anything – ask the Pro’s at CC the do’s and don’t. I’ve been screwed before – actually a couple times well, okay, i’ll admit it, it’s been a few times doing all the work and not getting paid or handed a token and a thanx for all the help or work i did with me standing there going but… but… you said… and leaving empty handed.
Anyhow – the job offers for me to start out looked promising here at CC and some people have posted more than once in the job offer area for work to be done. Which may be a good sign that e=they actually pay for the work once completed.
And there are other offers like the one mentioned – one for Audio work i know i can do. Though i really don’t know how to protect a 30/40 second audio piece – they are going to want to hear a final take and to hear it – you have to give it to them…
VFX – i would love to do and hope to graduate to VFX after proving myself on some smaller stuff – even if it is just converting a file format. or Re-doing some audio etc etc. Little stuff can add up to a nice port – at least i’m thinking so…
If i’m going about this wrong chime in…
It was mentioned about getting things in writting – I’ve learned a hand shake isn’t worth squat anymore the hard way… so…
Are there standard or genaric forms for diescribing the job or work to be done – the revision or first approval mayge?(sorry I forgot what he called it in the above post) and then once the revisions are made the final exceptance – are their generic forms for this and are they different for graphics work or video or audio or all the same forms can be used for all?
I’m familiar with model releases etc etc – so I’m thinking there must be a generic form out there for the afore mentioned.
I don’t mean to sound completely nieve or like an idiot here but each industry is different
– I’d rather start out doing things right from the start is why i’m asking so many questions. Some may seem moronic but… it’s good to get views and opinions from those that have been doing it for a while and learned from their mistakes. Even on some of the things some people would over look…You all know – you’ve been there done that – You’ve graduated beyond you’re up and running – i don’t know and i’m sitting on the bench – and i don’t want my knowledge to go stale
– so all i can do is ask – so thanx for the advice, I mean that.chase
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Here is the corrected url on that CC Job offer link i posted above
https://jobs.creativecow.net/job/864451
I’m sure it’s gone by now but – it was one of the jobs i was seeing that promted me to post this thread and ask your advice on how the do’s and don’ts.
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[chase canadé] “and seeing it again it was actually an offer of $5 to 25 dollars not 10…
Keep in mind as stated – I’m just starting out. I’m just trying to get started… “
Why sink the ship before it leaves the dock?
If you’re starting out you want a client that will help with word of mouth. Mouths that pronounce you work for $25 is not one worth opening. Once you hang a low price albatross around your neck you’ll get plenty of job referrals that will sink you so deep in red ink, you’ll need an expensive marketing campaign you can’t afford to attract clients who can pay a living wage.The rate calculator will give you a base rate you MUST charge if you don’t want to be homeless. As time goes on and you can experience and skills you can raise that rate.
If you can’t make enough to buy the cardboard box, Ramen noodles and the electric bill to charge the batteries and the computer, then you’ve missed the starting gun.
If someone offered to do work at $25 I wouldn’t trust them because they clearly have no confidence in their ability to make good on the job.
You can start out by donating a few hours to create your killer video for a non profit. If you get word of mouth, it may be to their donors who have serious cash and appreciate you serviced a cause they also believe in.
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