Charge for source files after + 3d

[John Cuevas]

When I freelanced, since it was work for hire, I had no problem giving the client all the work that made up the project. They were paying for it, so project files, assets, renders, whatever, they can have it. 90% of the time they didn’t have either the plugins or expertise to update the work and would come back to me anyway.

Of course anything you have bought extra for a project, you probably legally can’t give them, so you should keep that in mine too.

[Eric Santiago]

Don’t give away 3D assets without them dealing with the purchase license.

This is the same as using music that you subscribe to.

Add up the costs of anything you purchased extra and send them the bill.

It goes the other way too. Don’t use assets clients paid for.

I’ve seen sh*t hit the fan with graphic designers and font use.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Adding to Eric’s excellent advice, do be extra careful that you do not find yourself in a situation where you are reselling footage / stock elements / templates that you do not have a licence to sell.
Many of the stock libraries allows you to include their goods in client projects, but not to sell them on where they can be “extracted” and used in other projects.

One comment though, as I am not sure as to why you can not work on other language/office versions?
Because reversioning for local markets is something that we as creatives has to seal with all the time. There are businesses out there that does nothing else, but generating content versions for local markets.
With that in mind, could you do the work by remote for the local office that has requested your source project files, or could you re-engineer the project in such a way (Collapse layers into .MOV files) so that only the elements that needs changing can be changed?

Just thinking out loud.

Atb
Mads

[La Pilli]

Thanks everybody for your reply.

Actually I’m not happy to give for free the project, beside the plugin, all the assets are all made by myself, even the 3d model, and most of the animation could be use in other project by them.

That’s the reason why I was asking about a reasonable compensation.

Anyway they should buy the plugin license by them self to work on the project.

But, replying to Mads, the client told me that I cannot work on foreign versions because are managed by another agency.

LP

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

I hear you.
It is quite normal for multinational companies to engage multiple agencies.

So when the message is: “I cannot work on foreign versions because are managed by another agency”, then what you can do, is to carry out work for the other agency.
As you have a complex project, with potential rights issues, and did such a great job that they want to use it globally. So why can’t you work for the other part of the network?

In any case, they’ll need to pay you a price for packaging up the project and transferring it. So there will need to be an exchange of money

If they your current client has always purchased the end-result, and not the project itslef, then this is for the “another agency” to negotiate with you.
And, you do not want “another agency” to strip out your working methods, and sell that service back to your current client…

It is likely that you are dealing with a long chain of decision makers where your client want to look good to their client above (who might still not be the end-client). As such, they will not be looking after you above that of their client, as you are at the bottom of the chain.
Stick to your guns, which is that you have always delivered the final video render, and not the project. But happy to work for a fee for anyone else in a parallel chain for the same end-client.

Just giving an opinion, only you will know what is best for your business.

Atb
Mads