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Client conundrum
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I say train them. If they’re looking to have an “in house” guy, they
probably will do it if you help them or not. So pick a day you have nothing else going on and take their money. $1000 per day, $200 per follow up phone call or something like that. It’s easy money.The “i don’t want to train my replacement” thing is just fear of being replaced. Thats like working in a post house and not showing
any of the assistants anything because “they may take work away from you in the future”. Their is always someone who is better or will become better at what you(me, us, we) do. Why worry about it?Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC -
Look, over and over again, we get this same kind of story.
The reality is that it’s NEVER going to change. This is because just like US – people in corporations have to multi-task, orient and re-orient themselves to situations.
I’ve had many clients ask me when sitting in on edits, why I watched the same clip over and over and over again. I patiently explain that one time was for proofing audio, once for lighting, once for continuity or set appearance, once for performance, etc, etc, etc. They typically nod and shut up starting to understand some of the skeletal complexity of making a good video.
The point is that I don’t do all of these things at once when I view my work. I concentrate on individual elements of the stream as I deal with them.
It should be no surprise that in this economic climate, our clients are focusing on a particular area of THEIR jobs. Cost control. It’s likely the singular IMPORTANT element of their jobs that their bosses are yapping about every meeting.
Yes, that leads to temporary insanity like thinking the admin assistant can somehow magically also do videography or editing for the company meeting.
But we all know he or she can’t do it competently. It’s just too complex. And sooner or later they’ll realize this.
So we have to sit back, relax, survive, and if we’re smart, commisserate with those we’ve built relationships with to share in the pain of less work and understand that our clients are the poor souls who have to figure out how to cut 30% off the corporate expense sheet without making any change in the fundamental quality of the product BECAUSE their profits are down and they need to do this to survive. Just like US.
It WILL come around again. And when it does, the I personally want to be the guy they remember as friendly, honest, helpful, and willing to make sacrifices to help them survive.
Any thing else is long-term business suicide in my book.
For what it’s worth.
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[Mark Suszko] “a “Kobayashi Maru test””
Jeez, Mark. You think I’m not enough of a “basement of the Science Building, 5th period A-V geek” to not know that this was the impossible test presented to James T. Kirk in… oh crap… now I can’t remember which episode it was. (Or was it one of the earlier movies?) See Mark, we’re coming from the same place. 😉
[Mark Suszko] “because training in what we do itself is a highly specialized skill”
[Mark Suszko] “You wouldn’t send your traveling salesmen to pilot school and buy them each a Cessna; you use a professional travel agent and buy them cheap airline tickets. The salesmen are there to go and SELL.”
Brilliant! And excellent answers. Or as I have been known to say to clients, “Great! Give him a stethescope and see if he can handle your health plan, too.”
My whole goal in letting this guy try and fail was to keep him from forming a relationship with ANOTHER video company. Then again, it would have been fun to see the hour long show that the hotel’s guy produced from 5 hours of his own garbage.
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[Mike Cohen] “Easy answer – walk away”
Or, you could train them for weeks and show them the amount of detail required.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD . -
Bill Davis It should be no surprise that in this economic climate, our clients are focusing on a particular area of THEIR jobs. Cost control. It’s likely the singular IMPORTANT element of their jobs that their bosses are yapping about every meeting.
I don’t disagree with this, but if cost control is the case for huge corporations making these sorts of decisions, then the decision should be to NOT videotape the speaker at all.
We’ll likely try to accomodate them as I sort of agree with Nick Griffin’s take on the situation (especially since it was so similar).
But any reasonable “Joe Manager” that hasn’t figured out it’s a bigger waste of time, money and productivity to try to do something in-house without equipment, without proper software, and especially without people that have the know-how, should’t be managing people and departments.
I just find it bothersome that no-one on their end found their request to be just a tiny bit uncooth!
I’ve been at this for over 25 years now and the stuff that clients ask never ceases to amaze me. Reminds me of the ad agency that used to make us sign a “no-compete” with each and every one of their clients we shot video projects for…but thought nothing of agressively pursuing our direct clients whenever it suited them. Whenever we brought it up, it elicited lectures (yes lectures) from the owner of the ad agency. Needless to say, we don’t work with them any longer.
Thanks for the input everyone.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[Chris Blair] “But any reasonable “Joe Manager” that hasn’t figured out it’s a bigger waste of time, money and productivity to try to do something in-house without equipment, without proper software, and especially without people that have the know-how, should’t be managing people and departments.
I just find it bothersome that no-one on their end found their request to be just a tiny bit uncooth! “
Most of these corporate “tape the CEO” type situations are just ego-driven BS, and the middle-management types you’re dealing with know this. They’re just tending to the boss’s narcissism, and they’re just looking to get it over with so they can say “yes,” because they are typically “yes men and women,” and that’s what they do for a living.
It’s nothing personal, we’re just considered tools in their tool chest, and when any old tool will do, they’ll typically settle for the cheapest tool in the box. As Nick pointed out, when things go wrong, they sometimes learn that the cheapest tool isn’t always the most cost-efficient choice, but waiting around while they learn that lesson can require the patience of Jobe.
In the meantime, you need to let it go and go find yourself a replacement client.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I’ve never met an executive of any kind who actually felt like he was helping the greater good.
If you look back, you havn’t either. They are clock milkers who get high off of bluffing their way through a career.
Large companies feel the need to burn through that dolla. For that reason, they’ll always have execs to do that for em.
The big company in STL keeps about 8 edit suites rocking on any given day. Every now and then, they feel the need to pull those millions in house. When they do and see it costs infinatly more, they act as if lesson was learned, only to repeat the same mistake again 4 years later. Heck, I now consult em on their purchases and how to freelance the labor, popping in there to save the day myself every now and again.
Nobody acuses big business of using common sense.
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[Chris Blair] “But any reasonable “Joe Manager” that hasn’t figured out it’s a bigger waste of time, money and productivity to try to do something in-house without equipment, without proper software, and especially without people that have the know-how, should’t be managing people and departments.”
I continue to be AMAZED by the fact that sooooo many “managers,” owners and others in business simply can’t think this through until it smacks them in the face. And as ridiculous as it is for video, it’s even more nuts for web development.
I’ve literally heard, “Why can’t we have on-line ordering easily and cheaply. It’s no big deal. I use Amazon.com all the time.”
Because, genius, Amazon.com spent over a billion dollars and a few thousand man-years getting their system to run so smoothly that you think nothing of it.
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Good points Nick and Grin. And David…we’ve got a young go-getter who was actually excited about helping to train them…so we’ll probably shoot them a price and see what they say. Better to make something from them now while we can.
As many who have worked with large corporations can attest, it’s amazing that the economic implosion didn’t happen 5 or 10 years ago. We’ve worked with a handful of large companies over the years, and the insanity that goes on inside their world is mind-blowing. Two of those large and very well-established corporations have filed bankruptcy in the last year, which came as no surprise to us. One has moved on and will likely emerge a better, stronger company, and we continue to do work for them (and get paid). The other is in tatters and we had to sue to get paid (still in litigation).
The money they waste and the poor decision-making and planning that goes on makes me wonder how any large corporation in America survives (if they’re run like these companies are).
Anyway…thanks for the input. Lots of great advice as always.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
You are looking at it logically and that will never work with government. You have to look at big business as government and discard logic. In america, it takes money to make money and they are simply trained to flaunt what the equate as power.
If you ask yourself how many times you have taken a gig knowing you could do the whole video for what they are paying on set that one day, it’s not real had to see videos are usually the last thing a company is purchasing when paying for a video. This is a trend that will not only not soon be broken. I spoke with an executive producer just a week or so ago who is old school and still lives by the unwritten law that video costs 2k per finished second.
lol
well maybe it did 15 years ago when cameras required baby-fed light and each edit was discusses then rediscussed but to have that kind of money waister in a position of power just testifies that this is not an industry big business wants to learn.
Step back and you’ll see this is a good thing. Afterall, a small department with a youngan, an HDV camera and a FCP laptop in each of these entities could replace us all.
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