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client is a pain
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[johnsabbath d'urzo] ” If I tell her that I can do it on my own time with a cheaper rate, what if she walks. Do I let her walk?”
Sure, let her walk. Your priorities now are family and school.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[johnsabbath d'urzo] “should i do a flat or an hourly?”
Hourly!
You’re not a mindreader, and guessing has allowed them to reach deep into your pockets before.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Tom, I want to curse you for that clients from hell website link, it sucked three hours of my life away because I couldn’t stop reading the horror stories, each one was like a potato chip, and I couldn’t stop at just one page worth.
As far as the flat vs. hourly, I say try to NEVER do a flat rate, most especially for difficult clients or projects with a lot of unknown quantities. You can make a best guess as to total hours and give an estimate, with the proviso that this amount could go higher, depending on the additional hours put in. But a flat rate locks you in to commitments before you know the real situation, and makes it hard to ask for more later. Moreover, clients tend to think that one flat rate will cover any kind of work, even if the parameters of the job change. An hourly rate is more honest and fair all around.
You’re transitioning to school and other commitments. At some point you’re going to have to turn down some work. You do this on your own terms, but if this is a client you want to come back to some day, then you must follow up a commitment once you have made it. Another way you could have gone with this would be to giver the client a referral to someone else who you think would do a decent job. This is not always cutting your own throat: there are times when people who are normally competitors for work will throw the excess jobs to each other when they themselves can’t cover everything. Sometimes the person you gave the referral to will thank you with a little commission or backsheesh, sometimes not. Personal codes vary on this issue. It is important though that anybody you refer the client to will do at least as good a job as you, otherwise, it hurts YOUR reputation more than theirs.
You could also sub-contract the work to this other person and just not tell the client, that happens all the time. It carries a few hazards as well.
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what would be a good hourly to charge for this type of work …web videos??? editor with gear? i live in canada. thanks for all your help.
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if she walks into my studio for a meeting as she says, what if she wants to start to edit. do i edit or assess the situation, make a contract, get approval from her boss then start to edit?
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Johnsabbath, I don’t know you. But it seems like you want to be this woman’s submissive doormat or something. You will or won’t work on this. You will do it when it is appropriate for you. If she can’t handle that, then drop the job, it isn’t worth the hassles.
Further, in the case of this woman, I think I would want to bill each of the 8 jobs separately. Don’t go on to the next until she pays for the last.
Rates, you figure out by counting up your expenses and costs, figuring an acceptable profit margin beyond those, and converting that to an hourly figure. You want to charge more of a profit margin than you’d get making poutine at Tim Horton’s, right? Otherwise you could just put on an apron instead and have a less complicated life.
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[johnsabbath d'urzo] “In my experience customers want it on there time. If I tell her that I can do it on my own time with a cheaper rate, what if she walks. Do I let her walk?”
<JOKE>
No, do not let her walk at any and all cost. Instead, throw yourself at her feet. Grovel. Beg her for the chance to be her whippin’ boy — and let her know that she can fund her company’s operations on your wallet while she is pushing you around. Beg her for her repeat business, again and again. Do not let your pride or self-respect stand in the way. Snivel.
Oh, and do it all while playing that old song “Baby come back! You can blame it all on me, I was wrong and I just can’t live without you!” (She’ll love that!)
</JOKE>
No, let her walk. She’s proven what cloth she’s cut from and there is little to nothing you can do to change that dyed-in-the-wool human nature.
Put your family and yourself first.
Ron Lindeboom
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yes, just wondering if there is a standard hourly rate for web videos. I have to find out what the footage formate is. I don’t have any HD decks or cameras. I can always ask to borrow the camera that the guy used to shoot (i think this might not look good on me) with or rent a deck or something like that. What are the various formats to host these clips on line and to various social markets? does anyone now. I know about QT,FLV,AVI,Mpeg4 are there any other, plus any PC formats that I should be aware of?
If I would charge an hourly how do you determine how much for her to give me for a down payment to start the job if I were to take it.
I will let you know how it goes I will call her tomorrow. Any suggestions on my approach?
Sorry for all the questions, this site has been a big help to me.
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We’re trying to tell you, there is no set rate, every job is a custom job. The rate is what you NEED it to be, or you don’t DO it. That’s just business. If they can’t afford you, you must let them go; it loses you money to lowball your rate and do it for less than cost.
As to what format they need, yes, you have to ask THEM what they want, then be able to deliver that. Get the “deliverables” as they are called, spelled out in writing, with due dates and any benchmark dates along the way. At least in email memo form.
As far as the decks, it is not a sin to admit you don’t keep one of every kind of recording format around your shop. Then you’ll need to make some sort of arrangement to transfer that footage. If you have to rent a deck, you’re going to be passing the cost of that rental, plus a mark-up, on to this woman as part of your rate. You can thus tell her that it would keep your rate lower, if her cameraman would let you use the camera as a playback deck. If that’s not going to pan out, (likely) you had better already know of some other source to borrow or rent a deck from. Or cut a deal with that cameraman for the loading time, and bill your client as part of your rate.
As far as down payment, a customary method used by many video production folks is to get paid in thirds: one third up-front to begin the work and take it to a nearly-completed stage, where it is reviewed and either approved or some changes or corrections asked for. How many times they can ask for changes is something you must work out in advance, I would go with two rounds of change & review only, after which, you must charge more.
The next third is due when those changes are done, and the final third is paid on delivery of the finished work. Payment in thirds, you can tell the client, protects you both, in that, should a job be stopped at any stage, they are only out the money for the work actually completed to that stopping point. And you friend, will be getting paid for the work you already did accomplish.
If the client won’t put *some* money down up front, insisting on a lump sum at the end, you DO NOT hand over ANY finished product until you have cashed the check. DO NOT. Make sure any samples they want to see have a logo or time code window superimposed across them, so you can see the work was done, but you can’t steal it and put it up like that. Because unscrupulous people have done that, and will again. And not paid. The logo or window burn comes off when the check clears your bank.
The payment in thirds assumes you know roughly what all three thirds add up to. That’s why you don’t just pick a number out of the air for your rate, or copy what somebody else charges, out of context. You don’t know what the other guy’s costs and expenses are. Not for sure. So just picking a number out of a toque is gambling that you will be asking for a price that’s too low or too high. Too low, and you’ve lost money. Too high, and you price yourself out of a job.
Go over all your expenses; including the pro-rated costs of your hardware and software, your utilities and rent, insurance and health care, even gas for driving to and from the gigs, system maintenance and a percentage to save away for updates and upgrades. AND then your actual profit on the job, the amount you clear after expenses and taxes that you can go spend on whatever you want. Add all that up. You get a number that’s your monthly “nut” you have to make, just to keep the lights on and the landlord from locking you out.
How much is your time worth? Well, you can approach it from what you need to make in a year or want to make in a year. Start with 365 days. Now take out weekends, holidays and any vacations you may want to take, and a handful of sick days, you get the actual number of work days you are available per year. Put that against the annual salary you expect, divide, you get the “nut” for what you have to pull in daily and weekly. You have to charge more than that, or you are out of business. Next, look at the job the client wants you to do and make your best educated guess, based on previous work for them, of the hours this will take to do for one of the eight pieces. Multiply the hours predicted by your rate, now you have an idea of the flat-rate cost of the job at a MINIMUM. Figure some additional percentage as a”fudge factor” for unexpected things cropping up. Maybe five percent.
These numbers are different for everybody. Sharpen a pencil and get to work, so you have this figure on a piece of paper in front of you to remind you what your “floor” is, during the negotiations.
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I will put my numbers together, all my gear is paid off, I work from my house. So I guess the overhead would be very low. I see people charging 50 per hour with gear. I used to have a bigger studio with rent and I was doing 175 per hour. Well I would have to revisit everything. But I have to talk to her in the morning. I think I’m going to ask what her specks are then ask what is her budget. If I feel it’s worth it I will give her a yes or no. Would you know if it is possible to cut 8×2 min videos, with music ,sfx,grx in 2 weeks or even in one week? like I mentioned this is a travel show training video type of thing. Like i mentioned I will be going to school full time and would like this to be finished by the 16th of June.
Sorry I know I sound confusing, I have been in this business for a long time and I really have a hard time trusting clients these days on anything. I guess I have to get over it, and learn from mistakes.
Are there any specific questions that I should be asking just incase I forget some?Thanks for your help.
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