client is a pain

[Mark Suszko]

“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.”

I have no way to say, without first knowing everything about the project and the footage I’d be working with. If you don’t need anything too fancy, I can imagine doing two of them a day, one before lunch, one after. On the other hand, I’m doing a series of 8, 2-minute web videos for a client right now, and the first one took me about three weeks to do. To be fair, I had to learn Apple Motion to do the first one, and it went thru three revision passes as well. The second one took about 3-4 days, the next, about 2 days. By spot number eight the joke is that I will be going back in time and finishing it before I started it. Those projects are not “normal” projects for me: there is zero footage, just a script and VO track and an interview clip. Everything else, I have to create from scratch using photoshop, Motion, and Final Cut, creating animated, compsited imagery, sometimes many layers deep, to illustrate some abstract concepts. Sometimes the clients don’t like the first thing I come up with, so I then try another tack. These changes can take additional time.

I would say if your projects call for simple straight cuts of an interview, news-style, with a lower-third super built and laid in over the interview, some music, some nice opening titles, nothing else, and if you have time code numbers for the best takes and don’t need to preview every scrap of footage before you can start cutting, then two a day sounds about right for the editing. Maybe three a day, with a tailwind and a working lunch. The time spent to encode for web I can’t say because I don’t know the specific deliverable she wants. Some encodes are very fast, some take longer.

I think this is all the help I can give you now; the rest has to be up to you.

[Patrick Ortman]

>> flat fee vs. hourly

We’re just getting out of a bad situation from a nasty grinder from Las Vegas, NV on exactly this issue- they insisted on a flat fee, then started adding things to the scope (OK, the crazy bugger continually added stuff, every day, sometimes several times a day to the scope- ugh!).

When we told them they could have as many changes as they’d like, but that they’d have to switch to paying us by the hour, they freaked out and threatened me and my business, our employees, etc. It’s pretty nasty, and now my attorney’s involved.

So I guess the additional two cents I’m adding are:

1) This sort of thing happens, even to the not-so-new-at-this crowd, once in a great while- and it’s never acceptable to let them walk all over you.

2) If they act all crazy at you for insisting on getting paid for your work, you DEFINITELY did the right thing by speaking up for yourself as early as you did.

———————
http://www.patrickortman.com
Web and Video Design

[Michael Sigmon]

It’s been two months on; I’m curious how this all turned out for you.

1) I would suggest reading the highly valuable ‘Grinders’ article – the one about 15%-70%-15%. Your client was definitely in the lowest 15% segment.

2) I think a fundamental problem is you’re letting this grinder… er, client dictate the terms. They don’t know what is involved with the work you’re being asked to do for them. You do. Clearly she’s coming to you because she thinks she can grind you down to whatever crumbs she decides to throw your way. That’s a recipe for disaster, in both directions. You’re going to end up hating her. She’s not going to appreciate how much work you’ve put into it.

The trick is to be more assertive. This doesn’t mean being angry or one-sided. It means coming from a position of strength. She is coming to YOU because of your expertise and ability to get the job done. YOU know what is possible and what is not. If the budget is unrealistic, don’t be shy about explaining why. Offer an alternative which either scales back the work to the budget available, or else ask for a more reasonable budget. Don’t agree to whatever deadline she dictates; that’s a recipe for failure and disappointment as well. I let a client do that once; I labored night and day to make her (and the literally 36 other people who had their grimy little thumbs all over the revision process) happy. I made mistakes. It was inevitable; that did not stop her from throwing fits when the revised video was delivered late and with some minor mistakes. It was partly my fault for not telling her straight up from the outset, ‘what you are asking of me is not possible given the time constraints and how many changes you want.’

Even if this project is long past you… these are lessons which will serve you well in whatever endeavors you do in the future, video productions or otherwise. Be more assertive – people respect that. If they don’t, if they expect you to be a limp doormat and acquiesce to whatever unreasonable demands they put upon you… they’re not people you want to work with anyways.

[Michael Sigmon]

I’ll also add that being too eager to say ‘yes’ is a fatal trap which will bite you in the arse over and over and make you very bitter and angry over time.