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Client upset he can’t view raw files of long conference shoot
Got a hot mess. Client called and is PO’d he can’t view the raw footage. I’ve had this situation a few times before. What would you do, have said, or charge? Here’s the backstory:
Over the years I shot videos for this company but never did the post, the Director of Marketing muddled his way through with editing on Final Cut, I believe it was the Express version. So I have a history of passing off the raw footage to this company. However, this client moved on to another company.
New DoM calls me, asks how much to shoot a day and a half conference, quote a price and he says OK. I ask “How are you going to edit this?”. I ask this question because unbelievably, some people assume my shooting quote includes the editing! He replies: “Probably in-house, we’ll see, maybe get a quote from you.” I shoot 6.5 hours of media over the two days: Panasonic HPX300 ENG camera shooting on P2 cards in AVCIntra codec which creates mxf files that he won’t be able to open and a wide cover shot on a Canon C100 shooting AVCHD. I transfer all these to his hard drive and send an invoice.
I’m not one to count my chickens before they hatch, but I import all the media into my edit system hoping I will get the post gig and since it’s 6.5 hours times two cameras I want to get a head start. He emails asking for a post estimate without providing any details, I ask twice for specs, no answer. (Note: This conference was of a nationally known sales trainer teaching sales tactics to the crowd and he is also the new client. He kept mentioning how important it is to negotiate down with one’s vendors, such as counter offering their price with one of 60% of what they wanted. So….I naturally jacked up my bid for post by 25% assuming I’d have to come down.) But I digress…
He calls and complains he can’t view the media on the hard drive. He says his “other video guys have always provided him with viewable files” (never a good thing to say to a guy like me, but I digress…). I tell him that I also provide viewable files of short shoots, such as talking heads, etc., but we have 13 hours of media here! Since I want to stay on his good side I said I will make MP4s for a measly $250, he’s still perturbed and I say $150. It’s not creative editing but I don’t want to feel like a total chump. I decided not to export from FCP, which will take forever, but a work around that will take perhaps 4 hours. I also drove out an hour in the rain to deliver the first hard drive’s Day 1 to him to show I give great customer service.
So, what would you do or have done? I don’t have the time to send out details as to how the client won’t be able to view the media, in fact, I gave the estimate during a red light.
Ned
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com -
11 Replies
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Love the comment about offering 60% of the price. In 27 years of doing video it is only the sales guys like this that try that crap. I just give them a strange look and politely ask what they would like me to remove from the list of services to meet such a budget. And remind them they won’t be happy with the challenges a reduced budget may incur.
I know you asked them who will edit, but they still need a viewable file – only because clients need a lot of help and they don’t know what they need, and they’re used to immediate gratification of shooting on their phones and watching immediately. The “other guys” may have shot with consumer-ish cameras or provided a usable file or he could just be lying to get something for free. And while they may edit in-house… had a guy last week that edits in-house with Premier. Sent him Sony BPAV folders, says he can’t read them. Turns out this time he’s not at the studio but editing at home with Corel Video-something-or-other. Gad. 14 test files later I got him separate audio and video files that worked. Oh yeah, 2 cameras, 90-minute shoot. Of course this was a favor in the first place.
I think the simple and inexpensive idea would be to let Encoder convert the c100 files to low-res MP4s for review; low man-hours to do and you send online. Send him a few seconds of the other 2 cams just so he has an idea of their framing. You can try to charge him for this, but it would be computer time not labor per se, and inexpensive. The $150 should cover it, reminding him that the reason he can’t see it is because you used pro gear; it’s a new level than what he may be used to.
Having a good conversation about workflow is in order. He either doesn’t know how complex video can be, or he DOES know and he’s being cheap and seeing how far you’ll go to meet his demands. You need to be competitive price-wise, but if he trusts what you are doing, price is not a concern. Nearly all of my shooting now includes budget for offload time, conversion and uploading low-res to vimeo or wipster so it’s “easy” for them. And long-form shoots go to something that records ProRes to make this low-labor work depending on the turn time; don’t necessarily want to tie up an edit system for encodes that could be done in the background.
Love these salesy presenters that want to charge thousands of dollars for their presentations but put no value on their vendors. With a little digging, I have found that many participants have been comped the event (they didn’t actually pay to attend) or at a reduced fee. If they de-value their own event, I cannot be paid less because of it.
Hope this helps.
Steve
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This client sounds like a real peach.
I don’t want to be one of those “here’s what you did wrong” guys, but you did basically ask…
Firstly, don’t haggle. Ever. Your rate is your rate. Does this guy try to beat down the prices he is charged by his accountant? Or barber? Or surgeon? If your rate is something that he can beat down, then it’s presumed you are charging too much in the first place… which I’m going to assume you are not. When people complain about our budgets (and they do, I’ll freely admit we are the most expensive guys in town), we’ll politely give them the “you get what your pay for” speech but we’ll also do whatever we can to work with a client’s budget. But they don’t get the same thing for less money. We’ll offer to work with them by simplifying shoots, eliminating extra locations or pricey talent, concepting something that requires a less intensive edit, or whatever, but never by simply lowering our rate. As you know, once you lower your rate, then that new number is now your rate (because that’s what you are willing to work for) and that client will never even consider anything higher than that from you.
I think you went way above and beyond as it is, with your efforts to get them viewable files, especially when it sounds like this was for an edit gig that you were unlikely to ever get anyway.
Me, I’d probably would have just sent them a link to download a free VLC media player (or any other suitable player) that can handle both MXF and AVCHD files.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Terry,
Well, he is a really nice guy but I suppose sees everything as “negotiable”. The 60% figure, that was his tip as to handling the rent figure a landlord first puts forward, and I extrapolated that to me! As for “rates”, you are in a unique position in that you specialize in mainly one thing: spots. Me, I try to do anything that comes my way, and each of my projects is different in terms of pricing. I draw the line at dance recitals, neo-Nazi promos, etc., but if business is slow I will consider most all requests. So I charge what the “market will bear” and I prefer to quote “ranges”, so all bases are covered. I have a phrase: “I can estimate it on 4 levels: Yugo, Chevy, Cadillac or Maserati”. Sometimes I ask them what they have budgeted so we don’t waste each other’s time.
I do admit that I bid this one high because there was a lot of interaction with the audience that will suck post time. Against my advice no one waited for the handheld mic nor stood up to be seen, so editing those if requested is a nightmare.
In my end of the DP market the bottom fell out a few years ago (5D) so I have to be much more cost competitive than the old days but can demand a higher dollar if there’s quality or stress involved, like CEO shooting. Also, depending on who I am negotiating with determines the figure I will throw out, see how they respond, if there’s a pause, etc. On TV shows I’m often contacted by kids who are told to find someone with a model X and sound person for $X. I am the world’s slowest editor so I could never quote hourly. In fact, I never, and I advise my clients similarly, to NEVER accept an hourly rate estimate for post because who knows how many hours it will take? In the old days I would sit supervising editors and discovered, as with all professions, everyone has a different speed.
The new Canon C100 will simultaneously shoot MP4s and I bet the reason is to provide the client something to watch and takes notes from.
That is a great idea to have suggested VLC to avoid making him MP4s! Wish I thought of that.
And Steve, I think I will create a PDF of the workflow possibilities so they can read that they need a viewer of some sort.
Thanks,
Ned
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com -
Damn I meant to say Todd, not Terry! Constantly do that. Maybe I’m dyslexic?
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com -
No sweat, that’s the burden of having two first names so I’m used to it (and never tell anyone, especially a couple of COW continuous offenders, how much i actually hate being called by my last name). Thanks for picking up on it!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think it’s because I’ve know so many guys named Terry than Todd? Maybe a 6:1 ratio.
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com -
I can sympathize, Ned. I’ve been through the “it’s what I asked for, but not what I want” mill a few times. As well as the “You should have been able to read my changing mind when I said what I said before I took it back without telling you”.
Boiling away all the other details, as I see it, it comes down to: you made an educated guess at the deliverables, based on previous history, and it only came out half-right this time because the players and their methods have slightly changed. Specific deliverables have to be locked down right from the beginning, every time, and if the client’s are not educated enough about their choices, it’s going to save later drama if you walk them thru it first, before making the quote.
I often offer clients a link to download VLC and MPEG Streamclip or the free version of Switch, if it can help them with a file compatibility problem. If you offer such, and they make noises like “I think you should be making the conversions” or “I really don’t know how to work with that”… they’re telling you, basically: “I’m willing to be up-charged for the convenience of you taking care of all this for me so I don’t have to work on things I find boring, uncomfortable or hard.”
The guys are right about being a stickler on the established rate. As in card playing, you sometimes have to bluff and wait them out, instead of folding. The only guy in charge of a negotiation is the one that’s willing to walk from a bad deal. Like the neo-nazi interpretive dance recital. Thanks for putting THAT in my head this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ukFAvYP3UU
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Hi Ned,
Sorry for being late to the party. We shoot lots of conferences and presentations. What I do is in my proposal I offer the option of converting the footage to something the client can view. I attach a price to that. It includes a small USB drive and shipping. Usually I’ll burn a timecode window onto the footage, so it can “help” them. Then if the client wants that, we provide the converted footage.
There’s no arguments or annoyance, and the client has remained in control of what they want. Everyone is happy.
Greg Ball, President
Ball Media Innovations, Inc.
https://www.ballmediainnovations.com -
Hi Ned,
I’ll be upfront, this may not help you now, but it should do for the future.
To solve running into this issue again I’d simply be clear with the client(s) about what they are getting for the money. It often falls between the cracks of technical people like videographers and non-technical clients as to what expectations are for work received. And in my experience people get funny about payment when the expectation of what they thought they were receiving doesn’t match the reality.
I always take the stance that the client knows little to nothing about the technical side of things, and there it helps them to lay out exactly what they’ll receive back from you, whether that’s RAW footage or not. I know this doesn’t necessarily help your situation at the moment, but having something that’s formally documented upfront might help for the future.
Cheers
Chris
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Chris,
I am not office-based, my car is my office, I’m a shooter in the field a lot. If I was a post type of guy, based in front of a computer, it would be much easier to do a lot of back and forth regarding details. Much of my client pre-pro and estimating communications is done pulling over, putting on my flashers and pecking an email. If I’m not too tired when I get home or if it’s a complex project, I do what you suggest. But something “simple” usually goes like this:
• Client calls, texts or emails: Are you available to do X on X date?
• Me: Yes
• Client: How much you think?
• Me: $X for me, if you want a soundman +$X, 2nd camera please add $X. Do you need any editing?
• Client: Answers yes or no about post. Usually tells me to pencil hold, firm hold or “We’ll get back to you.” (which usually means No)So if the project is Green Lit, I will ask some questions about logistics, what’s the nature of the set ups so I know how to pack, etc. It would not occur to me, especially if I am not given the post portion to say: “By the way, do you realize you can’t view my professional camera files?”
As a matter of fact: Whoever is given the post portion of the job, since they will be making the money on post, and because I am “just the DP”, the editor should be responsible for making viewable files, not me. This gig was 8.5 hours times two cameras. As the videographer my responsibilities are handing over a hard drive. My assumption is his last “video guys”, in his previous city, also had the post portion so they had no qualms about making him MP4s of very lengthy seminars. My deliverables, and I said this to him: “Please bring a Mac compatible hard drive so I can transfer the media to you, I will keep a safety copy for a few weeks.” To me, as the DP, that is the end of it. Unless I was given the post portion, I am finished and plan to invoice immediately.
Best,
Ned
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
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