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Getty paid…
What is the best practice for getting paid.
I have a job coming up from an out of town producer who called needing a cameraman for 4 hours.
I plan to tell the producet that I will provide an invoice at the end of the shoot and would like a check at the time I provide the DVC cassettes.
Is that pretty well accepted practice – or should I expect to send an invoice and wait for payment, and provide the tapes following the shoot. Seems a bit risky to me. But I don’t know what the general industry practice is.
I plan on charging $100 / hour of time + $10 a DVC tape and mileage if we shoot BRoll off site. I am not charing for up to 15 minutes travel to the shoot site.
Colorado Liquid User Group meets 3rd Tuesday every month.
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6 Replies
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[dpdenver] “best practice”
Nothing leaves without the money in your hand first. If they pay by check, I’d consider waiting until it clears. If the producer doesn’t like those terms I wouldn’t trust the job. -
It’s certainly fine to ease up on your own rules the more you get to know someone you work for. But for an out of town client, Craig’s advice is spot-on. Be extra careful with clients who know you can’t come over and knock on their door any time once they get home.
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For first timers or only-timers, it is always payment upon delivery. Always. At the very least a partial payment or security deposit with the rest payable at delivery.
You don’t give up the original tapes until you get paid. Once a relationship of trust has been established, you can move on to billing by mail.
If they tell you that they can’t pay you until they see the quality of the tape, give them a window burn with a big old time code window right in the essential area of the footage, but under no circumstances give up the master footage without payment in advance.
Everyone who has ignored this rule has been burned at one time or another.
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BTW I charge for window burn ins too. It’s part of the service options I provide since many clients won’t have a deck to pop the tape in and screen.
I wouldn’t want to work under the assumption that if the client doesn’t like my work they don’t have to pay me. Imagine hiring 4 camera people and really only needing or paying two in the end. That’s not a good thing to allow in this industry.
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Thanks for the responses. As I thought – but the repsonses sure help reinforce taking that position. Thanks.
Colorado Liquid User Group meets 3rd Tuesday every month.
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now if I would only spell check b4 sending
Colorado Liquid User Group meets 3rd Tuesday every month.
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