Sending Clients Raw Video

[Matthew Brunn]

Dealing with clients can be a real challenge. PC or Mac you can still work with your client. I FTP things for client approval freqently. You need to understand their needs first. The approach I go for is, define the requirements of each client then exceed them. Some clients will never be satisfied but knowing which are which come with time.

Time: Why do they need to see it? Can he wait for a day to see the footage? I would DVD it and FedEx it to them. If not then on to>

Quality: This can be subjective. Image size, codec, compression amount. Is this for reference? Proxies for effects? What are their minimum requirements for viewing?

Cost: Is it worth a faster connection? If you have cable you can get (typically) a business package that has faster upload. Is it worth FedExing daily? Will this fit in your bid? Price it out. Will the client pick up the cost? What is it worth to THEM to have “high” quality footage daily?

Work with your client and define their needs then kick in a little better service to keep them. If it is not making you money, it will eventually cost you big in the long run with that client. They need to understand your limits and you need to respect their budgetary concerns. Tell them strait what can be done for what price. The respect needs to run both ways. Good luck with the project.

Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4

[Shane Ross]

First off, tell him that the files you have are the RAW files. FCP prefers quicktime MOVs, while Windows prefers AVIs. You need to ask him what he wants. If AVIs, then you will need to convert the files to AVI…and you need to tell him that you will be charging him for the time and effort this is taking.

Then you might need to have him send a hard drive, you copy the footage onto the hard drive, and you send it back. Or bring the drive over, depending on how close you are from him.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[David Roth weiss]

You haven’t mentioned what video format he’s giving you to begin with. Are you editing DV or some other format?

[Bob Cole]

For the right project (limited footage set, long-term), would it work to have two copies of FCP, and send a project file back and forth? If so, you could just send a hard drive with all the footage, once, and the client could see the edit as it evolves.

— Bob C

[David Bogie]

Young schmoung. I look better and feel better at 52 than I did when I was 35. Get over it.

A client who says they want the camera original is either ignorant or they’re ripping you off. Either case is bad news for you. You can’t deal with ignorance and you can’t make money if someone is stealing your work.
You must be getting paid for the many hours you waste on the upload. If you’re not, don’t agree to do it until you figure out a rate.
Even if you are billing for this totally unreasonable request, don’t upload your footage in a usable form. Burn in the timecode or your watermark.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Ben Oliver]

or jsut do what i do….

compress it to make it look a little crappy, that way its unusablke to them

i had an issue a few years back, i was working that way, and edited a trailer for a horror movie.

towards the end of the project, they told me they were unhappy with the edits, and wanted to work with someone else.

then, they refused to pay me the full amount.

i later found a very similar version to my trailer online, it was re-edited, but a lot of my ideas remained the same.

so yeah, if the client wants updates, i usually make them come into my edit bay, or i send them a VHS with timecode on it, or i compress the heck out of it, and make it unusable, but viewable.