Shooter only pricing dispute

[Charles Lorch]

Thanks for all the thoughts. I agree %100 on making things clear up front and try to do that with all of my clients friends or not. I thought I did that. Isn’t there some point were you don’t have to spell out every scenario, and standard practices should take over. I guess not for everyone.
I didn’t want to say it before because I wanted honest answers but this guy is known as always trying to get a deal. He’ll order a sandwich and then at the end of the meal when asked how it was, he’ll say “Well, it had cheddar cheese and I asked for american. ” and then happily have it taken off the check. I’ve seen that one more than once.
I guess I was trying to make it work out. Never Again.

[Mark Suszko]

Your friend is a grinder. That may or may not matter to your friendship, but it’s my observation from outside looking in.

Key facts:

You set the rate ahead of time. It was agreed.

You arrived as agreed, he did not call you ahead to cancel, and he only “cancelled” the morning. You still shot the same day, meaning you still had to be available that day. If I book a full day for shooting but we only get one good take, I’m not discounting the rest of the day and billing only for the fice-minute good take for something that’s not my fault. He is paying you to be there. I feel his offer to go fishing was a deliberate attempt to create a disconnect from the billable hours, and it was a dirty trick.

Had the shoot been weathered-out completely, well, everybody should have a personal policy in advance for rain-outs or failures of gear you did not bring to the party. You’d still have to bill for the fact of losing a productive day you could have spent elsewhere. 50% or a discount off the re-scheduled gig sounds round to me, for a cancellation with less than 24 hours notice.

But really it wasn’t a cancellation so much as a delay, and you can’t be expected to discount a charge for that, it was nothing to do with you. In the wedding biz, I always got a deposit up front for a third, and this was retained for cancellations with less than 24 hours notice, refunded if notice was longer. I admit asking your friend to lay down an advance deposit sounds like a good way to lose a friend. OTOH, your friend grinding you is out of order as well.

If you wanted to apply a discount because of the rain-out or a gear failure that was not your responsibility, when and how much is up to you, but you should have that figure in your head and announced ahead of the gig, and everybody agreed to it, on paper. If not, then you’ve created a gray area and diplomacy has to take a hand in the negotiations at that point.

That’s where I see you at now: in the absence of a specific rule in advance, you make your best counter-offer, and decide, as per the other folk’s good advice, what hill you want to die on – lose the deal, lose the friend. And all his future deals.

I will say, not knowing anything else about your friend, that his behavior sets my spider-sense all a-tingle. I would be leery of any future projects without paper and a down payment.

[Marcus Frakes]

My question is IF everything went well, you had perfect weather, and you shot only FULL shooting days, then presented him with a FULL CHARGE invoice – would he still argue about the price? That says a lot about the situation (ie. rationalizing, the budget, and your friendship).