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Signs of the Apocalypse
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And as a PS, I’m well aware that there are two potential outcomes for our expansion.
We will continue to be successful.
We will have a downturn in the company and declare bankruptcy.
I know this going in and accept that we will work hard to make sure the first option is where we go. But I will never have to wonder what could have happened had we not expanded.
At this point we have no choice but to expand. 1000 square feet with 6 people tripping over each other is not going to work. So sink or swim, we’re going to have fun trying.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.
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[Chris Blair] “1. At major corporations, people are being transferred from previous careers in IT, Human Resources and Customer Service…to positions as Marketing Directors, Brand Managers and VPs of Advertising. Never mind they don’t know a rating point from a pressure point. Experienced (and smart) VPs are getting kicked to the curb in droves.”
Yep, it’s all about Salary. This has been happening at Turner Broadcasting for years at all levels from on-air talent to the technical staff. Cheaper to bring in new folks or folks new to a department than to keep promoting the same people. It’s easier to take someone making $20,000 and promote them to $30,000 while at the same time letting go someone who used to make $100,000 in the same job.
[Chris Blair] “2. “Senior” Producers at Ad Agencies are younger than my son, and greener than the Chicago River on St. Patty’s day. One of them recently cast a college student to play the part of….wait for it….an elderly lady! Another cast a “how to” video with actors but had nobody on set who actually knew “how to” perform the task needed for the video.”
No surprise there quite honestly. It’s fun for me to work with green folks who have absolutely no clue what it takes to produce a project and see what they come up with. That’s why all of my contracts include a line like “based on the information available,” or “the figures quoted in this contract are an estimate and subject to change based on client requested changes.”
[Chris Blair] “3. These same green Marketing Directors ask for bids on video projects based on written specs, then once the contract is inked, present revised scripts that are impossible to shoot on the agreed upon budget. In fact, they’d be impossible to shoot on Herculean budgets! They’re upset about that fact because they’ve already told their boss it can be done without asking us first.”
As I said, my contracts always have the provision for changes. I always keep a copy of any correspondence with the end client with my contracts so if there is any question as to why I’m changing the price, they can see why. Of course if it looks like they are going to nickel and dime me to death I’ll either cut loose the contract to walk away or I’ll hold the master until we receive final payment. Nothing like holding on to a project that is scheduled to be shown tomorrow and they don’t have it in their hands because you didn’t get paid……
[Chris Blair] “4. Producers who’ve NEVER been on a shoot before argue about how we schedule the shoot, complaining “we don’t need that much time to do four setups because the shoot is in one location.” Never mind we’ve been doing this for 25 years, have scheduling down to a near science….and most importantly… the location is an industrial complex the size of a small city and it takes 30-60 minutes just to move from one location to the next…NOT including lighting, blocking and shooting the scene.”
Producers who HAVE been on shoots always argue with me when I schedule the time. Again, see my answer #2. I have had two shoots where the client insisted on scheduling the time.
On one of them I knew they under-booked the time by half so I told the entire crew to be prepared for three additional days of shooting, kind of like asking them to be on stand-by. When we got to the end of the first day it was very obvious to the client/Producer we were not going to complete the project in three days. “So what can we do?” Well, we either scale the project way back to shoot what we can in three days or you will have to add three more days of field production to your budget.
They miraculously found just enough money to cover those extra three days of shooting.
If a client wants to back themselves into a corner I will let them. Then I let them make the decision of how to proceed. It was their decision to forge ahead ill prepared so they can make the decision on how to fix it.
But my contracts have the provision to cover overages and I will (and have) held Masters until final payment if necessary.
The trends you mention really aren’t all that new quite honestly. Well except for the part of the folks getting younger in much more prominent positions.
I’ve had my own company since 1998 and right from the get go, our first client “knew television” and insisted on how the first project was going to go. He was wrong and we ate the added cost.
Since 1998 I’ve had to deal with the “sticker shock” when we tell folks how much a project is going to cost. And especially the time involved. “It doesn’t take 30 minutes to edit a 30 minute video?”
The big trend of the past few years has simply been the availability of the tools to a much wider audience. Anybody with a Mac laptop is a video editor with a very powerful suite of tools for $999. So as a result, the rates people can charge have plummeted and the sheer amount of people providing production services has skyrocketed. Go to any dinner party and you will hear about someone’s child who is at college / high school / tech school editing, animating, doing graphics and website in their spare time on their laptops. Those same kids then move into our field and since they’re only out a couple grand for the laptop and software, will charge $25/hour for what a typical shop would charge $175/hour and higher.
We have not been hit quite as hard in that regard because our prices have always been much lower than the going rate in this area. I’ve always gone after the strategy of long term clients paying less per job but making up for that with the volume of work. That has worked for us so far.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.
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Go Walter!
>>It’s fun for me to work with green folks who have absolutely no clue what it takes to produce a project and see what they come up with. That’s why all of my contracts include a line like “based on the information available,” or “the figures quoted in this contract are an estimate and subject to change based on client requested changes.”<>I’ll hold the master until we receive final payment. Nothing like holding on to a project that is scheduled to be shown tomorrow and they don’t have it in their hands because you didn’t get paid..<< Here's where I have gotten screwed this year. Stupid me, releasing masters without final payment. Hopefully it'll all work out OK, though. Never again. Happy Holidays, eh? P --------------------- http://www.patrickortman.com
Web and Video Design -
The following was posted right here on The Cow by a New York City editor and colorist looking for work. I’m guessing he’s probably living at home, rent free, in his parent’s upper East side condo, trying to add something on top of his allowance.
Offering new Introductory rates: $100/day; $350/week; flexible project rates available.
His flexible project rates couldn’t be too flexible, cuz as the Billy Joel tune says, nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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See, a pro would know it was Billy PRESTON. The kid thinks all that music is contemporary.
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All I know is, ten bucks an hour in NYC can’t possibly pay the bills.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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1) I never NEVER said that everything was peachy. I know very well, that I am lucky. But I also know that you make your own luck. I am ALWAYS losing jobs to people who “try to figure it out by themselves”. I just found out that a big facility who I built, hired someone else, because they were cheaper than me to do an expansion for them. Now things are not working ok, which is how I found out about this. Am I angry about this – YOU BET I AM ANGRY, I did a good job for these people, but I guess I just wasn’t “cheap enough”.
There are plenty of people that say “the business is over” – well, it’s not over, you just have to go out there and FIGHT, and believe me, at my age (almost 55) it’s getting harder and harder to fight everyday. And I’m not only fighting the kids that may know more than me about computers – it’s the clients that I have to justify myself to, and why they should still hire me. Does this suck – of course it sucks, but that’s what fighting for survival is. So it seems like I am busy all the time to a lot of people, because I am always building new places – because I FIGHT EVERY DAY for it.
As for “10 bucks an hour” – not only do I see this now (“mom and dad bought me a RED camera”) – I have seen this back in the stone age, when parents would buy their kids a big NEVE audio console and 2″ 24 track recorder in NY, and they would give away the recording time, so they could be in the “pro music business”. And we all know how that turned out – today, it’s almost impossible to have a successful audio business, unless you are doing post audio in NY or LA – the music recording business is basically over. But hey, LETS NAME NAMES – Magno Sound (which became Magno Sound and Video in NY) was funded by THEIR RICH PARENTS. And todays Postgroup in NY and LA (which started in NY) was funded by wealthy real estate parents. Now, these are two examples of “kids” who are no longer kids that worked hard, and turned these into successful companies, but for every one of these, are the losers, whose parents buy them “some toys” to start a business, and they go nowhere, and in the process, spoil it for the rest of us, because they are “giving it away”.
Yes, no one is living in NYC (even in a crap apartment) and only charging $100 a day for their professional services, because you simply can’t afford to live or eat on $500 a week in Manhattan.
Bob Zelin
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Right on, Bob. Couldn’t have said it better- and we loathe what we call ‘trustafarians’ over here. Man, you hit a nerve with me this morning!
I’m all for giving the next generation a leg up, but wouldn’t a better leg up be a respect for oneself/one’s industry and an understanding of how to run a business in the real world? Buying your kid a RED or whatever won’t make them a better artist, and it certainly won’t make them a better businessman. Those things take hard work.
There’s a company in our building that specializes in auctioning off the leftover REDs, Avids, and so forth that these trustafarians blow through, along with their inheritances. They’re doing pretty well. So it goes.
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http://www.patrickortman.com
Web and Video Design -
[Bob Zelin] “There are plenty of people that say “the business is over” – well, it’s not over, you just have to go out there and FIGHT, and believe me, at my age (almost 55) it’s getting harder and harder to fight everyday.”
Can’t agree more. Well except for the age part, but I’ll be there sooner than later…..
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.
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