Suggestions for charging for an unknown amount of work?

[David Stone]

Thank you Mike for your input on this. I agree I need to come up with some kind of billing and payment agreement ahead of time. With these guys, I typically invoice them after the job is signed off on and give them the typical net30 on payment. They are pretty good at paying about a week after the 30 days.

I am a push-over when it comes to money though. I need to be careful on this one for sure.

David Stone

Email me at: david@baldguycreative.com or visit us at: https://www.baldguycreative.com

[Mark Suszko]

I have little to contribute to this thread except to point out that if they use or don’t use a shot they assigned you to work on is immaterial, as far as your billing: they are paying you to make an effects shot, and if it makes the actual show or not is not your decision and also not your problem.

You don’t give back hours you spent in good faith on an effects shot they asked you to work on, just because they later changed their minds. You should get paid for the work on the shot, up to the point they tell you to stop working on it or when it is completed and handed off.

We would all be in a heck of a fix, if it were not the case; every shot you worked on would be a “spec” job, done for free, just “hoping” you would get some kind of money for it.

Nothing wrong with submitting tests on spec, for free or for a negotiated lower rate, to prove up front that you CAN do the work and to give them a good idea of what to expect in advance of the actual work. But once the test is approved and you are hired to complete a sequence, they are paying you to do a job, and you are doing it, and you should get paid for that. Imagine if client hired me to shoot three day’s worth of footage and the client came back and said they would only pay me for the two hour’s worth they actually kept in the final cut. Madness, MADNESS, I tell you!

[David Stone]

Thanks for chiming in on this Mark. I couldn’t agree with you more. I have not had that problem before and would not agree to anything of the such.

I suggested that I work on the shots after most of the online has been completed. So I should only be getting shots being used with heads and tails. Not a big fan of roto work on more than necessary. If they don’t need the shots after I am done with them, SOL on their part 🙂