Unlimited editing fee

[Leo Ticheli]

Use this formula:

R = Your hourly rate

R x hours x ?.

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

I meant to type: R x hours x infinity.

A simpler formula for the cost of unlimited services would be: R x infinity.

Seriously, all you can really do is help your client estimate the number of revisions and give them a flat rate based on that with the written agreement that work in addition will be billed at your standard rate. For our flat rate jobs, I add a 20% markup to cover the inevitable extra work.

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Bob Woodhead]

We often propose a flat rate with x number of revisions (based upon the project), and then do change orders past that. We always emphasize repeatedly that the Script is the Word, and once the Script is approved, any alterations are considered revs. (Of course, exceptions are frequently made.) In your case I think this would still work… you give them the basic edit at the flat fee and use hourly rates past that for all revisions. Otherwise, you’d need to propose an insanely high fee to CYA.

[David Roth weiss]

[Leo Ticheli] “For our flat rate jobs, I add a 20% markup to cover the inevitable extra work.”

And that probably doesn’t come close to actually covering your arse in that situation.

[Mark Suszko]

I already responded in depth to this in the editing forum, but my take essentially was that billing was not the problem. The real problem is these people don’t have a clue about the right process for production, they have left out all the pre-production steps from needs analysis and research to writing and approving a creative treatment before a script is even begun. Thus they have no objective measures of what the finished project is to be. If you stepped in and fixed that, the issue of unlimited re-edits would never come up. You could charge a lot of money to be the guy that fixes that.

I also had reasons why the retainer concept, at least as these people defined it, had too many negatives to be considered good business practice.

[Michael Munkittrick]

This is a pretty precarious situation to be in at all, but if you

[David Jones]

[Greg] “however, have a large university with several campuses and many decision-makers; we need the option of editing the video until all are satisfied”

Makes me flash-back to the time I was doing a VO for a client out of state.
We setup the phone patch for the two producers in one city, and conference in the other three in a different city.
Everyone said hello and they proceeded to tell me their thoughts on the direction of the read they wanted.
So I go through a take, and the engineer says, well what do you think?
And from the couple of conference speaker phones we hear…
#1 Perfect just what I was looking for, #2 No I like the way you sound on your demo better,
#3 well the front half sounded good but then you lost the energy, #4 No the front half sounded bland but then picked up and finished strong, #5 I thought the front and back sucked but the middle was great.

I just love multiple decision makers!

[Vladimir Lozinski]

What is a camel?
A horse designed by a committee.
The problem is that your client is not aware of the conflicts that happen in these situations.
A common practice is to give 3 revisions and then the hourly rate kicks in. This is marked clearly on the contract.
I worked around a miltiple client problem once by building a small website and posting the video on it for them to view.
I was working in Baku, Azerbaijan and the clients were in Rome, Italy.
It was important that one person was designated by them to collect all the thoughts and ideas for change and them channel them to me by email cc’d to the group.
This stopped duplication and minimized conflict.
But.
There is a limit to this and at some point you have to take charge of the edit or it just goes on forever.
Clients appreciate a strong opinion if it is presenteds in a positive way.
Best of luck.
Vladimir

[Vladimir Lozinski]

What is a camel?
A horse designed by a committee.
The problem is that your client is not aware of the conflicts that happen in these situations.
A common practice is to give 3 revisions and then the hourly rate kicks in. This is marked clearly on the contract.
I worked around a miltiple client problem once by building a small website and posting the video on it for them to view.
I was working in Baku, Azerbaijan and the clients were in Rome, Italy.
It was important that one person was designated by them to collect all the thoughts and ideas for change and them channel them to me by email cc’d to the group.
This stopped duplication and minimized conflict.
But.
There is a limit to this and at some point you have to take charge of the edit or it just goes on forever.
Clients appreciate a strong opinion if it is presenteds in a positive way.
Best of luck.
Vladimir