[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Thanks for clarifying Ronald and your warm attitude. It’s great to be a part of the Cow community. 🙂

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Hey Paul,

Thanks, you handed me a ton of valuable info.

I signed the contract as an individual not as a company i.e. as a person that’s doing work for hire.

“To change the subject, normally you would charge 50% or more upfront once an international contract is signed. “Some people” ask between 80-100% percent upfront and that is acceptable too. ”

Good to know, like I said, with this being my first American client I didn’t know exactly ho to deal with him, all this info helps me clear my head a bit.

Again, I very much appreciate your post, besides being useful it also feels good to see people ralying to give a hand.

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Hey Mark, thanks a million, I had quite a laugh reading your post AND you’re right. This is the usual way I am dealing with the clients in my country. However somehow I sometimes lure myself into thinking that humans in different countries are different. Probably not. Anyway, today I sent out a watermarked preview version of the final piece, I will expect their reaction soon enough.
Like I said, I don’t want to risk scaring them away. Yesterday I wrote them a very to the point mail but also in very polite terms so they really cannot have any negative comments on my attitude.
Again, thanks for your support! If something new comes up, I’ll let you know.

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

@Nick and Craig

Thanks a lot for your advices. Some of them are very much along of what I had in mind, but like I said, being somewhat of an ignorant on dealing with American businesses it helps to know if I am on the right track.
I will keep you posted in my progress with my client.

Kind regards,
Andrei

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Thanks Craig.

No, at this time I haven’t received any payment yet. The client agreed on a 20% advance payment, they asked for an invoice, I sent them one, and then last week they asked for other documents as well (they asked me to sing a contract, and to fill in the W-9 form as I said). The entire job took about a month, and I sent them the invoice by the end of the first week on the job. First time I asked about the advance payment, they said I’d have to wait until the end of the month. That has just passed and I have no word on said payment. Two days ago I asked for an update on this and, while I received a reply concerning other matters of the job, the client gave me no answer to my payment question. That being said I’d start looking like a fool repeating the same question over and over again. Now, perhaps they’re still working on it and they thought answering my question with the same “wait until we sort this up” would be redundant, or who knows what reason they might have. They are a relatively important company I thing and the show I’m working on is a co-production with a VERY big company. This is why I don’t think they’d risk any scandal on the matter.
Again, I have no substantial evidence, it’s just something in the back of my head bugging me all day long. It very well may be the after effect of previous bad experiences with other clients and, like I said I wouldn’t want to let that spoil my relation with this client.

Again, thanks for your suggestions.

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Like I said, it may just be my paranoia and I really don’t want to offend anyone while still giving myself *some* protection.

Thanks for the feedback Tim. Much appreciated.

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Thanks Walter, I made a similar post there. Perhaps one of the admins could delete this post.

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

Well yes, as I said in the post title it’s all about Final Cut Pro and yes, the movie is probably targeted at NTSC. It’s a german-american co-production, one of those M class movies you buy for one buck at Wallmart.

However both us and the editor are located in Europe.
As far as I know the shot the movie on a Panasonic Varicam.

I’m pretty confused because the editor didn’t send me any feedback at all yet and I did ask him to day some details about how he setup his project…

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

No difference that I can recall. Your line of thinking makes a lot of sense. I cannot check it right now but I will follow this once I get back to the studio. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks

[Andrei-cristian Murgescu]

I don’t think the particles exported in 24 fps could be an issue. They were interpreted as 23.98 footage and then composited into a 23.98 composition and exported as 23.98 fps footage. The longes span of the footage containing 3d particles, I think is about 30 seconds tops. (I don’t have acces to the project right now). We didn’ try to ask them to composite the footage, we could try but as I said above there are just about a couple of shots with that kind of footage whilst the missing frames and speed issue appear on far more shots.

“Is editor capturing footage and the editor assembling your work the same editor?” I’m not sure, maybe so. I must ask this as well.