[Mark Suszko]

Well, I have one that’s still not concluded at 2 years and three months, and counting. Well, I STOPPED counting.

But I’ll tell you this, and you can take it to the bank: If I want to hear from them within 24 hours, all I need to do is wipe their files from my hard drive array.

[Mark Suszko]

There are commercial services for this too, perhaps you don’t need to re-invent the wheel? I know of at least two, if you join them, you can send your stuff anywhere, not just to that one client…

[Mark Suszko]

Dear (client):

Things have been progressing well on the “xyz” project I’m editing for you, and I think you’ll agree it looks great so far, but I’m at a point where I can’t do much more with this project until I get (item) from you. (Item) is essential to the (name of segment) at this point, and I’ve done as much work around the missing area as I can.

To keep this project billing within the range we already agreed, I need to have the outstanding items here by (date), or I can’t deliver by (date). I have some ideas to propose:

To keep your project costs within the agreed-upon range, we could agree to suspend the project until the outstanding elements are ready. I will cease billing for time on the project as of today. I’ll archive your project until such time as we can resume work, and you’ll only be billed for the work completed to this point. I will continue to work with my other customers until your project is ready to resume production. Or we can keep the project active, but because that precludes my serving my other clients while we wait, that choice incurs a running charge of ( AMOUNT PER DAY ); I’d rather not have to bill you to “keep the motor running” if the anticipated delay for elements is going to be indefinite. So let’s “park” your project temporarily, just until the missing elements are ready. Then we can resume work very quickly when we have everything we need to finish.

Please let me know by (deadline) how you wish to proceed, and I’ll take care of the rest. If I don’t get an indication by (absolute deadline) I’ll have to go ahead and archive your project and submit a final bill.

Regards, Clyde etc etc

>>>>>>>>>
Translation: “Time to put up or walk, I’ve got paying customers waiting”. (but very politely).

Why is this situation happening?

Maybe they really don’t know what they are doing: Can you help them source the element another way? Or can they re-write the project to drop the hard to get item?

Are they victims to outside forces beyond control? Then park it and wait.

Consider that they may be stalling because they don’t (yet) have the money to pay for the rest. Some subtle queries during small-talk might reveal this. If that comes out, you could turn it around to a positive and say “hey, let me work with you, we can work out a payment plan to spread the cost a little bit, or maybe I can make some changes on how I do the work that can lower the overall bill”. This keeps you being the Good Guy, instead of the Mean Guy.

Also, the project may have suddenly got “de-authorized” back home, and they are looking for a polite way to cancel the job and just take their stuff and go. Clear language in your contracts or deal memos should reduce the need to play those kinds of games. Hey, cancellations sometimes happen, for many reasons. No need for drama, just pay up to the point the work stopped and go, no harm, no foul.

The subtle hint that you have other customers waiting may also put a little fire under them, because it signals you can afford to throw them out at this stage without fear, without being talked down on your rates. If a grinder senses he’s your only income for the month, he’s going to take every advantage to string you along. Your only leverage is that you have their elements and they must have a deadline that means something to them at SOME point.

The other subtle hint should be that by “parking” their project in your “archives” you’re going to hold their stuff “hostage” until accounts are square. You never need to SAY that. Let them just infer it. Now, some guys would never ever actually go that far, and that’s their choice, fine, but here’s the thing: your client doesn’t know if you DO go that far or not, and you don’t need to volunteer the fact you don’t. Unless contract language covers it, let their imaginations run wild:-)

It’s a poker game, and you have just raised and called.

[Mark Suszko]

Lots of great suggestions here.

Clyde, do you think this a matter of technical issues or of psychology?

Specifically, are they always wanting you on their turf so perhaps they can feel in control of the project? Or because they have trust issues? Or are they just kind of lonely and like hanging out with cool people like yourself? My guess is that they are trying to tell you something: you may be leaving too many things unsaid or assumed, and it makes them nervous. Or, maybe this is the most creative thing they get to do all year, so they want to milk the experience.

It is important to try and figure this out, because one reason leads to more work and money, the other could lead to you eventually losing the business for being “unresponsive”. Even if you’re good and did nothing wrong. I have seen the reverse, where clients stick with someone who is not that good and overcharges, but the client just loves them despite that, because the relationship is so tight. We have to be technically proficient, but to really succeed we also need people skills, client skills, to understand their needs and communicate back to them. I think the best producers mix these two skill sets equally.

Some folks would adore having clients that were so “clingy”, because it gives them a chance to upsell to bigger budgets and more projects. But certainly there can be a point where too much of a good thing is not good for you. Some clients are just control freaks, it is their nature. It is not always a bad thing, if you look at the advantages of a detail-oriented person. How much is too much? I would say the indicator for that is that you’re losing more on the travel and time taken for meetings than you are making on the finished work. Below that threshold, I would generally say “whatever it takes to make them happy (within reason), and bill accordingly”.

Pay more attention to their language and to how they say what they are saying when they call for these meetings. It may give you a clue to ways of reducing their nervousness and increasing their confidence. That may be something as simple as altering the vocabulary you use with them, to reassure them. What if you simply phoned them more often on the next project, or emailed or texted them at every little milestone?

How about giving them more supervisory tools, such as more window dubs? A link to a private web page, where they can view and mark up the work in progress and see the schedule may improve things. Using comparisons to previous successful efforts may help: “I’m going to use essentially the same effect here that we used in the demo sequence of the XYZ video you liked, you’re pretty familiar with that from the last time you sat in on the edit for it, so, shall I just go ahead and do that the same way you already understand, and you can just approve it after I’ve finished that segment?” Build up a bunch of reference points where they have already seen a successful outcome, and get them to see that it was fine before, it will be fine this time, without having to do the same bit of hand-holding.

Put yourself in the client’s position and see how they may feel: the project that may make or break their raise this year is in your hands and they can’t really do anything about it or contribute in it. I know I feel kind of nervous just waiting for a mechanic to fix my car; imagine something much worse. So they get fidgety, they want to be part of the thing somehow. I have found one easy thing to throw such a nervous person to occupy them productively is a “job” of picking out music cues from a stack of needle-drop CD’s. They could easily kill an hour picking cuts out in another room while I get the editing done. When they come back, they feel like they have contributed at least a little bit, and they seem more relaxed.

Over the years I have had a client or two come in that was very “hands-on” like Clyde’s at the beginning. I took the time to educate them where they need that, and to keep explanations simple, dropping little very short tidbits along the way of why I am making the cut the way I am, etc. and darned if by the next time we worked together, they would just say over the phone: “well, you understand what we’re looking for here pretty well, I trust your judgement, you just go ahead and make it the way you think best and I’ll check back in with you when it’s close to done.”

I love those days.

[Mark Suszko]

You could use the stepladder to put the camera up high, then put a mirror on a 2×4 angled at 45 degrees to put the shot right above them while keeping the camera off to the side. Think of a gigantic version of the dental mirror.

If you have a mitre box, use that to slot the board to hold the mirror in place at the 45 degrees, epoxy the mirror in, the rest you can do with c-clamps.

One other way: if the camera is the small handicam variety, i.e. light weight, make a closet pole… you know, like those expanding shower curtain rods or the coat hanger rods that span the back of a car’s rear seat area? Make the pole span from wall to wall, hang the camera off it with clamps or a threaded bolt. Make the pole from PVC pipe outer jacket and actual wooden closet rod. You’ll need a way to expand the two, this could be done with a powerful spring inside the PVC, backstopped by a stove bolt thru the side, or one of those screw-on table-leglevelers and a wrench, or threaded PVC pipe hardware. The pipe is pennies a foot, wooden rod maybe ten bucks?

[Mark Suszko]

Or temporarily put a mirror on the ceiling and shoot into that from below. This works best with a “first surface” mirror, which is expensive, but a clean regular one might be good enough for what you want to do. You undo the flipped image in post.

This also works for really low floor shots without the need for putting a hole in the floor.

Remember that angle of incidence = angle of reflection, and that putting the mirror into the path may double your distance to the target, thus changing the depth of field.

[Mark Suszko]

Just be careful that when exercising your creative muse, you don’t go so far that you upset the clients. Wedding videos have a number of tropes and cliche’s in them for a reason; it’s what the customer wants and expects.

If the happy couple are of the same mind as you and agree they want something more innovative and non-traditional, that’s great. But be sure to understand and manage the customer’s expectations, or you may wind up re-doing everything and losing money and time.

[Mark Suszko]

Well, based on personal experience, Lyn Norstad (a COW moderator here) is a great VAR, though his operation is not as big or diverse as Promax was. But of the things he DOES sell, he knows what he sells very well, and we always had great customer service from him, very personal, accessible, and responsive. Now if only he worked with FCP…..:-)

OK Lyn, where’s that free pizza?:-) (just kidding, but not about his good service)

[Mark Suszko]

That definitely looks like the best way to go.

I wondered though, did you not try photoshop in frame movie mode first? Plus, once you have 500 drawings,and import them into one bin in the NLE (pre-set so each imported image lasts one frame), if they are numbered consecutively, you could just drag them to a NLE timeline and they’d automatically become your animation right there. I did this a time or two on some rotoscoping work. No, it was not fast or fun. It was free, which was more important to me at the time with the budget I had…

Ron’s suggestion is your best bet, but I’d also suggest you check out Toon Boom Animation studio Pro, Toon Boom OPUS, (which used to be called USAniamtion) and the related products… Opus seems like it might have just been EOL’d in April but that might also mean you coud pick it up at a discount now…

[Mark Suszko]

To that, might want to play with a blur effect applied only horizontally or vertically, and make that change rapidly and randomly. I was playing with that in Boris last week and it looked pretty trippy, combined with some speed ramping.