[Mike Smith]

Fixed fee or time rate?

Customers, suppliers and projects split on the fixed fee or time rate issue. I regard it as a negotiation issue, project by project, where the “best” outcome is one where everyone is happy enough with the price, the schedule, the quality, and the final project (and the payment schedule).

For suppliers, time rate can look attractive: whatever you do, you can bill for. Camera crews, sound recordists, edit facility houses often go exclusively this way, and some script writers and graphic designers too.

For professional buyers, this is not scary. If you freelance with professional production companies, this is often a good route – everybody knows more or less what’s what, and nobody ends up feeling cheated. Of course, the person paying the bill is going to want to be fairly sure that they are getting good value and output for time.

Less regular buyers, though, and those seeking to hire a producer rather than a technician, an all-in fee looks much more attractive – the buyer can ask for a good description of the project, agree quality and schedule, and have a pretty good idea of what they’ll get and what it will cost.

For producers, too, this can be good: negotiate a decent rate, and retain the flexibility to use resources wherever seems best for the specific needs of the project. There will always be unanticipated expenses on almost any project, so budget as accurately as you can on an agreed specification, and allow a “contingency” for yourself – an amount of over-run you expect. Then you can plan as you see fit, and absorb small departures without stressing your client by going back for more money.

A stressed client is bad – less likely to return, less likely to pay promptly, less likely to recommend you.

But you do need to be really clear up front about what’s being offered, and then manage the project and deliver just that. As producer, pretty well all decisions on the production will fall to you – take charge and act like a producer. A busy client will be pleased. I invite the customer to review and sign off on script or project outline, on first edit (offline, from the old days) – they only get one – and final edit, or online – again, they only get one. Changes requested at offline can appear in the online: changes after the online will normally incur extra costs (unless it was a goof from my side).

Changes in project definition once the project’s started – it’s going to happen. If it’s possible to reorganise on the new spec without extra costs, then that’s the way to go (in my opinion). But if changes are going to stress the budget, point that out right away, and if necessary back that up with a speedy written quote for the extra costs . It’s perhaps not surprising that potential changes swiftly sort into “essentials” – quite rare, and usually readily paid for, even if by trimming other parts of a project to keep costs down – and “whims and luxuries”, not wanted if they are to cost more.

Either approach works – and with a bad customer (or bad supplier) either can go sour. If (you or) your client’s main motivation is to take advantage of the other party and get something for nothing or as little as possible, this is a client (or supplier) to avoid.

You need to be trying to “read” your negotiating partner up front – and work out a deal that gives you both what you want – good work at a price you can both live with. There a plenty of people out there it is better to turn away. The ones that want great value and quality but will cut you a fair deal (and pay on time) deserve your very best attention: you want them as regulars.

[Mike Smith]

Being rude to people who are trying to help you is a strange approach, even when you don’t like what you read.

But for me a day is 8 hours. For some it is 10 hours. I’d guess David’s suggestion used a number somewhere in that range. Choose your own preference, but no doubt you are aware that if you give an open-ended “day rate” there are those around who will take that as licence to use you for 12, 16, 18 hours.

A proper (day or hourly) rate is what someone will agree to pay (you).

A corporation will often agree to a higher rate that a non-profit – and expect speedier performance, better service and higher finished standards.

As a beginner, an hourly rate is tricky concept: as you are learning on the job, what proportion of your hours spent are truly and fairly chargeable? Would you pay a carpenter to learn how to perform his (her) trade, on your time? You’ll want to balance out an appropriate “pro” rate with the extra time you are spending – or your client will want to.

The hours approach can be misleading in another way, too – is the value (or price) of an object defined by the nature of final object, or the many (or few) hours taken to create it ..?

Or more directly, if one person takes 2 days to edit 2 hours of material into a polished 5 minutes, and another person takes 30 days to do the same thing, can the person who takes longer expect to charge more and keep customers coming back?

[Mike Smith]

Aren’t gif files always 8-bit or less ..?

[Mike Smith]

Would this help at all ..?
https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4106
This from the Adobe site ..
“Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 has the ability to edit existing Arabic text layers. For technical reasons, the functionality as it is in Photoshop CS4 can only be exposed if you already have an Arabic text layer created. If you would like to create Arabic text layers, you can start with this template that we have provided containing a single type layer from which you can edit (the type layer contains a font type that supports all languages). Please let us know if you encounter any issues.”

[Mike Smith]

Have you tried installing an Arabic font? A search will provide free options for most op systems – if your software supplier doesn’t offer arabic support direct as an add-on / download.

[Mike Smith]

You could try a plugin called Freeform (if it’s still around) or Zaxwerks’ 3D layer warp.

[Mike Smith]

Smile sweetly, tell the client you are happy to send copies of source material, but you will have to charge for the tapes and transfers. You delivered what you were contracted to – they paid you. Now they want more. They are not working for nothing – and they are lucky if you haven’t wiped or reused the tapes – there will be a lot more of that as solid-state location filming media become more widespread.

[Mike Smith]

You could always try https://celtx.com/, which people speak well of, or of course open office https://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Though you won’t need me to point out that pretty well any word processor will do … what makes a script (or a video) sing is the quality of the ideas, not what it was done on!

[Mike Smith]

You have hooks in the help menu in the software, linking people back, no?

[Mike Smith]

Procoder might do what you need.
https://desktop.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/ProCoderSW/index.php