[Nick Griffin]

I played conga and triangle…

More Cowbell!!

[Nick Griffin]

Michael –

While Tim has provided some good information, I think this question could generate some additional good responses if you cross post it on the “Audio Professionals” COW. I, for one, would like to see what some of those guys have to say. Audio leaders like Peter & Ty deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis.

[Nick Griffin]

What a thread! And to think this is the week I chose to lay low and take a vacation.

There’s a small amount of over-reaction here to Jackie’s comments. She has said that some might perceive her as bitter for these comments, not that she is bitter. She cites statistics that, while may they may not coincide with the ways we run our respective businesses, are, in the macro sense, quite likely to be accurate. Jackie has thrown out a little-discussed topic and open discussion of it is good for our extended community. So discuss it and stop reading motivations into Jackie’s posts which may not be there.

None of us with Y chromosomes know what it’s like to be the only female in an all male work environment. Personally I don’t think that should matter in the least, but then as a white male I’ve rarely been in the minority in any work situation. Feminism has been slowly improving the business world’s acceptance of women in almost every job role, but just because Walter, Brian, Steve, Bruce & I don’t take advantage of gender-based pay inequities doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

So why is editing predominately male? Probably because of the same sort of past prejudices and biases which kept some scientific and mathematic professions predominately male. More boys were drawn to technical things than were girls. Good topic for discussion, so lets het back to discussing it.

Before I go back to the next to last day of my vacation, let me throw out a thought: I seriously doubt that in the decades long relationship between Martin Scorsese as Director and Thelma Schoonmaker as Editor has he ever given even a passing thought to her gender as it relates to her work. His primary concern has to be her skill. And just in case anyone has forgotten, with multiple Oscar’s on her shelf, Thelma is at the top of this male-dominated profession.

[Nick Griffin]

And THAT, boys and girls is why we’re so proud to have David as the newest host here on the business COW.

Great answer, David! Well thought out and especially well expressed.

It’s always much easier to make friends with people you do business with than it is to do business with friends. The best protection is to communicate a LOT about what each of you expects and how the deal should work. Clarify assumptions so both parties know what to expect.

[Nick Griffin]

Because I’m a child of the sixties I’ll answer “Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.” I don’t think there’s a right or wrong, just what works best and is fastest for you. That said, here’s what I do:

1) Set fairly casual ins and outs on digitizing. Not always able to do this on the fly with tape rolling, but try to anyway.

2) After digitizing review redundant takes and if there’s no possibility of needing something from it, delete the redundants. This might also be a place for creating additional category bins as a means of keeping organized.

3) Go through the clips setting precise ins and outs. At this stage the edit has more than begun in my head and I may add notes to clips to help later.

4) On a “workspace” timeline start playing with the more interesting and/or challenging scenes. If they work they can later be copied over as whole scenes to the real program timeline.

5) Create the program timeline, first inserting bars, tones and (if needed) space for a slate.

6) Lay in working music. If narration runs the full length and/or sets the pace of the show I’ll put it in here, at the start. Music does not have to be right at this stage as there’s almost always a need to edit to length anyway.

7) Start building on the programs timeline from the beginning, brining over complete scenes from the workspace as needed.

8) Slip, slide, re-trim as needed.

Hope this, one man’s process, helps with your thinking. And congratulations on using the changeover to re-think your process. Smart thinking on your part.

[Nick Griffin]

Umm, are we talking about the same thing? DV or not, $300 for a half is not approachable in major metro areas (that I’M familiar with). Try $700 to $900, because most pros hate half days as it’s nearly impossible to work two half days. If booking through a service like Crews Control a half day will likely cost $1,050.

Can it be gotten for less? Probably. But as with all things, you get what you pay for. My idea of a full light kit is at least a softbox, a bounce, a hairlight, a side light and maybe a background light. The $300 guy’s idea maybe one or two lights aimed at the subject.

Sorry if this puts a crimp in your business plan, Just telling it as I see it.

[Nick Griffin]

Mark is completely correct on this Brendan and those of us with things to lose (houses, bank accounts, etc.) are best to avoid any activities which put them at risk. Even when you prevail in our legal system, once legal fees and lost productivity are factored in you can still be a HUGE loser.

What I ESPECIALLY think is brilliant is Mark’s idea: “… referring the person to their own agency’s legal affairs office to get a “permission slip” assures they never come back. 🙂 Not just in governmental organizations like Marks, this should work in corporate, too. Just say, “Sure, no problem. Just get me a note from your lawyer saying that this is OK.”

Of course some of us who are in business would prefer that the client does come back and not off on an endless search for the ever illusive legal “permission slip.”

[Nick Griffin]

Lem-
Congratulations on your first post to the Cow! One suggestion, though, you’ll get better results posting this in the FCP forum. The Biz COW is where you post questions about filling the chairs for the clients.

BTW, personally I’m a big fan of Anthrocart stuff. Clever stuff and not all that expensive compared to how well it’s designed and made.

[Nick Griffin]

#1. How do you bill for digitizing on an hourly or daily basis vs. your standard editorial rate? Is your answer universal for all clients or on a case by case basis?

I strongly agree with other posters on this. Digitizing IS editing. If somebody else does it for you they invariably grab too much or too little. Way too many choices are made at this stage for it to be anything other than part of the editing process. My brain is fully engaged while marking ins and outs. Even how I name a clip is part of my editing process. When we add notes to the clip, even more so.

Let me go out of order on the questions, because it will make more sense explaining what we do. #3. If you start a job on a daily rate based on your standard rate card, would you consider adjusting to a weekly rate if the job stretches out to five days?

We’re not in the “video business.” We’re in the “client” business and video is one of the services we provide. As such we don’t really have any walk-in hourly or daily work. Everything is usually part of a much bigger project which is part of a much bigger and deeper relationship.

It’s very unusual for us to have a project which was expected to last a couple of days turn into a week or more. Extremely difficult too as we would almost always already have something scheduled in what might otherwise be overflow time. More likely that we would need to find time later in the month. UNLESS it’s something which is our fault, then I’ll move stuff and work early, late and weekends to fix the problem.

That’s not to say that plenty of things haven’t run over but, because we are the producers and not the studio for hire, it’s under our control. And while I’ve put “packages” together in the past as a way of securing a large project for less than the normal hourly rate, that practice has been dormant for the past several years because a) it hasn’t been necessary, and b) it attracts the wrong kind of clients – ones who don’t want to pay what things fully cost.

#2. How do you bill for holding vs. working? The client comes three hours late because their dog stubbed a toe, do you/can you charge the client full rate? What are the variables you consider in making your decision? Would you ever let them slide?

This one gets me hot under the collar. Most of the people we work for are very respectful of our time. This applies to meetings and phone conferences, too. But occasionally there’s someone who thinks his schedule is the only one that means anything. The first time he’s late it’s on me. From then on for him a 10 am start means 10:00:00 AM on the billing clock. I haven’t done it yet, but I’d like to start charging MORE because I’m sitting there steaming.

For something out of the client’s control I’ll usually let it slide, or in some cases charge for just the first hour using the logic that we were able to move on and do other things, so the time was not wasted.

…feel free to let loose with your ideas…

Almost all of this comes down to being selective about the people and companies you chose to do business with. Years ago I dealt with an ad agency who would only pay for the last session when they were desperate to schedule the next one. Forget 30, 60, 90 days. That wasn’t even in their vocabulary. So the obvious yet unstated message was that I was going to be screwed on the last job. Here’s a surprise. I was. So, when I can identify them, I don’t do business with people like that anymore.

The parallel of this is the crisis client. Know the type? “Yes, I know we’ve known about this for months, but you’ve got to drop everything else because our project is DUE THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW!!”

This sort of thing would happen on nearly every single project — even when I was prompting them throughout the year. (They were always involved in some other crisis and would get back to me after it was handled. Invariably this would be once our next project came into crisis range.

At first the answer was to simply charge more and at first they didn’t care that they were paying a 50% premium. It was the company’s money, not theirs. But after a few years of this someone in the company had the idea that we were too expensive and they should be able to get a better deal elsewhere. OF COURSE THEY COULD. The other people probably didn’t know that everything would be rush and a last-minute, drop everything else situation. Someday they may be ready to change suppliers again. I’m not pursuing their business.

Well, didn’t mean to ramble on, but David, you did ask.

[Nick Griffin]

Bruce-

OK This is all MUCHHHHH easier said than done, but:

Get yourself paid at multiple points of the process. Being compensated as the writer and director happens in the production phase regardless of what happens at the back end. Likewise being paid as the editorial house and/or supervising producer in the middle should not be an issue.

As the Exec. Producer you can arrange to have a minimum compensation at the back end, but the degree to which you can make this show attractive to investors likely will be directly related to how they see you sharing the “profits” with them. This is where you want your investors focusing on — how you be dividing the net at THIS stage, with the expenses of the production already taken from the gross. If you, as Exec. Producer and production company put up everything in the hopes of winning big, you risk losing big. If you limit your risk to the back end part of the project you are at least partially protected from getting seriously burned.

If this is based on a single industry is it possible to first go to the biggest single player in the industry and see if they would like to either sponsor the whole thing or at least be the lead sponsor? Having one big boss is almost always simpler than multiple bosses, each thinking you need to answer their concerns. Then again, it can be even better when you go in the complete opposite direction and have so many sponsors that none of them get the idea that they can control the project.

And one other thought: write the sponsorship agreement yourself but have an attorney make sure that it’s a contract. And that, by the way, is a front end expense.

Having spent the last couple of years on something very similar to this, and having within the last couple of months FINALLY lined up enough financing to begin production, I can say one thing from experience: Unless you truly trip and fall into the shaft of a gold mine, when you look back on the whole process you likely will see that it is nowhere near as profitable on an hour by hour basis as is simply being hired to write, shoot and edit a job. At least that’s been my experience with industry-specific projects. I’m sure that entertainment projects which appeal to the general public are far more profitable, otherwise there would be considerably fewer movies and TV shows.