[Nick Griffin]

[Tim Wilson] “Nick, you’re an inspiration to us all. it’s great to hear a story where the guy who SHOULD win actually DOES win.”

Puh-lease!! Mine is not a tale of good winning over evil, it’s a cautionary tale of the actual cost of time and emotion just to achieve a meager settlement with the actual net result being to further enrich a couple of law firms.

When I read here on the Biz COW about people wanting to go to court over debts owed or transgressions committed I want to give them a jolt of reality. Perhaps now I have.

[Nick Griffin]

I may be late to this thread, but I’m also probably one of the few who has literally gone to court over a client stealing an idea.

Several years ago when more of our work was in print than it is today we had a client who, while a massive conglomerate in the food industry, had traditionally shown little faith in advertising and promotion. And had, over the years, budgeted accordingly.

Then one day I was told that all of that was about to change. One of the sons of the conglomerate’s founder, and a highly placed sales executive in one of the divisions — let’s call him Junior A*hole — came to me with his vision for launching a new brand, spending healthy sums of money and “doing it up right.”

On the basis of his meetings I brought on an extremely talented copywriter, an outside art director who specialized in branding and a very senior media planner. We developed a brand concept, a catchy tag line, a unique logo and a detailed marketing plan and a “doing it up right” media plan and budget.

After several weeks of working this up I presented this comprehensive approach to Junior A*hole. It was well received but I was told, “We’ll get back to you.” Two weeks later when I again inquired I received the same answer. A month later still no decision. Mind you we were still doing small jobs for a division of this organization so I had reason to stay in contact without being a pest. Finally, after a few months had passed I was told “No. We won’t be doing that. Too much money, the old man (A*hole Sr.) will never agree to this. Just forget about it.”

Jump ahead about a year and a half, and there, sitting on the shelf of a large grocery chain, are their packages with OUR LOGO and OUR TAGLINE. The next scene is of me dashing between multiple grocery stores to confirm that this isn’t a limited market test, but apparently a widely available product. I could have driven to several other states to see just how widespread the distribution was, but surely the client would be reasonable and AT LEAST be willing to compensate us for the logo. You’d think that, right?

“What are you talking about? That was just an idea you had,” states Junior A*hole. “Ideas are free. Everybody has IDEAS. We just gave this to the people who provide our packaging and they put it on our packages.” Attempts to find a more reasonable response from others we knew within the conglomerate met with no success and I was advised to “just move on.” Which I did. To my law firm.

We filed suit based on (and here’s where my memory may not serve me fully) unfair competition based on their original mis-representation that we would be making a lot of money off the “doing it up right” media expenditure. This then proceeded through multiple depositions of both sides and it was fun watching Junior A*hole’s flop sweat under deposition questioning.

The defense attorneys came back with their claim that because some yogurt — an entirely un-related food type — in Canada (no less) used to have the same tagline (unbeknownst to me and my team) our whole suit was therefore invalid and would likely lose at trial. I proceeded to trial.

After a few hours of voi dire of potential jury members, the judge made one last attempt to push us to settle before going to court the next morning. The defense finally offered us a mid-five figure settlement and I accepted it, mostly on the basis of being a little spooked by the contention that our tagline was not original.

The sad coda to this tale of a legal battle over intellectual property is that, when all was said and done to get to that point, all but about $5,000 of the settlement was eaten by legal fees to my attorneys. And who says nobody ever wins in these kinds of lawsuits? The lawyers do EVERYTIME.

So I don’t fully disagree with the earlier posts, but I have pursued justice for having work stolen and won. Kind of.

[Nick Griffin]

If there is an actual surplus at the end of a project we reflect that as a discount in the final invoice. Far more often than not though any minor savings in one area of the budget are offset by overages in another area. Most clients, IMHO, care about the final number and that it come very close, if not right on to the amount of the original estimate. If your client wants an exact, detailed breakout of each and every little cost item… well let’s just say that’s not likely to be the only problem you’ll be dealing with.

[Nick Griffin]

All that I ever heard from Ted Williams’ appearances on news clips sounded like the golden throated DJ and not much more. The really good announcers have a range of delivery. The truly GREAT announcers, like the late Don LaFontaine that Todd mentioned, had a range wide enough that when one of his warm, smiling movie trailers for a kid’s comedy would run immediately adjacent to one of his growling trailers for an action movie it was virtually inconceivable that it was the same guy.

[Nick Griffin]

Simon-
I’m not intending to answer for Todd, just to clarify our own common practices.

For us a lot of voice work can be produced/directed in person at local audio studios or in vocal booths at post-production houses. Greater Washington DC, where we are, is the third largest market for union actors in the United States — well for voiceover work anyway. The order is New York at #1, Los Angeles #2, Washington/Baltimore #3, Chicago #4, then I have no idea where it goes from there, but assume it drops off rapidly.

The Washington market initially got this big for talent because of the many, many, many film, video and other forms of presentations produced by or for the US Government. Government contractors like the big defense contractors have been know to locally churn out a good deal of film and video. A huge number of political ads are also produced by agencies and consultants in and around greater Washington even though the majority are then run in local markets around the country. So, in essence producers like me have a plethora of local talent from which to select.

That said, when we want one of the truly unique New York or LA voices, its fairly routine for us to have the talent go to a studio in their own city and the engineer to provide a “phone patch” so I can listen in on the session and provide direction. Then the session is put up on an ftp site.

Many of Hollywood’s better actors do a lot of voiceover work, usually for a single product or single brand. For example, national car spots these days use Tim Allen, Kevin Spacey, James Spader and several others. I’ve also heard George Clooney on something in recent years, but at the moment can’t remember what it was for. Invariably these guys just go to a local studio in LA and spend an hour or two cutting a few spots. Even if they’re just working for “union scale” a spot that runs nationally as well as in selected cities can pay tens of thousands of dollars during its run.

Also fairly common with high-end voiceover people are home studios where the talent has their own really good mic (usually a large capsule like the Neumann U-87) feeding into a pre-amp/compressor rig which records to a computer while also going to a phone line patch. In the pre-internet days almost all of the home studios of the serious voice talent fed ISDN phone lines which could link directly to conventional studios/post houses. (The internet has pretty much killed that.)

One of the better voices I use does so much work as the “booth announcer” for a dozen or more TV stations around the country all from his home studio that he doesn’t want to, or have the time to, be directed. He just cuts multiple versions and happily will do “pick-ups” for anything his clients want changed. (As the “booth announcer” he’s the voice that says in a station’s news promo, “A massive fire sweeps through downtown San Francisco. Details tonight on KFOG News at 11.” Minutes later he’s cutting, “For the latest on today’s shooting in the suburbs, stay tuned to Boston’s news leader, WBZ-TV.”) This guy has what we call “great pipes,” a spectacular baritone with perfect inflection and the ability to swing between compassionate to hard sell and every point in between.

Hope this provides some perspective on the US voiceover market.

[Nick Griffin]

T2 –
Thanks for the lead on a Hal Riney sound-alike. How did Peter Coyote ever work out?

[Nick Griffin]

“best known for being a jerk”
“risking a long term relationship”
“didn’t stand in the way of securing the original deal”

There’s a common thread here that needs to be clarified. It’s the importance of being someone with whom it’s easy to do business and NOT one who erects barriers to getting the gig. You have to come across as being warm, friendly and, above all else, helpful. Once perceived in this way you can treat add-on terms and conditions as minor items. Keep your negotiations light and never been seen as “THE ARTIST” with his or her set of demands.

[Nick Griffin]

It’s hard to tell from the original post what the actual situation is with this project.

If Stephen is simply being hired to shoot and edit a product or process with minimal creative input then Mick’s contention that this is work for hire should be correct.

However if the project involves more, ie.- becoming the defacto producer and author, also known as “adding value,” then Wayne’s approach is valid. It really comes down to how much Stephen is bringing to the party and how unique and complete he can make the product he’s offering.

When I last had a situation like this I just added a sentence on geographical use to justify obtaining additional compensation based on later, wider usage. In our case the language read: “The fees outlined here are for our work for the exclusive use of (client) in North America and therefore for distribution within North America. Should at some point (client) wish to use materials created by us in other regions of the world we will be entitled to additional compensation.”

I deliberately kept this vague so the negotiation for additional usage didn’t stand in the way of securing the original deal. And, a few years later, when this company wanted to use our stuff in Europe we were able to get paid nearly 50% more on top of the original cost. May or may not work for anyone else, but did for me. Your mileage may vary.

[Nick Griffin]

Wow! Great sourcing, Mark!
But it is hard to imagine the last time a comic book made my head hurt.

[Nick Griffin]

One more detail and strong reason NOT to use Scuba gear without proper training and legitimate certification.

If you took a lung full of air, held your breath, swam to the bottom of a 10 foot deep pool, swam to the surface and let out the breath you’d been holding you’d be fine, right?

Let’s say instead of holding your breath you go down 10 feet breathing from a scuba tank and regulator. At ten feet you take a breath off the tank and, instead of exhaling on the way up, you swim to the surface holding your breath. Once you reach the surface the lung full of air from ten feet under is now 1.33 lung’s full of air and could quite possibly create an embolism — a bursting of blood vessels in your lungs. IN 10 FEET OF WATER, perhaps less, YOU COULD CREATE A LIFE-THREATENING MEDICAL CONDITION JUST FROM NOT OBEYING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Sorry for being pedantic, but this stuff is serious and amateurs, unlike many other methods of experimenting or just playing around, can easily injure or kill themselves.