[Nick Griffin]

This has been discussed here several times. Here’s one of my recent posts on the subject from January 2nd.

For me I typically want to “black box” the estimate to avoid having a client try to pick them apart. For example, “Hey, I see that you’re charging us $7 each for 50 DVDs. We’ll take just one and duplicate the rest ourselves.”

So rather than sharing the spreadsheet with all of its individual costs my estimate will be divided into categories. For example, for a 5 minute finished show:

Pre-Production & Field Production
– Scriptwriting (based on existing printed materials)
– Location set-up & site coordination
– 1 Day shoot incl. Director/Cameraman incl. all lighting and support equipment,
– Producer, Grip, Recording Media

Post Production
– AFTRA voiceover actor & union fees,
– Voice-over recording session,
– Licensed Production music,
– Scene transfer & shot logging,
– Non- linear editing (Suite & Editor/Director),
– Off-line EFX & titling (Opens/Closes/etc),
– Master to QT Files
– Downsample & Compress for web delivery

DVD Authoring
– Compression / Mastering,
– Title Design,
– Messenger/ FedEx to Dupe House,
– 50 DVD duplicates with printed label

Total Cost:
$X,XXX.00 (plus TBD travel expenses)

This is showing the client that there’s more to the production than they typically have thought of and helps create the impression that there’s sound reasoning behind the final cost.

What’s the exception? It’s really a play it by ear thing, but on occasion there are clients who fancy themselves as the producer and feel the need to be involved in all of the cost decisions. Many times it’s also useful to have the spreadsheet available as a way to demonstrate how changes the client makes will affect the final cost.

My two cents. Everybody’s different. Hope this helps.

[Nick Griffin]

[Jeremy Doyle] “After seeing Avatar, I agree that you are right.”

My thinking exactly. Once they’ve seen the big city, how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm? 3D could turn out to be the jump start for Blu-Ray and its data capabilities that everyone’s been waiting for. Sure the prices of everything will come down as adoption rates reach critical mass, but I won’t be happy until I can get the 96″ 3D screen.

[Nick Griffin]

[Greg Ball] “His answer was “This question is not relevant”.”

Oh. One of those. That sounds like someone who truly is holding you at arms length and treating you as just another “vendor.”

(Maybe Suszko and and a few of his boys could pay him a visit.)

Let us know how it turns out anyway.

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] “As a guy that makes some of those videos for the “Corrupt state of Illinois” as my living, I take a little umbrage at your dig, friendo.”

Oh, boy!! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! (We need a good one about now.)

Ned, are you going to let Mark say that about your looks?

Mark, are you going to just sit by and let Ned imply that about your profession?

[Nick Griffin]

[Bob Zelin] “if I needed a plumber or locksmith, I would STILL use the Yellow Pages.”

A couple of years ago I might have agreed. But Google has built into its intelligence the ability to localize users based (I believe) on their IP address. So if I type in plumber, it gives me a list of local plumbers as top choices. So I quite literally NEVER check the paper-based yellow anything anymore. (And for plumbing I call my friend Joel.)

[Nick Griffin]

How come when I enter the code the website still wants $150 from my credit card to complete the registration process?

[Nick Griffin]

Greg-

You’re still in the position (in their minds) of trying to sell them something rather than help them get it for the best value. Granted it’s seldom easy to make this work, but it’s the best approach when you can do it.

I’ve written about this here before many times in the past. So often when people are shopping our services they are treating what we do as a commodity — like something being purchased of the shelf or out of inventory. You have to break that mentality and get them to view you as their partner, someone who is helping them pull the parts together on a complex and custom project.

Ask a LOT of questions. Ask them if they can point to any examples of things they like, ideally something on your reel or another program of yours that they’ve seen. Get them talking and talking a lot. I also agree with Ned. If they’re asking for more than 4 other bids your chances go down excrementally (pun intended).

Here’s where I disagree with the others. If your best protection is to “bid high, very high” it may not even be worth your time to bid in the first place. Why spend the time putting together an involved bid if there’s little chance of getting the gig? It all comes down to how much they are relating to you and therefore communicating with you. There’s an old truism of competitive selling that comes into play here: If you don’t know who’s going to get the order, it’s not you.

Here’s an entirely different idea. Assuming you can build a solid rapport with your prospect and you can see that they are going with the dramatically cheaper “kid” alternative, let it be known that you could be available to serve as an outside producer to make sure that their final product comes in as expected. That has worked well for me in the past because it helps draw the attention away from how much per hour to where it should be: how the project will turn out.

[Nick Griffin]

Greg-
I think your best defense against lower cost newbies and the best way for both you and the school to match the need to the end product is to produce a pilot. Get them to make a minimal commitment, hopefully more than enough to cover the costs of your X1 rentals and second shooter, and produce a finished show.

Then have a screening of the finished product and use it as an educational opportunity for your prospective client to get an idea of why the second camera is needed, what the lights do, why the wireless lav is needed (pull out a short segment using just the cam mic if you really want to make a point), and so on. Talk through the aspects of what you have done and, wherever possible offer them options so they become part of the process of deciding what they actually want and are willing to pay for. Position yourself as helping them rather than selling them.

Now here’s the second part of why you have a screening. So you DON’T have to leave them the finished program. Not even a window burn or some other un-useable version. That just gives them the power to shop it around to the cheap guys who will no doubt say, “Sure, we can do that,” WHILE they’re learning your techniques and methodology.

If some key decision maker who must see the video can’t attend the screening, offer to schedule another one just for him or her.

This may seem like a lot to go through, but if the stakes are as high as you say they are, discounting the shooting and giving away some post production should be worth it. With the kinds of interaction and conversations it will stimulate, it’s also going to be the simplest way to get to an actual, approved budget that will let you have a full definition of your costs and expectations.

[Nick Griffin]

Marut-
It’s very normal for employees starting out and people new to their own business to not see the bigger picture and to overlook or disregard costs and operational aspects. Your comparison to the lights used while editing is an excellent example.

Who pays the bill for the electricity used by these lights? Who pays for the replacement light bulbs when they burn out? Who pays for the heat and air conditioning which makes your edit suite habitable? Does the rent or mortgage payment get suspended during the time that an FTP upload is running?

You mention that the computer is doing nothing else during the upload. Does that mean any of the costs associated with purchasing the computer magically go away for that period of time? And if its a computer to which you are assigned does your pay stop for the period of time that the FTP upload takes?

I think you should see my point by now. While some charges may be seen as ways to “nickel and dime” the client, every business has to decide what can contribute to the bottom line versus what gets considered as part of operating expense. There are many, many different ideas on this. No one way is necessarily wrong.

[Nick Griffin]

Assuming that it’s one of what are supposed to be the MANY iPhone applications which will run on iPad, there already is an application for operating Canon and Nikon stills cameras. See:

https://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=38
The bad, and IMHO really stupid part about the app is that it requires that the tether goes to a computer and then the computer communicates with the iPhone.

Hopefully they’ll figure out how to eliminate this middle step. And hopefully they’ll have something which plugs into the camera a gives wireless capability between the camera and the iPhone / iPad.