Patrick Ortman
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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>>where we will plague them with harassing phone calls
Bob is my hero.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
>>I simply dont do bidness with folks I don’t trust.
I want to go to there…
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
Also, just my two cents- there are lawyers who will draft CAD letters without a retainer. Sometimes it costs a bit more than $50 or whatever, though. Not much more.
Patrick
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
mmmm Dante’s Down The Hatch… every Atlanta project I’ve been a part of has had a celebration there, it seems.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
What Malcolm and others have said- through word of mouth and the previous work we’ve done, primarily. When clients come to us, they almost always have been on our website- which includes all the nitty gritty stuff, like what kind of work we do, the gear we shoot on, etc. Then, we always have them fill out a project worksheet to get an idea of the scope of the project.
One of the things in our worksheet we need to know is your budget range. We’ve stopped working with prospects who refuse to talk budget with us from the start, because far too many decisions- both creative and technical- flow from the client’s budget. If a prospect thinks that by telling us their real budget they’ll somehow encourage us to rip them off… well, they’re wrong, and like Ben Folds sang “if you can’t trust, you can’t be trusted”.
The client worksheet serves as the basis for an initial meeting, either in person (much preferred by me), or virtual. Usually the client is looking at a few other companies, and that’s OK. But I’m interviewing the client as much as they’re interviewing us. When we talk, I don’t do a dog and pony show. I listen to the client, talk about their project, and do my best to get a feel for what they’re trying to do.
That meeting is important- and every time I’ve skipped my gut feelings after an initial meeting, I’ve regretted it. I’m sure it’s the same on the other side, too, when you’re looking for a good director or video production company or whatever. You need to connect with each other. We’re not pumping out assembly line stuff, or at least we shouldn’t be. Like others here have said, there are companies that do that kind of work, and they’re the ones who typically do a lot of responding to RFPs. That go to the lowest bidder. And which pump out vast quantities of suckitude.
In the end, we give an estimate. Not a creative treatment. Not a mockup or anything that reeks of spec work. Just an estimate, along with perhaps some notes on things we’ve talked about in our meeting(s).
Deciding to take on a client is a lot of work for a creative studio, even if you do your best to screen out the bad prospects, as we do. So anything that puts a barrier between us and the prospect- like an RFP does- makes it a dealbreaker for us.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
I almost want to know which agency this is so we can avoid them. Sorry, but they do seem clueless about how to get great video production work. At least they hired you, and hopefully you can guide them.
We also laugh and throw away any RFP that won’t state a budget range or have any sort of solid parameters. I don’t know how you’re going to do your job in this case and give them a RFP that’s “apples to apples”, really. I think you’ve got a lotta work ahead of you, educating the client as well as doing all you can to do your job the best way possible in this situation.
And I have to say, I think over the last 15 years we’ve not gotten a single client by answering an RFP. Like the others, here, usually an agency or client approaches us based on what we’ve done, what we can do, etc. I’ll echo some others who’ve stated that great creative projects depend on building great relationships with excellent creative studios. I don’t ever want to get a job because I’m the cheapest guy out there.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
Agree with the rest- basically a 50% rate, unless the journey’s special.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
OOPS, wrong thread…
Man, gotta keep head up, and realize that some people, many people, are fools with only short term thinking. We lost a job for a RED shoot. The quote the “other” guy gave?
$300 a day. All in. Including his final cut, too.
Homie don’t play that.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
My own small experience with entertainment industry legal boobs is they tend to write language that is fairly overreaching. I beat Big Entertainment Co. (they had spider man on their stationery! so cool!) a number of years ago, and I also won against Big Movie Company That Uses Earth As Their Logo. In both cases, the legal boobs in question were counting on us rolling over. We didn’t. They lost.
I’m pretty sure there’s entire departments of young legal eagles trying to “make their bones” by writing overreaching boilerplate or harassing small vendors. The more experienced people at both of those companies- even in the legal department- were actually pretty cool. Except for one guy, but he’s in prison now.
Now, should you send a network (or record company, even) something unsolicited? Probably not. And are there a ton of great ideas out there similar to yours? Probably. But if your stuff’s really been stolen, no matter how they became aware of it, I don’t think you should let the boilerplate b.s. on a website dissuade you from suing the thieves in question.
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company -
“And generally anything submitted unsolicited is deemed “owned” by the recipient when it’s received.”
I did not know this. Many years ago, when my band was trying to “make it”, whenever we’d send a demo out unsolicited, we’d get it returned, unopened. The record labels (remember them?) were worried about being sued if an unsolicited package was accepted, apparently. I know, what does this have to do with the film production world, right? I just bring it up because it seems… a bit odd that a pitch package or whatever would be owned by CBS if I sent it or a query letter to them unsolicited, for instance.
I know the US Mail says something is owned by you if a company sends it without you ordering it, though. Is this what you’re basing your comment on, Walter?
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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company