[Timothy J. allen]

As long as the home office is separated from the rest of your house (no noise problems or disturbances while you are conducting business), run it out of your house.

You should still have a couple of options to rent “nice” space in a hurry for specific meetings, etc., but the expense of running an office downtown when you are the only person in the office isn’t worth it, if clients aren’t coming to the office on a regular basis. I’d put some of that money you save into your web presence, and some targeted marketing. (Or better yet, add to that nest egg so you’ll have it when there’s no question what you want to use it for!)

The stigma of working from a home office will continue to diminish in the next few years, as major corporations and even government agencies are more open to telecommuting.

I’m encouraged to work from home during times that I don’t need access to certain facilities. It saves the company on energy bills, and I often actually end up starting “tangible work” earlier and working later – just because I don’t have the commute time.

My wife was actually one of the first telecommuters for First Tennessee Bank about a decade ago. Since her work didn’t involve outside customers, she was able to carry on business for years from home – and 95% of the people she worked with never knew she telecommuted from a home office that was halfway across the country. The business was handled professionally, so no one had any reason to complain.

One of the most successful music and TV producers I know runs his business out of a studio attached to his house. The space he has set up is nice and relaxing, with kind of a “zen” feel to it. He feels more creative there than he would in most studios – and so do I when I visit.

[Timothy J. allen]

I’m late on this thread, but as someone who produces brochures in addition to videos these days, I would add that you may be able to get the .pdf versions of the brochures and use that as your base media to manipulate rather than a scan from paper.

These days, I wouldn’t think of producing a brochure without also providing a .pdf version of it for the client.

[Timothy J. allen]

There are a number of options, depending on budget. What editing systems do you currently use? Also, it is a Mac or PC based facility?

[Timothy J. allen]

I’m afraid I might be misunderstanding Bob, when he said as a freelancer “there is no contract”. I think a contract, or a less formal agreement, is really only worthwhile as a communications tool – to remind people what the agreement is. That means it’s not worth much if you are dealing with unethical people.

Hopefully, you are dealing with ethical people – the kind that a handshake would be “word enough”. Even so, I think that if they expect to have a “preferred client” status with you or if you expect to be a “preferred vendor” with them, it would be helpful for you to draft a Memorandum of Agreement that spells out what that means and outlines some basic understandings between you and this particular client.

I’d present this Memorandum of Agreement as a tool to streamline the freelancing process with you for EACH job.

I’d talk with them before drafting the agreement and find out things such as…

• Are they going to expect you to be available with X days notice?
• Can you use the materials you produce in your own advertising for your freelance services?
• What are the terms for payment?
• Are they going to guarantee a minimum amount of work within a certain period of time?

None of this has to be outlined, and I’d keep this agreement as simple as possible – but if they want to put any particular constraints on you, you need to be compensated and that agreement needs to be documented in some written fashion. Above all, you don’t want to agree to anything that would impede your ability to effectively market yourself to additional clients.

As they try to gain things from you, (for instance, for cost efficiency, it wouldn’t surprise me if they expect you not to raise your rate with them for a certain amount of time) you need to be able to counter with demands that balance the scale.

[Timothy J. allen]

What’s really bad is when you get a misleading reel and interview. That’s why personal references count so much. That’s why I ask the group here and in CreativeCow’s Corporate Video Forum) when I need a freelancer in an unfamiliar area.
There’s some credibility with this site, especially with the long-timers… and even more since people had to start using real names. After 10 years of being involved with many of the contributors here, I trust their advice as much as the people I see every day.

[Timothy J. allen]

There’s less than 19,000 Editors in America? I guess they aren’t counting all of those guys with Final Cut in their garage studio that charge $50/hour as “professional Editors”. That’s ok, I guess I don’t really count them as “professional” either.

[Timothy J. allen]

I’m missing something here. Is your client planning to resell or assign license to a Final Cut Project file as a “template” timeline? It seems to me that your client should focus on trademarking the things that make the program distinctive and valuable. Once she registers the trademark, she’s given notice that others are not allowed to copy those elements without permission. She could then reassign rights to use those elements from that point.
But copyright the timeline? I’ve read the licenses for a fair amount of plug-ins and they don’t allow reassignment. I don’t have a FCP agreement handy, but offhand, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to assign rights to a project file, since Apple (and their partners) hold rights to the file format and underlying technology. The closest thing I’d see to this would be to count an EDL as a “trade secret” like a recipe, but I really doubt that would fly either.

[Timothy J. allen]

The American Marketing Association has quite a few resources, including white papers, studies, webinars, seminars, etc. Many of these are free.

Check out the “resources” tab under:
https://www.marketingpower.com/

[Timothy J. allen]

I have a drum practice pad and sticks on a desk right behind me. When I start feeling tight or tired, I take a short break and go through some snare drum exercises and warm-ups. It exercises and stretches both my muscles – and my creativity.

[Timothy J. allen]

I wouldn’t expect an architect to build a custom house for me before I put down a deposit, although I would certainly look at other houses that he designed.

Following that logic, I am happy to provide my clients with a video before they put down a deposit. It’s called a sample reel.

😉