[Timothy J. allen]

Grinner,
I really believe you will not only succeed at this, you’ll really enjoy it. You’ve paid your dues, and everything before this has been preparing you for this next experience.

All the crazy clients (and employers), all the overnight edit sessions, and all the technical expertise you’ve had to learn quickly to get the projects out by deadline have taught you the side of things that can’t really be taught without experience to go along with it.

Let me know if there is ever anything I can do to help.

-TJA

p.s. I hope you’ll find a way to be able to involve your whole family in your craft during this next phase of your career. Best wishes to all of you!

[Timothy J. allen]

Start from your end goal and work back.

I also bill in three segments. The reason for that is because my first priority is to sustain my business. My second priority is profit.

1. The first payment from the client (due at project initiation) covers the cost of all immediate “out of pocket” expenses for the project. This includes equipment rental, permits, freelancers etc.

It especially includes the cost of any freelance help I may hire to help me complete the job. This way, even if I don’t make a profit on the project, if something unfortunate should happen (e.g. if the client files for bankruptcy, or if there is a natural disaster) I at least can make sure that my crew is compensated for their time and effort. They are a key to my businesses success, and I make sure they can always get paid in a timely manner, even if I can’t collect the rest of the bill until 30, 60 or 90 days out.

2. The second payment (due after production wraps and at the start of post production) usually covers the cost of other longer range expenses related to the project, and other expenses not directly related to that particular project. (Taxes on income, my own marketing budget etc.)

3. The third payment covers the cost of finalizing the project and archiving – This is also usually the portion that includes my actual profit from the project, although hopefully, a small portion of profit is also part of that second payment.

The actual amounts and percentages vary with each project, but it tends to go along the 1/3 rule. Just know that the payment plan isn’t arbitrary – it’s based on my overhead.

First expenses, then profit.

-Tim

[Timothy J. allen]

I just use Microsoft Project. It can be bulky, but the guys who write the checks understand it, and it’s been through years of testing. 😉

We looked at ScheduAll many times over the years, and if I was starting from scratch, that’s what I would use.
https://www.scheduall.com/

The .mac option may work well – I haven’t tried that, but we are a PC based organization, so that option would be hard to sell here.

-Tim

[Timothy J. allen]

Actually, my original post was not related to my NASA teams… but I’m not going to assume that a similar thing couldn’t happen over time – even there.

There’s some advice you’ve given that I think would work well with any group. For instance, even with the NASA team, I think it would be worth the effort to re-examine how an administrative assistant might be able to alleviate some of the “non-production” oriented day to day task requirements so they can focus more on the types of things that attracted them to video production in the first place.

My post is related to some other corporate video groups, I’ve worked with (as a client) and it comes up because of a particular discussion I was having the other night with a Production Manager that I worked with about ten years ago. We were talking about the old days of big budgets and were discussing several challenges that we’ve seen over the years, and he commented on how easy it must be to keep a team happy if they are working on something that they believe in (for instance, a show that promotes a social cause, rather than an infomercial). He thinks that it’s easy for the NASA team to be motivated, and for the most part, I’d agree. I did, however submit that “a grand cause” in and of itself won’t sustain the day-to-day commitment of a team for an extended time.

Oh… and when I said “aging staff”, I didn’t mean physical age, I simply meant to refer to those that have been in a group long enough where “the newness” has worn off. I’m definitely not talking about physical age, and I’ve noticed that even the actual length of time that someone has been employed at a place doesn’t necessarily affect the personal motivation that they have. One person can seem burnt out of a position in less than a year, while another remains energetic after 20 years.

I’m just interested in how much motivation can be influenced by a manager and how much comes down to each person consciously deciding how they would like to react to their own particular situations. (Intrinsic motivation) The question is probably more philosophical than corporate, and I thank you both for responding.

Thanks for the links, Mike. I feel most of the teams I worked with tend to fluctuate between Maslow’s Hierarchy levels IV and V, which just goes to illustrate how fortunate I’ve been to work with the teams I’ve worked with, and on the projects we’ve created.

[Timothy J. allen]

Nick and I seem to have the same method. Music, voice, video, adjust video, adjust voice, adjust music, then rinse and repeat as desired…

Tagging onto another thing Nick mentioned, I also have to echo the importance of producing the voice over session.

Getting a CD of the session from the client is no different than getting your video footage from the client, rather than shooting it. You can probably force it to work, but it immediately paints you into a corner. (Usually the corner that’s farthest form the door – so to speak.)
It also instantly puts a limit on the quality level of the finished project.

It’s like someone hiring you to decorate their house but insisting that you use the crayon drawings their kid made at school. The clients might still love it – just like a parent likes their kid’s art work – but you won’t ever want to use it as an example to potential clients of the quality level of your work.

[Timothy J. allen]

TK said “remember daisy chaining 25, 50, and 64 pin SCSI drives together to make your NLE work with all your external storage”

Thank you sir for bringing up such a painful memory.

😉

[Timothy J. allen]

JJ,
Mark S. is probably right on target… they don’t want to spend the kind of money that you are worth.

Having said that, there may be another issue. They may simply think that your personality doesn’t fit with the rest of their team as well as another candidate.

That’s not necessarily a slight on you. It may feel bad that you aren’t “invited into the club”, but who wants to be a member of a club that doesn’t value your natural talent. It’s really better for them to say upfront that you aren’t the best fit and give you a chance to go ahead and find a team that does gel with you.

The alternative of working for (and with) them might be getting a paycheck, but at the expense of having the life sucked out of you and not enjoying your day to day work. Nothing will kill your creativity and talent faster than working in a place that’s incongruent with your personality, style and goals.

It may be that they think that you would not be happy and would probably move on as soon as you found a position that would fulfill your creative and financial needs better than they could. They don’t want to invest the time and money getting you “up to speed” with their workflow and culture only to have you leave within a year or so.

Of course the third possibility is that they already had someone else in mind (a friend of a friend perhaps?) and were only giving you the interview so they can say they did a real search for the position.

Understand that recruiting is difficult on both sides. No one wants to mess up the hiring decision because making the wrong choice can really have long term effects on people’s lives.

Have patience. Wouldn’t you feel worse if you had a mediocre reel and were hired to do a mediocre job at a mediocre company? The money might make it o.k. in the short term, but it’s much more fun to work at a place where you feel that you have an opportunity to grow and get better.

Find a place where most everyone who works there is BETTER at what they do than you are. Learn from them, share what you know with them, and enjoy being a part of things that become bigger and better than any of you could create alone. Then you will truly be able to look back knowing that you are a better artist and a more content person for being in THAT environment.

-TJA

[Timothy J. allen]

… besides YouTube’s video Editing partnership already seems to be with Adobe. (“Remixer-powered by Adobe Premier Express”)

https://www.youtube.com/ytremixer_about

Yes, it’s not a full fledged editor, but then again, youtube is not the same as your HD Home theater either.

I think Avid is simply making a cost decision based on valid market research data. It’s simply easier for customers to make contact with company reps and find out specific product news than it used to be, which makes those customers who normally attend NAB for those reasons, less likely to attend. If Avid’s purpose of having a visible presence at NAB is connecting with current and future purchasers (notice I said “purchasers”, not “users”, they have several options available these days.

CBS is not attending the National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE) conference this year. Traditionally, the NATPE conference has been touted as “the place where distribution deals are born”. CBS simply feels that they don’t have a need to put that kind of money into the NATPE convention this year. Where are they putting the money they saved? They are trying their best to get a jump on their competition in figuring out how to how to “monetize” web distribution of their content.

I see Avid’s situation as similar. Like many vendors of whatever product, they are simply trying to focus their limited marketing resources on connecting with the specific portion of their customer base that will provide the most return on investment. Just like everyone else, they are trying to avoid spending time on the grinders and more on the folks who will actually give them increased revenue streams.

[Timothy J. allen]

From what I can tell, it seems WAY easier to have a show “picked up” if it is already complete and pretty much “ready-to-air” (or at least a substantial portion of it is complete and ready for viewing before it is sold.

I’m guessing that like most other industries, it’s more attractive to a broadcast or cable network to purchase a known product (meaning a tangible video that is at or at least near completion) versus an unknown product (e.g. an idea, concept, treatment or script for the show, but with no tape for anyone to see yet.)

This is also why networks tend to go with directors that are proven to be able to bring a quality show to completion – on time and under budget. They have a better bet than they would have investing in an unknown.

Licensing rights to air a show, or financing production on a program seems to be just as much about minimizing risk for the network as it is about providing programming that resonates with the audience.

It appears that you were able to offer them that combination of minimal financial risk and compelling content.

Congratulations! Very well done!

[Timothy J. allen]

The last time we hired, we had tons of applications and ended up watching dozens of demo reels. To me, when hiring an editor, the reel is just as important as the resume. The other responses are spot on… you want the reel to leave them wanting to talk with you (in person) about how you actually did the work. I don’t care whether someone uses Final Cut, Avid or Media 100 to cut, but I do need to know that they can get up to speed on the equipment I have – without excuses.

As far as “overqualified” goes… we had several “overqualified” people apply at NASA the last time we hired. That tended to mean one or both of two things… Number 2 was that they were expecting WAY more money than our budget allowed. When they expected to get twice my salary coming in the door, I knew they just wouldn’t be happy with what we could really afford to pay them.

The other, which is probably more important, is that we needed someone who could be happy doing the “mundane” edits as well as the more “artistic” shows. I didn’t want to hire applicants who made it obvious that they would only be happy producing and editing extremely high end programs. They needed to fit in with the rest of our team, and be willing to pitch in at all levels.

Some of our applicants seemed to think that NASA was a place with hardly any deadlines, all the best equipment in the world, huge budgets and no “real” client pressures. Sorry to say, but that’s simply not true at any production facility that needs to sustain itself. We needed applicants that weren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and dive in, whether it’s an Emmy quality show or a quick-turnaround Video News Release B-roll reel. “Overqualified” was a term we used to try to say politely that they just probably wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the team. (Or if their ego seemed to be bigger than their reel, resume, or references justified.)

If anyone who applied at JSC last time we posted for jobs is reading this, I’m not talking about you… 😉