[Timothy J. allen]

I had the opportunity to study with Kenny Aronoff when he was playing drums for John Fogerty. Kenny has a history of making it look easy while playing with musicians that sound simple, but are VERY serious about their performances, and very demanding on their bands.

A classically trained percussionist, and longtime member of John Mellencamp’s band. Kenny has always risen to the challenge of finding that balance between being bored (from playing so-called “simple” music) and being overwhelmed by the challenges of playing for such stringent employers. It wasn’t easy, but that is his forte now – and it’s what keeps him in demand from everyone from Jon Bon Jovi to Johnny Cash… as well as many other well-musicians that are NOT named “John”.

It’s finding that balance between those two extremes of boredom and being overwhelmed that I still find to be the best solution for burnout. That… and a good vacation to a strange land every once in a while.

A few years back, I wrote an article about burnout for Creative Cow. It expands on this line of thinking a bit.

Here is the link: https://library.creativecow.net/articles/allen_timothy/burnout.php

[Timothy J. allen]

These are priceless! Thanks for sharing, Mark.

[Timothy J. allen]

The anaswer to this lies in client demand and what you really want your business to be. Editing, producing… or real estate? Owning a shooting studio means you have to “keep it occupied”. It’s kind of like owning shopping center buildings except your timelines are much shorter. You have to keep the space “rented” to pay for it.

If you don’t mind being in the real estate business (of sorts) it can still be profitable, but your attention will have to turn from the creative to “how can I rent this space this month?”.

I have a friend in another city who rents a nice (finished walls,lots of power outlets, green room, etc.) warehouse space to other production companies when he doesn’t have it booked for his own shoots – and he rents the same space out for large, high end parties and corporate meetings. He said that he has to make sure that he covers his expenses knowing that it may only be occupied 30% of the year (including setup and teardown time, which he also bills for). In simplistic terms, this means that he has to charge more than three times his mortgage rate just to break even. He charges about four times the rate and “does ok”. But it’s a lot of stress – and it’s not the creative type of work that he got into the business to do.

So… just realize that it adds a new dimension to your business. This can be a plus or a minus for your clients and for you.

My personal opinion is the same as I would give for any other expenditures (and if you’ve been to this forum much over the past ten years you’ve heard this before) “Don’t buy unless you can’t rent”. Until then, if you need the space for specific shoots, subcontract a la cart. At the end of a fiscal year you do an analysis and find that you can save tons of money by having “a space that you can depend on”, you can always jump in then. I just wouldn’t do it until I had the data to support it. That data is paid invoices from clients that you typically bill back for renting spaces to shoot.

[Timothy J. allen]

“You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking.”

They only asked where you can drop it from without breaking – not how far it could fall without breaking. You don’t need to drop any eggs to get this answer – you can drop it from any floor without it breaking. Simply have someone catch it just below the point where you drop it. That could be on the 100th floor, or the roof, or any other floor you choose.

But if they really want to know how far it can fall without breaking, that’s easy too… You can drop it from the roof and it won’t break until it falls the full 100 stories. (Most likely it would only break when it hits the ground… not as it passes any of the other floors… unless it hits the side of the building on its way down.)

[Timothy J. allen]

Bob said “the 5th grade class will be producing shows (with McDonalds as the sponsor) while “we” debate lossless compression”

Absolutely. My daughter is a videographer for her 4th grade class. She uses a DV camera that I would have killed for back in the late 90s. I believe they school is upgrading to at least HDV shooting format later this year. They have a daily TV program in the mornings instead of the usual announcements. I think you have to be in 6th grade to actually be an Editor, but you can start reporting and scriptwriting in 3rd grade. The scary thing is that the quality is not really that far off from some in-house corporate video announcement type things I’ve seen in the past.

[Timothy J. allen]

It would probably be worth more as a tax write-off. Have you considered donating it to a school? (or a museum?)

[Timothy J. allen]

In a world where most videos have NO budget and are made with no actors – just stock music, a voice over and graphics, I sometimes long for the days when I got to have real actors props and costumes.

Thanks, Mark for curbing that longing for at least the next year or so.

[Timothy J. allen]

The reason I’m familiar with those terms is because I’ve been the client who is contracting with an animation studio to create characters that would then be used by a third party organization (in this case a federal government agency). The resulting products were broadcast on PBS stations across the country and cable networks. When we were working to get these aired, it was clear that we would need to be able to furnish clear evidence of who owns the Intellectual Property (I.P.) for anything that might be trademarked in the project. We needed to be clear about who owned those rights in order to protect the brand.

But it wasn’t about copyright, it was about trademarks.

We also respond to quick requests with established clients. In those cases, we still have a blanket “memorandum of agreement” that is signed before we commit equipment and personnel to a project. Sometimes the agreement is for “X amount of products” within “X amount of time”. That speeds things along, since the technical and artistic details for each specific product can be handled by the Producer under the basic financial and I.P. provisions of the main agreement.

I do understand that there is a line between clarifying things with the client and burdening them – or scaring them away – with paperwork. That line is different with every client and with every vendor.

Personally, I’d rather risk losing a the job from over-communicating before I’ve actually put a full crew on something than have something fall through because of a lack of communication after I’ve already committed substantial resources to a project. Usually it’s as simple as a 10-minute (or less) run through of what I think we’ve agreed to and asking the client if there are any follow up questions, concerns or clarifications we need to address regarding any of it.

It’s just rare that I see someone post to this forum wishing they didn’t have a contract with their client that spells out expectations clearly for both sides. If the contract is understood by both parties, most issues can be addressed before they ever come up. Dealing with potential misunderstandings on paper before the production starts can save time, money and client relationships.

[Timothy J. allen]

I figured out how to make the editing process hands free. Become the Producer. 😉

[Timothy J. allen]

Javier,
It’s complicated. You may own the character concept, but not the tangible expression of them. You may own the expression of them, but not the character concept. It greatly depends on what you were actually hired to do and what you gave them as part of the agreement. Even with no contract, there has to be some verbal contract.

Do you have email threads that speak to the roles and responsibilities of each party in the agreement?

Rather than approach this pessimistically, you should approach it as an opportunity to further develop the characters and their visual representation… this time with a clear contract that covers who owns what.

I’m assuming that they would need tangible representation of the characters in a different format or medium than you have already provided. If they are simply re-purposing what you have already provided to them, you may have a tougher call to make.

The big question is “How much do you value the intellectual property at stake?” It seems that it’s at least worth opening the dialog with the client, but I have to warn you that clients tend to understand these things even less than artists. That’s when they bring lawyers in to explain it to them – and a lawyer is always going to present and fight for the most advantageous position for the person who is paying them.

It boggles my mind when people don’t use contracts – or when they are in the mindset that a contract is only useful if something goes wrong. It’s not so much for when things go wrong – the best use of a contract is to ensure what “things going right” means. A contract is simply a tool for you and your clients to clarify expectations on both sides of the fence before the work starts – so that you are both happy when the terms of the agreement are met.

Apologies for the rant.
Best of luck to you!