Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I hire talent with these parameters all the time.
The bottom line is, these days actors are hungry. So are their agencies. Chances are, if you say “Well I have to go with buyout talent, and we only have XXXX to spend. But thanks for your time anyway”… you’ll find them changing their tune pretty fast.
I never ever even ask a dayrate anymore. I already have a budget, and I’ll call an agency (or talent directly) and tell them who I want and what our dayrate will be. I’ve never (at least not yet) had an actor or their rep turn down a gig based on the pay we offer. Occasionally I’ve had one give me “Hmmm, could you possibly do….” and offer a higher rate. I’ve always simply told them I’m sorry, the budgets are what they are, we’d love to use your talent but I understand. They’ve never not taken the role anyway.
Talent/agents want to lock you into 13 week cycles, residuals, travel, per diem…. but 9 times out of 10 they will simply take what you offer (as long as it is reasonable).
As an example, when we put out casting calls, we always specify that while we accept submissions from anywhere we hire “as local”… i.e., our dayrate is our dayrate and there is no additional payment for travel, accommodations, or a per diem. And our deals are always buyout. That has never seemed to cut down on the number or quality of submissions I get. We are in Huntsville Alabama but I regularly get submissions from reasonably far away from actors willing to work under those parameters. I have two actors coming in next week from North Carolina under that deal.
But to be fair… I do pay pretty darn well. Most of them are very glad to get it.
Sounds like you might be working with a smaller agency, or one that is not too familiar with film work (maybe they deal mostly with models, not actors), and definitely not for the commercial world. Unlike production companies (and models), actors typically do not offer “half day” rates… for an actor, a day’s a day, and an hour’s a day. Their suggestion of a 5-year run is also a clue. These days it’s unusual to get a five-week run for a commercial production. A spot with a five-year life would be unheard of.
We also, unless we absolutely have to (and sometimes we do), do not hire union talent. Well, actually often we do, but we don’t hire them as union talent. And it’s not at all a money thing, because we almost always pay substantially more than scale, anyway. The situation is, while we are a creative agency and often do a lot more than the production nuts and bolts of a campaign… we are not an advertising agency. The important distinction is that we do not place advertising. Therefore, when it leaves our shop where it runs or how long a client chooses to use it is out of our control. We don’t want to be chasing union paperwork (and climbing the red tape nightmare) for a product that we don’t even “own” anymore (nor are getting paid for). I’ll only hire union talent when I know a commercial only has a short life, 13 weeks or less.
Make a fair offer, stick to your guns for what you need (the buyout, etc.), and I’m willing to bet your offer will be accepted. If they don’t, there’s plenty of talent out there who will.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “We sit in Aeron knock-offs now”
Oh you need the real deal, my friend. Honestly, your spine will thank you.
And when you are filling out the requisition paperwork you can sneak through that Noguchi, too….
https://store.hermanmiller.com/Products/Noguchi-Table
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Was curious enough to look ’em up… these are our exact chairs…
Base price is $689 but they way we have them configured (tilt, adjustable arms and back support, etc.), they come in at $929. Again, not cheap… but worth it.
Those are Herman Miller’s prices, resellers might have them for less.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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We swear by the Herman Miller Aeron chairs in our suites.
I worked for years in a gawd-awful hundred-buck chair from Office Depot, just not knowing any better. Finally got the Aerons about four or five years ago, and the difference is night and day.
I was directing a shoot in San Francisco a few years ago we were in their big 911 call center… and there were rows and rows of Aerons. I was surprised that what is no-doubt a budget-conscious government organization would be popping a thousand bucks each on a chair, but for people who sit all day they are worth every penny.
Fortunately, I think they are actually a little less expensive now. 10 year warranty, if I recall the sales pitch.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, sadly Tom that happens in business all the time.
That project didn’t go to the other production company because of money, not at all. It was purely personality driven. The copywriter wanted to work with the other production company, and it wasn’t an important enough issue for the CD to stand up for Richard. There was definitely jockeying and office politics going on there… and Richard got to waste his time being a pawn.
This is why I hate budgets, almost never “bid” on something, abhor any kind of “government work,” and virtually never respond to RFPs.
We do good work. We are also expensive. You’d pay a heckuva lot more for our work in NY, LA, or Atlanta… but here in our little city we are by far the most expensive game in town (we actually started 17 years ago as by far the cheapest game in town…. but hey, things change). We will never win a bidding war and we will never be any client’s lowest-cost option. We know that.
My philosophy has always been that people hire us because of our work, not because of our price… and those are exactly the clients we want. We don’t want the ones that are looking for a low-ball deal, they don’t do the kind of work that we want to do, and are a general pain in the neck to boot. I’m not calling what we do “art” by any stretch, but just as an analogy if someone is looking to get their portrait painted and their main concern is who can paint it the cheapest, then they are typically not who we want to work with.
The only consolation for Richard is that he did nothing wrong, because there was no “right.” He could have given a flat number, or he could have itemized every penny. Doesn’t matter. He could have been 10K higher, or half the price. Didn’t matter. Someone at the agency simply wanted to work with the other company (for whatever personal or creative reason), and that was the end of the story.
It’s been interesting to hear how other people itemize budgets…. or don’t. But in this case I don’t think it mattered one bit. That wasn’t the issue.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Little confused… what’s funny about it?
And… yes.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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This will probably stun people (and no doubt will get labeled as a poor business practice), but we hardly itemize our estimates for commercial productions at all. Sometimes none.
Usually we will just give a flat “guesstimate” number and mention that it includes whatever it’s going to need… such as concepting, writing, meetings, casting, talent, voice talent, location fees, props, wardrobe, meals, music rights, craft services, transportation, and the list goes on, varying according to the production needs, of course. Usually it will make mention of how many shoot and edit hours that includes, but not always. Sometimes we just throw out a number.
Now in our justification of that… we don’t have tons and tons of random clients, and a new client doesn’t crop up all that often. Most of ours are the same dozen or so advertising agencies that we’ve worked with over and over again for almost 20 years. Most of them know exactly how we work, trust us not to gouge them, don’t try to unnecessarily scrimp, and can pretty much guess what something will cost before they even give us a job.
We’re lucky that our biggest/best client trusts us and doesn’t even WANT to know the “gory details,” as Joe put it. He likes to say “I don’t need to know how the sausage is made, just make it taste good.” We’re also exceedingly lucky that this guy knows the value of time and never even asks for so much as a phone call or meeting without saying “Ok, start the clock.” He’s one of those that just gets a flat number… and honestly, he often doesn’t even get it in advance. We’re in pre-prod for a series of commercials for him right now, and he hasn’t even mentioned what they might cost. He knows we’ll treat him fair because we’ve worked with him for so long. If we start gouging him (which we won’t), he’ll start asking for upfront numbers sooner, or even itemized estimates.
Every once in a while (maybe once every year or two) we’ll get a brand-new client that needs an estimate broken down to pretty much every penny… and that’s always a nightmare that leads to micromanaging and haggling on every single thing….
“Do we really need a makeup artist?”
“I don’t think this will take that many meetings.”
“Maybe instead of a professional actor we’ll just use my brother Bob.”
“How could it possibly take two days to shoot a commercial? It’s thirty seconds.”You know the drill.
I think we are probably exceptionally lucky… but my own advice would be to itemize as much as you need to get a job (and to protect yourself later), but not to over-itemize any more than you have to. I won’t discredit Joe’s advice at all, though, and it has a lot of merit in that it gives you wiggle room to show what will be cut if you need to bring in a lower number. Personally though, what works best for us is to keep it as simple as possible.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah I’ve been a fan of the Edelkrone’s slider design for quite a long time, pretty innovative.
Before ProMedia brought out the curved slider we were seriously considering Edelkrone… wicked cool design, looks well made, and I thought their prices were unbelievably low. At that time though they weren’t offering their “heavy duty” version (catering more to the DSLR crowd) and I was a bit afraid that my usual camera setup would be overweight for it, so we were also considering the “Parallax” system for Kessler Sliders… it pans like the Edelkrone but does it purely mechanically rather than electronically, and can take a lot more weight.
But really they’re two completely different tools though and do different things. The Edelkrone (and Kessler) will help you follow-pan, but that was never an issue for us. Our biggest problem is that (depending on the circumstances) I like to shoot wide-open a lot and sometimes that means DoFs as shallow as an inch or so. With a straight slider like the Edelkrone (or any other linear slider) a razor sharp focus at the center point can be quite soft with the camera at either end because, obviously, the camera is farther away from the subject… the only way to combat that (without pulling focus) is to keep the distance the same with curved track (or now, a curved slider).
The Edelkrone is very cool though, and I still might give it a try for other applications. I don’t own any of their gear but they have some neat stuff… most of it is QUITE inexpensive too and looks to be well made. They used to have (guess they still do) some follow-focus gear that I wouldn’t mind trying out.
I always wondered where the company was because they take great pains on their website NOT to say where they are, other than “European,” no locators in their contact info at all… and the dude who is always in their videos has a very indeterminate accent. I did a WHOIS search on their domain name though and it was, if I recall, registered in Turkey.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Turns out they ARE selling it now and it IS on their website…
https://www.promediagear.com/PMG-DUO-32-Inch-Video-Slider-Carrying-Case_p_172.html#
My numbers weren’t exactly right, but in the ballpark… they sell it for $600.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Rick Wise] “I would think having a variable color-temp light would be most useful”
For sure… and for that I would heartily recommend the little Switronix TorchLED…
I have one, although I’ve rarely used it as an on-camera light (I usually use it as a hair light, or to give a little background kick somewhere… although I had to rig up a gadget to adapt its shoe to fit a regular 5/8 baby pin).
It’s little, inexpensive, VERY punchy, runs a loooong time on its battery, and is fully bi-color. Half the LEDs are daylight balance, half tungsten… and each set has a dimmer knob (and they will go down to legitimate zero) so you can pretty much dial in whatever exact color combo looks good.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
