Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Well, we’ve done this a couple of times, and it seemed to work pretty well without much gnashing of teeth…
A couple of years ago we upped the rates in a couple of our suites… quite substantially, in fact…. from $150/hr to $225/hr. That really is a pretty huge increase (a whopping 50%), but it had been at a painfully-too-low rate for painfully-too-long, compared to what the market here will bear and considering the talent/equipment used and quality of the work.
For any brand new work with brand-new clients, it was easy… we just charged the new rate.
But for existing clients (which most of ours are), we basically deferred the rate hike for a while. I think this was early fall or so when it happened, and we explained to them individually that while we were being forced to raise our rates to the other clients in general, because they’ve been “such a good client,” that we weren’t going to spring an unexpected rate bump on them now, and that we would keep working for them at our old rate through the end of the year. I think it made them feel as though they were getting some kind of favored deal… which they actually were. It’s just that all the existing big clients were getting the same one.
We wanted to give them time to find other production sources, we explained, if their future projects didn’t have budgets that meshed with our new rates.
In the end, we didn’t have any complaints, and we didn’t lose any clients over it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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UPDATE –
Editor has discovered, via suggestion on another forum, that sequences can be re-opened if the Project Window is changed to “list” view… but they can’t be opened if the project window is in “icon” view, which is how he usually works.
This may be a bug… but a bigger overriding issue is that some CS4 patches/updates are not recommended for Matrox systems as they cause other functionality problems… and this is a Matrox AXIO LE machine.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yes, Steven… we have found another CS4 issue… not sure if it’s an official “bug” or not….
If a Premiere squence is closed, we are unable to re-open it on the timeline. And if projects are closed (changing to another project) or Premiere is closed completely, when re-opening a project only the last “active” sequence is available, and other sequences in the same project can’t be re-opened.
More details here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/3/893597T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Can only answer that by saying, not that we have found…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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On an Adobe forum it was suggested to try holding down the shift key while launching… and this actually DOES allow the program to successfully launch on our machine.
The question remains though, what, why, and how to fix it….
Wisdom still appreciated…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks all… appreciate the good advice!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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No, you, “Company C,” should NOT go to “Company B.”
“Company B” is not your client. They owe you nothing, at least not directly.
In that scenario your only client is “Company A,” which makes things more complicated since you are also their employee under a separate deal.
Going directly to “Company B” will get you nothing. Not only is it improper to do, but you’d likely get no money out of it (they’re not going to write you a check directly, because you are not their vendor, your boss is). Furthermore, it’s only going to hack off your employer.
Aside from your work as an employee, if I were you I would hesitate to do any more outside work for them (Company A) as a separate vendor unless they paid you for the work in advance. That might make your relations with them as an employee strained, but you are in a situation with unusual dynamics and I don’t think that can be avoided. They are obviously one of those clients who expect vendors to “be the bank” and take the “you’ll get paid when we get paid” attitude. I try to stay away from those types whenever possible.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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If you really wanna do that (and you might), I’d push for two extra days… minimum. You said it was a week shoot, so the extra $250 only comes to a puny extra $50 a day… which doesn’t seem like nearly enough to even take care of off-the-clock overtime they are making you work.
If they want you badly enough, they will figure out how to pay it. If this is a legit production then that little bit of extra should be peanuts to them.
If not, then unless you just really want that gig I’d just walk away and not feel bad about it… especially since an effective part of your previous “pay” was the education you received from the DP… who won’t be around this time.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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We use Tape Resources (taperesources.com), and I couldn’t recommend them any higher.
Great people, knowlegeable staff, good pricing, very friendly, super fast and free shipping. We never do it on line, though… we just pick up the phone and chat them up.
They are probably my favorite vendor of any kind that we have ever worked with.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks Walter… I will check them out.
After doing some more calling we’ve also found another source since my original post… some guy (a one-man-bander-type) who is under contract to our state’s Public Television Network and does all their captioning (as well as his own business… he’s a retired court reporter and has taken the plunge into video captioning). I don’t know how he does it, but this guy is dirt cheap… something like $85 an hour. Yes, 85 BUCKS AN HOUR. No idea how he makes a living at it… I wouldn’t watch the thing for $85… haha.
ALthough, as with the rest of life, you probably get what you pay for. We’ll check ’em both out.
Thanks!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com