As a part of this series I’m describing a few of my early
client journeys in time-condensed form. Clients arrive at your doorstep in
different ways—and when you’re just starting out, that’s give you time to
develop your approach, and hone your skills.
Day 40: I responded to a Craigslist ad for a
videographer and script doctor.
Craigslist isn’t the best place to look for clients (they’re typically
below market jobs), but I do keep my eye on the listings. Craigslist moves quickly, so after a couple
of days I figured they’d gone with another company.
Day 128: My Craigslist
poster responded… 88 days later. He’d
had a death in the family and was just returning to the project. Which just goes
to show you never really know what’s going on for others, so it’s never
productive to get frustrated when things don’t go your way. Concentrate on making good products, and don’t
fret when things go South financially.
I immediately responded and we
set up a meeting.
Day 134: I met with the water massage
client. His place is pretty impressive: large pool, cozy decor, lots of Eastern
influences. The client was more grounded
and laid-back than I expected. He wants
two short videos that show off his individual and couples sessions, both in the
water and on the table. It’s an exciting
opportunity to be visually creative, to try and visually capture the calming sensuality
of the experience. He mentioned that he
had a web designer who also did video editing and owed him some hours; he also
had a friend that was a writer that he figured could help him with the copy. He wanted to see a quote both with and
without the editing and script doctoring.
He was clear about not wanting a lowball quote-- that I should charge
something fair-- but also that he was watching the budget.
I opted for a reasonably low-ball
budget. I short-changed the
script writing hours (he thought we could bang it out in
under 2 hours, which was unrealistic anyway); didn’t include the set-up time for the filming; and likely
chopped 30% off the editing time. Then I
offered 25% off the pre and post production elements he was considering
outsourcing to others. While it would be
edited as two separate videos, it would really be scripted and shot as one
6-minute piece. We wouldn’t do two different
interviews, for example, but rather one longer interview. Realistically, the filming would be two 8-hour
days, for a total cost of $800. The
all-inclusive package (script review and editing) would be $1200 with the
discount. Where I live, that’s the cheap
end of professional. Given my skimpy
portfolio, it felt like a solid ask.
Day 135: My massage client let me know that he has
family in town this week, and won’t have time to review it until they’ve
left. Not the end of the world, since
I’m leaving for a few days to visit family myself. But disappointing. In the meantime I fret about whether I can
actually hammer out a living in media production.
Day 140: At close to midnight last night an
email came in from my water massage pitch.
He thought that while it would be best to have me both shoot and edit
the video, his finances were difficult at the moment. He wanted to pay me $100 as a deposit towards
doing just the filming, sometime in the future.
If he never got around to it I could keep the deposit. It was a very generous offer and only a fool
would say no. So of course I countered
his offer with another idea (actually, I accepted and then said I had another
thought as well): I would do the first
video for $400 (roughly the cost of just videotaping the first video); if he
liked he could hire me to do the second one for $800. Together, the two would be equal to my
quote. But if for any reason he wanted
his own (free) editor to do the second, I would shoot it at my hourly rate, and
the total would be the same as his offer.
Essentially, I offered to edit the first video for free, but the second at
double the price. I was a bit reluctant
to make this offer, mostly because I didn’t want to appear pushy.
Day 150: Thai Water Massage bit. We’re going to produce the first video and
see how it does. His preference was to
simply spit the costs into two equal parts-- $600 for the first and $600 for
the second. This is an exciting
project-- from script development to final edit. We plan on meeting in a week to begin the
conceptualization process.
Day 162: We filmed
today. The traditional massage portion
of the video went well—good conditions for a sensual, artistic approach, but
time as limited and I wasn’t able to capture some of the details/close-ups that
I had planned. The water portion was
more difficult. The setting just didn’t
have much “texture.” It was too large to
light with character, and the frame of the pool was somewhat industrial. The difficulty of the pool paled in comparison
to the talking head pitch. Coming from
theatre, I’ve never worked with such an anxious, uncomfortable speaker. And being the camera operator, sound op, and
key grip doesn’t leave a lot of bandwidth for the “director” to help coach the
client. It’s something I’ll need to work
on.
Day 168: Delivered the draft
edit to the client. He was extremely
pleased with only a couple of minor edits.
I was extremely relieved that his anxious performance on camera didn’t
upset him; even if I saw the tension,
he outperformed his own expectations. In
all, the turn-around time on the project was over five months… something to
keep in mind. What did I learn? Be patient.
Don’t be afraid to make a pitch.
Schedule more time for filming.
Remember that the client’s performance is the most important aspect of
the film.
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