"It's so bloody good i could cry (seriously)!
Overall spectacular, exactly what i wanted it to be.
The music is so on point, so dramatic and so perfectly timed i am in awe.
You guys outdid yourselves on this one !!
Just a couple of minor adjustments..."
And so goes your life when you are the editor, the writer, the musician, photographer, etc. Five hours of editing later and we're sending another approval copy up to the server.
Flexibility is the keyword here and a few ounces can go a long way in keeping your client relationships not only intact, but fruitful. Most of my clients have a crystal clear picture of what they need and want to say with their presentations, yet they may not be able to immediately express those ideas in the language of our craft.
Sure we could argue over every change, especially the ones that are not corrections, but new additions to the mix of images and information that we have already crafted into our perfect sequence. (tongue in cheek), but certainly, that would simply lead to an extremely aggitated and very unhappy client.
We might win the battle, but we would certainly lose the war.
As senior producer, a large part of Sarah's job at Crazy Duck Productions, at times, is to be an interpreter. She is often responsible for communicating with our clients and translating their wishes into a language that is familiar to myself and/or the others involved in our project, like an animator, writer or a musician.
Very often I count on her to help breakdown descriptive phrases such as, "The script is not earthy enough" or "It's a great shot, but it doesn't motivate me. Can we change it?" And unfortunately, sometimes, her job is to act as a buffer, so that my initial response to the list of changes is to her and not directly to our client.
We work very closely with our clients and try our best to give them everything they need, still, we don't cower to their every whim. There are times that the direction is just wrong and changing a specific element in the timeline will effect everything else that is already in perfect placement. After all, that's why they hired us in the first place, but it is important for us to remember that our client has a specific message that they want delivered and many of those facts and figures are as important to them as our exposure and color balance is to us.
If you are doing this as a business, it's important to build a specific amount of revisions into your original agreement with your prospective client. How many revisions are included in your original price is up to you, but you do need to set a number or time limit. Otherwise, your project might take much longer to complete than you anticipated. We have heard nightmares about projects that had everything approved until the client showed the finished product to their cousin Bob. Of course, Bob had some suggestions of his own and now their client wanted to incorporate them. This has the potential to go on for months if you don't have a plan in place to limit the amount of changes that will be done for the original cost.
This is particularly important if you are hiring an animator or a musician. What might appear to be minor changes to your client, may require intensive work and hours of render time.
Of course, if the changes are errors on your end and you haven't delivered something that you promised to deliver, then obviously it's your responsibility to make it right.
Proper planning in the early stages of your production is essential to avoid serious and possibly costly changes later.
You might get your prospective client all excited, touting the virtues of 24p and high definition, only to find that their state-of-the-art, internal video system only plays in 4:3 NTSC. If you have taken great advantage of the 16x9 format, you will have little choice but to letterbox. We had one client tell us that the reason we were hired was because the last production company shot everything in the wrong format and the TV stations that they normally dealt with would not run their footage. Ouch!
If a client is supplying footage to you, in addition to what you are creating, make sure it is compatible with your current format, before you begin production. It might be an easy fix now, maybe as simple as the a flick of a switch, but later, mismatched formats will become a very costly and time consuming problem.
So, ask lots of questions, because the more you understand about your client's needs, the better chance you will have creating a successful, finished film, with the least amount of changes.
And sometimes changes are good for business. If you have planned your proposal properly, changes over and above the agreed amount of revisions can mean serious, additional income. It's for this reason that we create our client's programs on a drive that remains exclusive to them. This way we can pull up their project, hours, days, even months down the road and make any changes they might need, like adding spanish subtitles or editing out the old CEO and replacing the opening with the new CEO.
In any case, be patient. "It's perfect, now change it" is a compliment of the highest order. Your clients count on you for your input, experience and your artistry, but just like your mother, they're prone to express themselves in strange and unique ways.
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