Thinking about saying goodbye to wedding filming...

[Tass]

Hi!

I am sitting here thinking about abandoning jobs such as filming weddings and so on... Just had a customer that all of a sudden wants to change a massive part of the movie and he simply wont leave me alone until I've done it. Of course he dosen't want to pay anything for it... Not only is the money not good enough in order to live on it (at least not if my customers gets to decide how much all my work is worth). It's waaaay to much work all in all. Currently my company offers both commercial work / music videos and also weddings as a "bonus" on the homepage. Is it wrong to offer both commercials and wedding movies on the same homepage, would that look a bit tacky and cheap to the customer (companies)?

Lately the main income for my company has been the weddings but the pay does not cover all the work I put down, and all the time spent fixing small details in the darn video could be used to send emails and call other companies for more "serious" jobs.
So what to do what do to....? Should I take a step away from it, potentially loose some money a while and focus more on the things I really want to work with or should I just like the situation and stop nagging? =)

I really could use some tips and opinions on my situation... Thanks!!

[awelgraven]

Do you have a editing clause in your contracts? If I choose to contract for a set amount of money, rather than an hourly editing fee, I build in a 3 pass system where I deliver an edit, the client gives changes, I deliver a second edit, the client gives final changes, and I deliver a final edit. I then write that if additionally changes are wanted after the 3rd and final edit, they will have to pay a (discounted) hourly editing rate.

I also write in safety where if I go a certain number of hours over our original estimated hours, I will have begin charging per hour. I had a client who I estimated 10 hours of editing time, because he didn't want to go hourly.. When I hit 15 hours, per our editing contract, I started charging him 2/3 of my normal editing hourly rate.

You just need to protect your time so you don't get burned. That being said, I don't envy people doing wedding films. If you truly don't enjoy it, then you shouldn't be doing it (or doing it so much of the time)

[Barry_Green]

Instead of abandoning it -- raise your prices. Cheap clients are the worst. So raise your prices to where it's worth it to do it. If some of your potential customers leave, well -- you didn't want them anyway, right? Because you're already so fed up you're thinking of abandoning the whole thing, so -- raise your prices to where it's worth it. If you still get a client, that one will be paying enough that it's worth it to do it, right?

As for commercials and weddings on the same page, yeah, that's a big no-go. I'd recommend establishing two different sites if you want to service both markets.

[Tass]

Thank you so much for your input guys! You are right, I shouldn't always be so nice and take every single job to almost any price. Wedding films isn't what I really want to be doing, I want to be in the commercial / music video industry but it's damn hard to get into it full time. I will definitly remove any wedding video related content from the page and do a separate one, working on that right now!

So all in all... I shouldn't give up those jobs even if I don't enjoy it, but raise the price instead to make it feel more worth the job? At what point should you say "no more weddings", is it when you really fed' up with it or when you have that much other jobs to cover all the costs?

[ErikTande]

Instead of abandoning it -- raise your prices. Cheap clients are the worst. So raise your prices to where it's worth it to do it. If some of your potential customers leave, well -- you didn't want them anyway, right? Because you're already so fed up you're thinking of abandoning the whole thing, so -- raise your prices to where it's worth it. If you still get a client, that one will be paying enough that it's worth it to do it, right?

As for commercials and weddings on the same page, yeah, that's a big no-go. I'd recommend establishing two different sites if you want to service both markets.

This.

[Barry_Green]

So all in all... I shouldn't give up those jobs even if I don't enjoy it, but raise the price instead to make it feel more worth the job?

Well, it depends -- I mean, if you're doing weddings for $250, then yeah, it's a miserable and horrible existence and you should definitely stop doing it. But if you were getting paid $10,000 to do a wedding... all of a sudden it becomes a whole different animal, right? Now you've got the budget and the wherewithal to make something really artistic, and make a good living, and hire someone else to do the editing or some other part of it that you don't enjoy, etc.

At what point should you say "no more weddings", is it when you really fed' up with it or when you have that much other jobs to cover all the costs?

Well, again, it depends on what you mean by weddings. I don't do weddings, haven't ever tried to do a wedding, and don't want to -- because I know that those folks work harder than anyone else in the video industry, and it takes a very special skillset to manage all the various personalities in an excruciatingly high-pressure crucible, which sums up today's modern wedding environment. On the other hand, I would say that the money that (good) wedding shooters make dwarfs the money that 98% of our membership here makes. People making $300 music videos can't possibly ever compare to the guy who charges $4,000 to do a wedding, shoots one day a week, edits two or three days, takes a few days off, and makes $200k per year.

So -- when do you say "no more weddings"? I'd change it to "when do you say 'no more cheap weddings?'" And that, you answer, by saying that yeah, cheap weddings (or cheap ANY clients) are the first ones to be cut off. But if you can get high-end work, if your work and your sales skills are good enough, and you can get it, why turn down $4,000 or $7,000 or $10,000 jobs? You'd have to be doing really pretty well before you start saying "meh, I can't be bothered to work two days for $5,000..."

It's all dependent on your situation. If you want to be a commercial producer, and that's all you want to be, and you can make enough work happen in that field now to keep yourself afloat, then sure, cut the weddings loose. But if you're trying to make a living in the video field, weddings can be an important component of a full-service video provider's business. And those who disrespect or denigrate wedding shooters are really unfair, because those are some of the hardest working people in the video business.

[john threat]

if you want to do film for a living.

dont do wedding videos.


ever.


good luck.

[groveChuck]

Instead of abandoning it -- raise your prices. Cheap clients are the worst. So raise your prices to where it's worth it to do it.
If some of your potential customers leave, well -- you didn't want them anyway, right?

Green's Rule of Rates and Clients

[Terry_Lasater]

[Tass]

I am so glad to be a member of this forum, this has helped me so much right now, BIG thanks!