Collaboration vs. Competition...

M

mcbob

Veteran
More and more corporate and commercial video guys popping up in a not too huge market... I know it's not a unique problem to my area.

Anyway, we all roughly know one another, frequently work together, and more or less it all comes down to wondering who gets the call to bring in the extra ~10% upcharge. Whoever puts the most into marketing typically gets the call (so I'm dumping a lot more effort into marketing lately).

But... how do you approach it?

I know guys that basically don't work for people they see as "competition," or make sure to charge them out the wazoo (I only hire these guys if I need something specific)
I know guys that will work, but will notably not put forth their best efforts (I don't hire these guys a 2nd time, unless it's a really simple job).
Then or course are the guys that will turn on their best schmooze with the client during the shoot, and you know are exchanging business cards while you're busy with something else (don't hire these guys again, and maybe fire on the spot... I was guilty of that once when I first started and still feel like an ass over it)
Then (what I've tried to do) are those that just work their best to lift the overall project as much as they're capable. Of course, sometimes this means your "competition" gets to market themselves with what basically amounts to your work. You get callbacks from producers... but not the margin or the client.

I want to work, but I also want to make money (and maybe someday, dream of dreams, NOT work). What's the smart was to go about this?
 
Building trust and collaboration is always, always best. I regularly work with three different producers. I hire them, they hire me, I send them jobs when I am too busy and vice versa. The whole us and them thing is so 90s-2000s. It's a win-win for all involved. We all have strengths and weaknesses too so it's good to be able to know someone in your circle is a better DP or editor than you are. I write and write well, which none of my circle do so I get the writing gigs. My one friend who is a DP taught me most of what I know about lighting, he is a better DP than me, although I am better than the other two. I like to hire my friend Steve to DP when I can and have the budget but often don't. One of the others is tapped into the EPK/junket workd, which I am not so he often hires us to help him with multi-camera junkets and I have even DIT'd/media wrangled for him. All just depends on who has what connections and what you like to do. I have considered putting together a small, low cost sound package as I could probably get more gigs as a sound mixer as I am good at it, I just have never considered going all of the way as a sound mixer. The gear is getting so good and cheap though, it's tempting.
 
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This will be an interesting thread and I am betting it really varies on how your business structure is.

For me as a small production company more so than a DP for hire, who wears all hats but often needs help, a lot of this comes down to trust. There are certain people I could hire but I simply don't trust because they market themselves as having done everything, playing a bigger role then they did, or leverage other people's work as their own (i.e. a shooter with a canon 5D Mark III but a website that looks like Weiden & Kennedy, claiming sponsored Instagram shoots they did as "having been contracted by [some big company]" and mixing into their website videos where they either played a small role, or claiming "brands we've worked for" as anyone that someone they've contracted out has done work for.

I won't hire or work with these people because I feel they will take my writing/cinematography/storytelling skills - even if I did the whole project end to end - and claim credit; or if I brought them on a shoot, I'd fear they'd be trying to poach clients with their impressive (and deceitful) websites.

Furthermore, on my contracts I've added a protected workers clause just to be a little safer or discourage this, essentially saying that the client won't hire or poach any employees or sub-contractors of my company for 3 years. I'm also looking at having contractors sign similar, simple agreements laying out their roles and responsibilities and agreeing not to advertise to clients, and always present themselves as representatives of solely of my company.

Again I need to make clear my business model is small end to end production company and I am certain this sort of thing wouldn't be good practice in a largely freelance, larger team based world like pure mentions above.
 
filmguy123 said:
Furthermore, on my contracts I've added a protected workers clause just to be a little safer or discourage this, essentially saying that the client won't hire or poach any employees or sub-contractors of my company for 3 years. I'm also looking at having contractors sign similar, simple agreements laying out their roles and responsibilities and agreeing not to advertise to clients, and always present themselves as representatives of solely of my company.

Again I need to make clear my business model is small end to end production company and I am certain this sort of thing wouldn't be good practice in a largely freelance, larger team based world like pure mentions above.
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Good luck with that. I don't mean it trying to be an ass and I hate poachers, but where I live those types of clauses in contracts are un-enforceable. I had a shoot through one of the big national crewing services last year and they had similar language about working for the client you were shooting for for them, but I had a previous relationship with that client and I have friends that work for them, etc., so there was no way in hell I was signing anything like that. There's also a company down here that has staff crews and in their contracts it has "no-compete" clauses, but they have had a few guys leave over the years and one of their "big dawgs" left and one of the clients went with him, because he was 'their guy'. Being in a "right-to-work" state, there wasn't a damn thing they could do but sit back and cry. Yeah, they could have tried to enforce it, but it would have just wasted their time and money and they would have lost the case in the end, anyway.

And a lot of our clients are TV networks who aren't signing any type of contract from a vendor anyway(you sign THEIR contracts). They hire who they want...
 
Good luck enforcing any contract lol. Yeah, same goes with non refundable deposits or any other terms. Unless its big time contracts that stuff is virtually worthless, it's more just there to set expectations, keep honest people honest, and maintain some level of paper trail and rules. If someone wants to break a rule, they break the rule, simple as that.

As far as having people agree to it - like I said, this will depend on your field and running things like I do it hasn't been a problem once. But then I don't work in any sort of form of standard producers or crew. I am mostly a one man show hiring out sub contractors as I need help.

That's why at the end of the day, it comes down to trust.
 
Competition is a problem....and in a small market it threatens the locals. We lived in Seattle but commuted to and worked in LA with 2 commercial Directors running their Art Dept and it was literally a full time job, and during this period did 3 shoots in Seattle with the same production company....we hired all local....the Production Co only brought all the Keys and the usual line producer and production manager....all went swimmingly every time and we networked with the locals and made clear, we would love to work with them should they need someone and we were free and would basically do anything from shopper to on set lead, to set dresser or decorator. Never got a single call...in over 7 years. It seemed at least in this case, that we were perceived as a threat. In fairness Directors will just start talking to new crew in higher up positions at the lunch table, especially when of a symilar age or interesting to them. The result in Seattle today (not because of my case , but a stupid local government and refusal to give production companies breaks) is virtually no industry.
 
puredrifting said:
All just depends on who has what connections and what you like to do. I have considered putting together a small, low cost sound package as I could probably get more gigs as a sound mixer as I am good at it, I just have never considered going all of the way as a sound mixer. The gear is getting so good and cheap though, it's tempting.
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Do it!
 
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