Hypothetical situation, shooting video...

Blade Borge

Blade Borge

Well-known member
Let's say you're asked to shoot an event from a person you don't know (craigslist, etc). How should handle things, moneywise? Should at any time you give the person the tape if you haven't been payed yet? Let's say the person says, 'i need the tape now, I'll pay you later.'
 
Sign a basic contract that establishes the payment option. Never hand anything over until you have money in hand.
 
Huy Vu said:
Sign a basic contract that establishes the payment option. Never hand anything over until you have money in hand.
Click to expand...

That advice ranks right up there with thinking you can send yourself something registered mail and its copyrighted.

Example. I sign a contract with you for five million dollar to deliver a low budget feature. You won't hand it over until the money is paid. I won't pay you because I have nothing from you which proves you lived up to your end of the contract.

Now go to court and watch what happens. I have a contract for you to deliver a feature and you didn't deliver. You have breached your own contract. There is now no legal obligation for me to pay. In fact I can sue you for a variety of reasons. Including that you have cost me a fortune in distribution ability etc. etc. You will lose.

However, deliver the goods and I fail to pay; now the law is on your side.

To both cover your expenses and filter out deadbeats successful service businesses can charge a deposit. The best in production being, figure out your costs and add ten percent. Take that result and multiply it by at least two. That's your fee and then get a fifty percent deposit. Serious customers won't have a problem with it. Doesn't matter if they use purchase orders, are any level of government or whatever. The cheap bozos who are the biggest pains and the ones you'll end up punting as customers anyway are the ones who will balk at it. Its a great filter.
 
Perhaps I should have been more more specific, but I figured it was a simple question that required an obvious answer (don't hand over anything unless you've been compensated in someway, which is what I mean by "money in hand"). Yes, ALWAYS require some money up front, usually 50%.
 
Every crazy college story starts like this: "We were so wasted!"
And ends with: "And then we hauled ass!"

Every craigslist story starts like this: "I responded to an ad on craigslist"
And ends with: "The guy never paid me!".
 
Haha! I can't imagine most Craigslist level jobs being on a scale that would require arranging financing or a Brink's truck. "I need the tape now" is on the exact same footing as "you need the money now". Simple. Like buying antique furniture...

On a lark I answered an ad on Craigslist to shoot some underwater video, just because my wife and I wanted another excuse to go diving.
Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Eugene Roddenberry's son wanting some footage for a docu he's doing on his dad and Star Trek. It was great fun. He even comped us tickets to the Star Trek convention in Vegas. Real nice guy.

The next one I tried led to the usual unworthy time-wasting schmucks. Fortunately I've been too busy since...
 
awesome story on Gene's son.

Make sure you always get a copy of their driver's liscence. A few years ago there was this 18 year old kid who went by Charles Clemmons or Scott Peterson or some other aliases. Not only did he end up not paying everyone who worked for him and was a horrible director all together (he had no idea how to direct film)... he actually had a few of his friends steal a DP friend of mine's equipment.

Granted, I know that it's a tough business, but always try to get a down payment.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1899451/

If you need help drafting a simple contract, I might put on-line sometime soon. I used to work in the contracts division of an agency and would draft contracts for film people on the side when I needed help paying rent.
 
If you deliver the tape to their house thats how you know there legit. Noone will scam you if they know you know there adress
 
I've hired a lot of good people from Craigslist, oddly enough. The reason I think it's odd is because the people who usually post jobs there are such cheapskates, it seems like everyone wants work for free. I saw one the other day, "Great chance to work with up-and-coming music video director, two day shoot, there is no pay but we'll pay you $35 for your kit fee!" and it was for hair/makeup artists. Just ridiculous.

I usually don't have huge budgets but I think my pay has been at least fair, if not good.
 
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