Quote for a price producing a mini documentary?

[Gabe Strong]

You are exactly right, which is why producing a video for an organization that has you
reporting to a 'committee' is a REALLY bad idea. They can't even agree among themselves,
oftentimes and you will end up revising something, only to change it back later as the
'committee' process moves forward. I really try to have them give me ONE PERSON
who has authority for final approval......but that person often involves others who are
NOT supposed to be involved. So in this particular experience, the video was actually
approved, and then the person who was in charge of approving the whole project
(and HAD actually approved it!) showed it to her boss, who then 'thought some
'small' changes should be made'. And so the chain started, even though I had tried
to keep that particular problem (producing a video via committee) from happening.
Lucky for me, I had my 'executive producer' who had been with me for every minute,
and knew exactly how many hours had ALREADY went into this project. She got me
a check for $6500 to cover what I had already done, before any revisions (billed extra)
were made.

[Tom Dickerson]

The "Executive Producer" idea is very good. That is what I did on my 2nd informational mini-doc for a client. Believe it or not I spent 1/4th of the time and made the same amount of money as the first project.

This will be my policy for corporations and non-profits from here on out.

[Shaun Roemich]

Gabe, that is FAR AND AWAY some of the absolute BEST information I have ever read online as pertains to how to handle clients. Every word is accurate at least SOME of the time when dealing with clients. Since this is a real names board, I will refrain from telling THREE horror stories from my own dark history that have led me to try to strive for exactly what you have accomplished here.

Mods: I would make a vote that this thread has STICKY written all over it

[Bill Mecca]

Great advice from Gabe. Imagine if he had not planned to avoid that problem! I suffer thru it all the time as an in-house video guy. One short example, I completed an edit in August 09, the two people I produced it for and with loved it. Since then, others on the way up the ladder, have chimed in with "suggested changes" Sad to say even today i got word someone wants something changed. It's the project that just won't die!

Work with one person and make sure they have approval authority. It's not foolproof, but it helps.

[Jay Jelliff]

Super Great advice, Gabe. Thank you so much. I do know how a committee works. If it takes 1 person 10 hours to do 1 job, a committee of 10 pushes the time to 100 hours. I will definitely insist on an "executive producer".