Am I unreasonable??
 

I have a friend that is in the video business, as I am. One day the friend (who normally deals in weddings) called me to say that he has a potential client for a corporate video. My friend told me that he had put in a quote for the video of $5000. The video was a simple two day shoot with one camera, editing to their script, and mastering a DVD.

My friend felt that he may not have all the equipment or experience to pull the job off, and wanted to know if I wanted to take the job. He wanted me to be the one that talked to the client, help refine the script, travel to their location for the 2 days, do all the shooting, all the editing, and all the DVD production (with my equipment).

I told the friend that I had no problem taking on that job. We then got into a discussion of compensation. Before I ever said a word, my friend stated that he wanted to "pay me well for the work....but not like, half or anything." My first response to him was "why not".

My friend then said, that it was his client. I then responded to him by saying that if I was going to do ALL the work with my equipment, why would that not even be worth half the money in his eyes? He really did not have an answer, but stuck to his "but it's my client" stance. So, I reminded him that it wouldn't be his client if he couldn't do the job. I also then asked him why he felt that if HE did all the work, HE was $5000, but if I do all the work, I am not even worth half what he is. Again he had no response, and even stated that he was puzzled by my response. I then declined to do the job.

So, does anyone think that I am being unreasonable?

In that case, if it's his client, he should do the job. If he can't, and needs to pass, you should get the negotiated price (Considering you feel it is square), and he might get a referral fee.

Am I Unreasonable
 

Thats how I felt about it, but never even got to presenting that thought.

Every business has its "rain makers" and every business has its producers. You need both. In this case, you friend made the rain, and you would be doing the work. The only question is what is the fair share for each. Will this be a relationship that will grow and blossom ? Don't reject it out of hand.

Ray! I don't think you are at all unreasonable. Congratulations for sticking to your guns. You are entitled to the bulk of the fee. As Keith Forman said your friend could only expect a referral fee.

I don't think you're at all unreasonable, though I would have given pause to sticking with the $5000 quote - who knows, without your having talked to the client, you don't know but what it shouldn't have been quoted at an even higher rate.

You might have offered him a "finder's fee" on the order of 10% but that's all he would be entitled to IMHO. If it was a subcontractor arrangement where he covered the upfront costs of the project, endemnified your fee and paid you himself for your work upon delivery of the final product, then billed the client and assumed the risk that the client would pay!, that might be another matter.

Yeah I agree with you Ray. Even if it is his client he shouldn't be payed more than half for doing nothing.

It would make being a video broker more profitable than being a videographer. No equipment other than a phone is needed ;)

does the reason really matter on why other person should get a cut ?

this is not unheard of in hollywood - commercials, music video's , even saturday night live shorts ... X company gets the contract say for 150k and knows they can't make a good profit .. they call Y company who does good work (could use the hi profile work) and tells them here are boards and the budget is 75K .. Y company says they can do it but they will not make a profit BUT they do it for their reel or to have their name on SNL - Y company never knows the real budget ...
depending on the contract company Y may have to work with director from company X or X director just over see's Y director ? all depends on the job.

find a amount you both can agree on .. if you can't get a 3rd party to decide that amount ... now if the other guy would have just ran the $$ thru his company and told you the budget for the work is 2500 you might have done it???? -
it's only when one knows the budget is 5k and you're only getting 1/2 for doing ALL the work ...

I think the problem here is that your friend just assumed your part would be an arbitrary percentage of the quote without actually estimating what your actual costs would be including profit.

If he had come to you first and asked you to bid and then went back to the client with his own markup then all would be well (it would be up to the client to say negotiate with him on the lump).

You should quote your friend on what you normally would charge including your markup for profit if you hadn't known what his quote would be and then stick to it. Itemize your quote so that your friend knows the basis of your portion (including your markup).

Then it comes down to negotiation. If your friend doesn't think he is getting enough markup he is free to explore alternatives.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. The most your friend should receieve is between $500-1000 if you're doing everything.

Your equip, your expertise, and your sweat is going to make or break this vid. If he's giving you less than half, then he shouldn't expect anything thing more than using your equipment and your time shooting the vid....He should do the editing and script adjustments.....

If you need the $$ you should do it though....lol

"OK, but I won't take more than 90% then" would have been funny.

I'm also more hard about this, I think: If *you do the job, *you need to get paid.
And more then half, really, if you do everything?

That's my opinion.

i know these guys. They have a lot of bright ideas, but no clues how to realize them.
They want you to do the job, and them to get the money.
If there is a problem, you will be responsible (after all you do the job).
If something goes wrong, it will not be their fault, and if you have to provide more hours to than planned, you will have to do it for free (and believe me, the will be some), because they fix the price with the customer and they cannot change it.
And if the customer discover that the service was overpriced, guess what name will pop up (yours obviously), and if customer is happy ? (he will take care that his name to be on the top).
Anyway, providing a quotation for a job to a customer, without having the ressource is pretty stupid, and counting on people that have a garage full of equipement to provide it for free is even more stupid.
Stay away from these guys, they are just trouble....

Here's a way to break it down for your friend. 2 days of shooting @ $500 per day with your own gear is a bargain. $1000.00

Editing time $100.00 per finished minute. A 10 minute dvd for the client = $1000.00

$50.00 per hour for Script revisions, meeting with clients and phone and scheduling time. You figure a good 10 hours of that = $500.00

If you include gas, meals and so on, tack on another $100.00

Total
$2,600. That's half and that's reasonable.

If you present it to him this way he might agree to splitting the $5000 in half.

If not he should do it himself. Realistically he's gonna have a tough time getting the shoot done for less than $2500 and having it come out as good as he and the client expect it to be.

Mark