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Working for corporate clients

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Absolution_Films

Hi Guys,

Im sorry but this is more of a rant than a question...

But does anyone who shoots stuff for clients just feel sometimes, that suddenly anyone you work for is a film maker or cinematographer, the amount of times in the last 6 months i've had certain clients feel you can just magic a certain type of shot out of thin air for the project you are doing for them.

Quick example is im doing a very short promo for a local music/theatre venue, who have been having an Orchestral series, they wanted a few shots of the orchestra playing which have been done and look great, they wanted a piece to camera by the conductor which is done and they also want some nice sunset shots by a river, with the sun glistening off the water (kind of dream like), this is where the problem lies.... in england it has literally been raining for 40 days and 40 nights haha

The river shot could look amazing if done right in the right conditions, but with the weather as it is for the last few weeks, it will look shit with grey clouds in the sky, you wont get the glow from the sun on the water, places are flooded.... but somehow the client thinks i can pull this shot out of thin air, i feel he thinks i sit down by the river 24 hours a day just to get that shot.....

I know its a really petty thing, but its really wound me up today and this coupled with a few other things is seriously making me wonder if i want to continue doing corporate work... Its more hassle than its worth!

Sorry for the rant, but are other people in similar situations? Any other awkward customer stories?
 
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Absolution_Films said:
Any other awkward customer stories?
Click to expand...
Anyone who has shot anything for anyone has stories like this. Every
client, everywhere thinks what we do is easy and most think they could
do it and maybe even do it better.

Absolution_Films said:
this coupled with a few other things is seriously making me wonder if i want to continue doing corporate work
Click to expand...
I stopped doing that kind of work for exactly that reason. Overall the
money wasn't worth the problems.
 
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I did a few corporate projects. Then I stopped. The money wasn't good enough. There was no appreciation for me or my time. It made me feel so small inside, I stopped just to feel better about myself.

I'll give you an example. I did one piece for someone. They paid me a thousand bucks. But it was literally me staying awake for one whole week to finish it. I wasn't completely happy with it, but they were happy with it, cause I did what they told me to do. So then they have another project and they called me back.

"Take a look at this picture" the employer said.
It was a picture of a guy in a suit holding a paper aeroplane.
"I want you to take the paper aeroplane out of his hands and make it fly to .....blah blah. They tell me such things can be done" she said.
"Of course it can be done. Anything can be done. But it all depends on how much time you put aside for the project and what your budget is," I said.

To put a long story short, they wanted it done for another thousand bucks. I said no. I did the first one for cheap so they would come back to me with bigger projects. They came back alright. They just kept wanting to treat me like the slave they thought they had.

So what I'm saying is that I feel you.

EDit: But just want to say. I do know a guy here who makes a decent living at it. His secret is that he is quite well connected. His dad owns some dance company. And all the dance companies, some of whom are his dads friends, are his clients. And he charges the hell out of them. And they pay. So maybe if we all concentrated on our connections instead of our filmmaking abilities we would all be better off.
 
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I have been very lucky corporate wise and worked for some cool companies like Hewlett Packard and Berlin Symphony Orchestra.... but there does feel this air of unreasonable requests within the corporate world....

My biggest pet hate is when a client asks me to send a finished project that was shot in 1080p over the net and thinks it will take like 10 mins, more like 10 hours lol

I originally started doing corporate because I was getting paid more in one day than I was getting in a week in my old job, I thought great I can do these jobs and and use the money to fund my narrative projects.... the truth is these corporate gigs take over my life and all my time! haha

Its so hard to tell a client that if you want that certain shot in the final video it will instantly make the whole thing shitter! lol

I do salute the people that do this full time day in day out though!

My absolute favorite phrase from a client is "CAN YOU JUST......." NO! I cant just....
 
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This is why I stopped doing corporate work :) Some clients on TVCs are bad enough (or just as bad..)

I hate corporate work because there is very little chance to be creative, and when you are creative, it's generally forced out because it doesn't ______ <fill in the blank.

Plus, most clients don't understand how things are done and think there is a magic button that just makes things happen, or look like they want it. And what they want is often not what will look good.

That said, I've done a lot of corporate work for radio stations which was really cool and they essentially let me do what I wanted and be as creative as I possibly could. I eventually stopped though as the money wasn't anything special, especially for the amount of work I was doing.
 
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Absolution_Films said:
I have been very lucky corporate wise and worked for some cool companies like Hewlett Packard and Berlin Symphony Orchestra.... but there does feel this air of unreasonable requests within the corporate world....
Click to expand...
Very true. I know this from personal experience and from everyone
I've ever spoken to. There are great clients and there are unreasonable
ones. You do have to weigh the good with bad, don't you?

I have found there is an air of unreasonable requests within just about
every world that wants promotional videos. You want unreasonable requests
try weddings.

We all see it here on the boards, too. People see movies, love movies and
get it into their head that if they get the "best" camera (for $500) they
can make exactly what they see in their heads. People see a shot in a movie
or music video that took hours and skill and equipment and they want advice
on how to do the exact same shot with their new DSLR - and nothing else.

Clients are the same. They have no idea what it take to get that amazing
sunset shot. And when you tell them what it will take (and how much that's
going to cost) they become unreasonable. I got dozens of stories - I bet most
of us here have dozens of stories.
 
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Been a while since you've done corporate work, knightly?

Wish it were that easy. The issue isn't the filmmaker can't figure
out what it takes to get the shot, it's that the client isn't willing to
pay for what it takes to get the shot AND they can't quite grasp
why the filmmaker can't get that sunrise shot in one day even if
they know it was raining and the sun never came out.
 
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It's an option that I would present to a corporate client... you can pay me a day rate, or use stock footage. It's their choice, they'll choose the $20 route every time... if not, bully for you, paid extended work.
 
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I see it as if you were putting a lawyer on retainer. If you have to be able to go out and shoot at any point in time, you need to be able to afford to say "no" to other clients... it's a corporate reality, and they'll understand that. They're paying you to be avaliable... and the weather reports are the proof that you can't get the shot.

Lay out your reality, tell them the costs and options, let them choose.
 
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I'd also like to mention that I have seen inexperienced Directors on ultra low budget films ask their DPs why we can't do X shot because 'I saw y movie and they did it in that' or 'in the behind the scenes of z movie they did it liek this so why can't we do it like that?'. So the narrative world is not immune, but definitely not as bad ;)
 
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