Should I pay people in post production if they do not deliver what I ask?

H

harmonica44

I sent off audio files to be mixed by a sound mixer, but a lot of the audio is not that well done. Some of the audio sounds like it was recorded in a studio, and does not sound like it's actually there in the room. The mixing was not applied. Especially some of the foley, which sounds like it came from an obvious library of sounds, and did not sound like the same movie. I payed the guy off cause I didn't want to go through any more trouble with the contract and I already talked about that one here before.

I now have sent all the video footage to a colorist, but the movie came back with the color looking very much the same. All I can tell is that it has been de-saturated a little and it looked like it has been dimmed, and looks faded. Doesn't look good really. I gave him specific movie examples of color grading I liked, but it doesn't look like that all. I mean even I could have turned down the saturation a little and made it more faded. I didn't need to hire a pro, if that's all he was going to do.

Plus the look does not match from camera to camera, and one of the reasons I hired him was to color correct the cameras look the same. But the difference are still just as noticeable as before, but more faded looking.

So should I pay this contract if I am not satisfied? I mean I lost about $500 on the last one, and felt it was not up to par with good audio standards, and now I do not want to do have to pay again, since I feel that the colorist only seemed to make two quick changes, which could not have taken the two months I allowed him to work on it. Of course this is just a rough draft he sent me, and we I am suppose to tell him what I want done differently, but since the rough draft is just a couple of minor changes and the cameras are still just as mismatched, I wonder if it's even worth continuing with him and paying him, cause he probably will not be able to get it done well in the end.

What's weird is that these people I hire have much better demo reels than the actual work they do. The colorist new what he was doing in his reel, as well as the audio engineer.

What do you think you would do, or should do, in this situation?
 
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Did you get references for them?

If they are actually good, it's possibly a combination of you giving them crap material to work with and/or not communicating your ideas properly. Also it doesn't really sound like you're hiring pros. Your sound mixer is a Foley artist as well? $500 isn't really that much (it is to you or me, but it's not for a professional).
 
Okay thanks. I got one reference from each. I met them through other people who's worked they liked. However, they do not live in my city so I had to communicate my ideas through email. Perhaps I am not as good at doing that. I sent pics of movies I wanted the look of but I guess I should have communicated differently. I can still work wit the guy and try to fix it, since it' sjust a rough draft, I just don't know if I can do it. Even if he cannot match up the two cameras, I don't feel that the color is really improved hardly, and may actually be worse since it looks faded.

Plus if the footage was impossible to fix to begin with, than I feel it was his job to tell me that, rather than take on an impossible task for 2 months and still wanting to be paid, knowing nothing came out of it. That's what I would tell someone instead of just pretending to work on it for so long, if that's what he did.

Basically I have to make a move and decide what to do. Still try to come to an agreement and hope the contract will be worth it, and continue working on the color... Or just never talk to him again and not answer any more emails and leave the contract hanging. What's best in these situations?
 
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I've been in that situation. As I said about the person who messed up my ADR, learning at my expense, that's the last time they will work for me. I did pay the party, but it's the last time we will do business together.

Unless you have a contract, you should pay them for legal reasons. But, there is nothing stopping you from trying someone else next time.

You won't get good people until you can pay better.
 
Okay thanks. So are the legal repercussions pretty bad, cause I feel like I am being ripped off, especially since it's already happened once before, and I kind of told myself I wasn't going to let them 'take my money' next time if this happened.
 
Hey, Harmonica...



EMPTY YOUR MAILBOX!!!!


People try to send you emails and cannot because your box is full.


full+mailbox.jpg
 
K I made some space. Thanks. I suppose what I could do is just tell them I am not happy with and some tweaking is in order, but would really have to emphasize him to do a good job.
 
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It's also about making a reputation as an employer.

Paying the worker and them not coming through makes you the good guy and them the bad guy.

Find someone else for the future.

If you don't pay them, you are the bad guy.
 
Maybe next time tell them you want to see one a really short clip ASAP to make sure you're on the right track.

That way you don't waste their time and yours!
 
I did ask for that several times, but then he doesn't get back to me until two months later, when it is all finished. But he got back to me, said it was just a rough draft and has no problem fixing the corrections so far.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I did ask for that several times, but then he doesn't get back to me until two months later, when it is all finished. But he got back to me, said it was just a rough draft and has no problem fixing the corrections so far.
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When a week goes by and you don't see anything tell him he's fired and gets no pay as he failed to deliver anything
 
harmonica44 said:
I mean I lost about $500 on the last one, and felt it was not up to par with good audio standards, and now I do not want to do have to pay again ...
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Pay peanuts and you'll get monkeys; it's a simple cliche which is a cliche because it's true! You've only got two choices: 1. If you don't want to pay again, pay for it to be done right in the first place, IE. Pay considerably more than peanuts or 2. Re-define what you consider to be "good" audio standards.

cheeseandachallenge said:
Did you get references for them?
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At the extremely low budget level, references are of very limited use because you are depending entirely on the personal definition of "good audio standards" of the person who is providing the reference.

G
 
Using general legal principles, if he does not give you what a reasonable sound mixer should provide, then you may not have to pay him, because he didn't fulfill his part of the bargain. But, if there's such a dispute, you may have to go to small claims court so a judge can decide.

I am, by the way, not giving legal advice; I'm just stating general principles, and you should speak to a lawyer about your situation.
 
So much here depends on what your agreement was, how you briefed him, and whether any of this is in writing.

As someone who has been a freelance journalist, magazine editor and photographer for over three decades, I've been on both sides of this situation. So here's my take.

If you didn't fully and clearly brief your supplier about what you wanted, then you're on shaky ground. You should pay up and put it down to experience.

If the supplier was clearly briefed, he should be given a chance to put things right within a fixed time period. If he's still incapable of coming up with work to an acceptable standard, then you have a god case for rejecting the work and refusing to pay. After all, you have this right in every other area of your life, if you receive inadequate service. However, if you reject the work and don't pay, you then can't use what he's done. You must start again from scratch.

None of this is legal advice and everything is subject to whatever written or verbal agreements you might have. You also have to think about your reputation, so give the guy a chance to put things right. Maybe you didn't fully communicate what you wanted.

In future, demand to see work in progress at clearly defined stages. And put it in writing.
 
1). I'm going to throw it out there since no one else has.

H44, your ability to communicate is well known to be among the worst around. It's more likely that you spoke to them in some voodoo language and ignored every piece of advice they gave you.

2). Garbage in = Garbage out

3). I even suspect that everything you wrote in this thread is some blantant lie on your part. It was less than 2 months ago that you weren't even able to understand how to supply footage to a color grader. How is it possible that more time has elapsed than how long its been since you had even the vaguest clue in handling the task.

4). Assuming some of your story is true, you need to learn to manage people or hire someone who can. The definition of insanity comes to mind.

5). Also, what APE said.

6). If you fail to give them reasonable ability to fix their errors, you may get sued.
 
That was two months ago. I figured out how to give him the proper containers and get the program working to do it. I have him lots of ability to fix the errors. I even asked him if the errors were fixable, and he said yes, they were. So I have that from him in writing. We also agreed in writing that he would do it in sections and show me before starting on newer sections, in order to get on the right track, but he didn't do that, and sent me the whole thing about two months later, without showing me any sections on there own first. So if he wasn't able to match the picture from camera to camera, then he shouldn't have said it was fixable when I asked.
 
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Aspiring Mogul said:
Using general legal principles, if he does not give you what a reasonable sound mixer should provide, then you may not have to pay him, because he didn't fulfill his part of the bargain.
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ZolaScope said:
If he's still incapable of coming up with work to an acceptable standard, then you have a god case for rejecting the work and refusing to pay.
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I don't believe there is a "good" case or that "general legal principles" are applicable here. Both of you are basing your statements on the general legal principles of contracting a standard professional; specifically, a "reasonable sound mixer" and an "acceptable standard" and missing the point that H44 did not employ a "reasonable sound mixer"! I don't know what the union or average rates for a professional sound mixer are in H44's part of the world but if we look at LA or NY the minimum union rates are somewhere roughly about the $70 an hour mark and it's clear H44 only paid a fraction of that price and has therefore not paid for a "reasonable sound mixer".

It would not be too difficult in court to define/demonstrate an acceptable professional/commercial standard but defining a reasonable pro-rata standard, based on the fact H44 has paid say a fifth or a tenth of the standard professional rate, would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) and then to demonstrate to a judge's satisfaction that the person H44 employed clearly failed to achieve this pro-rata standard would again be extremely difficult/impossible.

It is possible, on extremely rare occasions, to hire someone for a fraction of the price of the standard commercial rates and still achieve reasonable/acceptable standards but by definition, these situations are the exception rather than the rule. I realise that many/most serious amateur filmmakers constantly strive to be "an exception", to essentially achieve somewhere near professional results for a tiny fraction of the cost of an equivalent commercial product but IMHO, is not reasonable (either logically or legally) to expect contractors to always be "an exception", one can hope or dream but not reasonably "expect"! Of course, I'm not a lawyer nor do I have any specific knowledge or experience of H44's legal jurisdiction but I doubt he would have much of a case for denying payment, unless he could prove that the person he hired only worked on his project for (say) 7-8 hours and therefore charged him a professional rate but did not achieve anywhere near professional standards.

All of this is just another way of saying what I essentially posted originally: If one is paying peanuts it is not reasonable to expect anything other than a monkey!

ZolaScope said:
If you didn't fully and clearly brief your supplier about what you wanted, then you're on shaky ground.
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In my (admittedly very limited) experience of working with lo/no budget filmmakers, they are not capable of either "clearly briefing" or contracting an audio post person/s! For example, if one were to commission a "broadcast standard" mix, it is relatively straight forward to test the mix for technical compliance (in North America, much of Europe and some other countries) and it is also possible, though a little trickier, to demonstrate a minimum expectation of aesthetic quality. No/lo budget filmmakers generally appear to have pretty much no idea what to specify (either technically or aesthetically) and as they don't have the budget for at least a "broadcast standard" mix, even if they were to specify something half coherent, it is necessarily an arbitrary specification which would be difficult/impossible to define in any legal context.

G
 
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That was two months ago.
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Ok, I went and looked it up.

http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=55280
Okay I understand that now, thanks. So instead of using a site like dropbox, I would have to mail him a harddrive, with everything on it, cause no site, will take so much footage, if I have to send all the original footage, chopped up into different pieces.
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So on September 5 (which lasted until September 12) (so about 4 weeks ago) you didn't even understand how to send files to a grader, but somehow s/he's had 2 months to work on this? You are the issue here. You get called out and hold your undefendable position. You've lied and tried to make out someone else is the problem. To me, you're coming across as someone who wants to whinge on a public forum just so you can be the victim and have an excuse why you haven't completed a single project in years. You consistently make bad decisions.

If you had read responses on the threads you started, you would have known that the grader in question was a beginner at best, yet you chose them anyway. It's probably the same for the mixer. The fault lies squarely on your shoulders. You have to live with the consequences of your decisions. You're the employer, pay your guys, learn from the experience (or whinge and bitch about it like an idiot for all I care) and move on, and most importantly, stop consistently making dumb decisions. Everyone makes dumb decisions from time to time. The problem is when most decisions are bad.
 
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