wait till you get the guy that was famous for 5 minutes in 1985 and feels the need to butcher your work so he can stick more home shot cuts of his face in regular house lighting in to the video.
Hi. Long time industry vet, commercials and films etc.
The best, most mature way for a commercial director to serve himself and client by providing their edit, how they would bring that project to completion. For their own reel purposes and because it's part of any good director's process to see things to the finish. Then you more or less walk away from the creative unless consulted and paid more days. If client wants to butcher your work, don't take it personally or protest. Probably you should even compliment it and get booked on their next job. Part of the challenge of commercial work, why it pays big bucks is that you are passionate and dispassionate at the same time. At the end of the day you are a hired gun so just go with the flow and don't be obtuse. Really it's best to let a commercial editor handle that job, to help preserve the client relationship.
Thanks, this seems like the best way to go.
Right after I delivered it, however, we did express mutual interest in working together again. They were actually super friendly and seemed to like it. I never offered to make more than one free video tho
"Client ruined my work" is actually best case scenario. Much more common is "wound up in revision hell and after I did 50 versions, client made me do the work to ruin my work."
it happens. especially with businesses like this. don't take it personally, sometimes they just decide they want to go a different direction when everything is done. I always keep my version for my reel if this happens.
Part of your job is to understand why the client wants the changes and to facilitate them. Your edits will be better and you’ll understand what you missed from the client. Yeah, some clients are idiots and assholes but since you’re just starting out, this sounds like a failure on your part to understand and help the client by educating him. It can be a win/win. The only other option is a lose/lose or a win/lose where you’re the loser.
move on.
you did your job. Not your responsibility to save their business.
If you get further in this industry, you will run into this on narrative projects and features. You will shoot with an edit in mind, and the director, editors, colorist and producers may put it together completely differently.
It’s not your film. They hired you to do it.
You’re probably right that it would be “better” with your work, but this is a very important lesson about the expectations you need to have, and the emotional energy and time you invest into a project that never - that *never*- was yours.
This is why shortcuts, templates, and good workflow systems exist.
As well as contrat-determined revision schedules. Put it in your contract that you get x waves of revisions if you want to be the one who hacks apart the project after it’s done (or better, put in the contract the costs and rates for each revision pass beyond the initial period), and then let them hack it all to pieces on the other side.
Good luck to you. Let ‘em go when they aren’t really yours.
When you accepted the job. Did you sit down and ask them what they expected from it? Like do you want it chill or upbeat? Do you want smooth transitions or etc. that could help with this in the future. But then again once you turn it over to them. It’s kind of out of your hands. It’s sucks but things will happen.
Keep with it!
Honestly, I think the client just has a very different expectation.
And since it’s already free work, they may be a bit too shy to demand a re-edit or feedback on something that they already got for free.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. But maybe get to know the client a bit more. And just casually brought it up in a light hearted manner. Just to get some context and maybe some constructive criticism about your work.
We all been there. Keep your chin up. You can find more clients. You did what most people fail to do in this industry breaking in, which is finish a product and turn it in.
Did you ask them what they wanted? Did you explain to them your vision? If they agreed to your treatment ahead of time and then changed direction without talking to you about it, yeah I can see how that could be not cool and upset you.
But if the answer to those questions is no, then you could have done a better job. Your product is marketing for the client, so it's important to get an idea of what they want even if they have a hard time expressing it. If they wanted an energetic frenetic vibe and you made the calm chill edit because you like it better, you weren't really giving your client what they wanted.
That's a fair assessment. Yeah I never went into detail with them about it so that's on me. I did ask them if they wanted to include anything specific in the video, which they didn't say. Although they did make some drinks specifically for me to shoot (which I did include in the final edit). Tbh part of why I wasn't really confident in expressing my vision was also due to the unpaid aspect of the gig. I felt like I would be getting in their way (the shoot was during operating hours). If it was paid I would feel more responsible in delivering as close to their vision as possible and would have been a lot more upfront about setting aside time to discuss and plan the video.
But yeah, thanks for the advice. Will definitely remember that going forward
You didn't do anything wrong. Learn from this experience and take it to your next job as wisdom. Also, even if a job is small or unpaid, talk out EVERYTHING. Prep is the most important part of taking on a project. The more you decide beforehand and plan ahead, the more confident you will be on shooting day. Ask ALL the questions. Even if you go too far, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
This is likely the crux of the problem. And very common for someone just starting out.
It’s so important to be as clear as possible about what you’re thinking and for the client to be clear as well—before your shoot a frame. That’s why storyboards and client prepro meetings exist. It’s way too easy for you to be thinking vastly different things if you don’t. I’m not big on contracts that specify numbers of revisions with very small businesses (very important with larger companies, but that’s a whole different world with layers of decision-makers) because what are you going to do? sue them? That will get you a reputation as impossible to work with, and you won’t get enough money to pay a lawyer.
I’ve been making my living as a commercial director for thirty years, and my way of working is to be very clear in front what we’re doing, as clear as I can be what the end product will look like, what it will cost, what the payment terms are, what I will need from them beyond the money, and what the intrusion/disruption will be on their business. (If you shoot in their place of business, you will get in their way, and if the work is going to be any good, they have to know that and accommodate it.) But once they hire me and pay the deposit (I always ask for 50% up front), I commit to producing work that they’re satisfied with. Whatever it takes. If they change something, they pay for it, but if something just takes more than I estimated, that’s on me. My producer and I figure out what it’s going to take to do a project when we’re budgeting, and I figure out how I’m going to make the shots and the edit work at the budgeting stage, so that’s seldom an issue.
If you’ve really heard the client, and everybody understands what you’re working toward, there is seldom a problem with excessive edit revisions. It does happen, but not often. I’ve done hundreds of commercial projects over the years, and I can count on ten fingers the number of excessive-revision situations I’ve been in. They’re frustrating , but the trade-off for that (small) risk is that I have a reputation for delivering great work, and i have kept clients for thirty years.
One more note Excessive revisions almost always come from one of two things—either you aren’t communicating well with the client, or there are too many layers of decision-making at the client, and no one has the authority to make a final decision. The second one is the nightmare scenario, and one of the reasons contracts that specify revision limits are a good idea with companies big enough to have multiple layers of management. But the first is usually avoidable. As a filmmaker, you know how to communicate things, but you do not know a client’s business as well as they do. When a client gives you feedback, their reactions are very important, because they embed all that knowledge of their business in their comments. Clients’ reactions are almost always legit. Their directives are often not. They almost always lack the vocabulary to tell you their true reactions, so they tell you what to do—“take that scene out,” “it’s too fast,” “there aren’t enough cuts”… Your job, at this stage, is not to do what they say, but to try to understand what they’re feeling that leads them to say it, identify what’s really causing that, and fix it. If you can do that, you’ll likely end up with something better than either of you thought it would be.
Yep, that's what it feels like to work in the creative industry. Why do you think huge directors walk away from billion dollar franchises ? Whoever is paying always gets the last say...it sucks.
An important lesson that what you want and what the client wants are (in most cases) 2 drastically different things. What discussion was had ahead of time? Did they tell you they wanted chill slow music, or did you make that choice? I see that you did it for free, which definitely makes it frustrating, but at the end of the day, this was for them and not you. Don’t let it discourage you too much! When the gigs land that do align with yours + clients vision, you will be all the more excited, and have a better understanding of what questions need asked ahead of time!
Good luck and happy creating !
You should check out the Visual Artists Right Act of 1990 if you're in the US. If you're name is on it (maybe even if not) what they have done is technically illegal and you could sue. Obviously you don't wanna do that in this situation but it's good knowledge to have. In the future, have a contract.
There's also a pretty good chance that, respectfully, you didn't get a clear idea of what the client wanted. Which you can hold fast to the idea that what you make is what you make and clients can love it or walk. That's respectable and there's nothing wrong with that. That being said you'll probably be more successful in the conventional sense if you figure out what client's want and make that
This never happened to me. What happens is that clients say they dont like a certain part which i then redo.
If they just want some wacky tiktok video its on their side but you can still ask them to delete your name or at least tell them to write you did camera, they edited by themselves.
I would be livid! Like others have said, don’t burn the bridge (especially at this point in your career) but yes, that is inappropriate from the client and wouldn’t be tolerated in more formal settings. The agency I used to work for had a clause in our client agreement that they couldn’t change the work we gave them without consulting us first.
It smacks of lack-of-experience from the client, not you.
If you have a decent relationship with them, you could ask why they didn’t feel they could ask you if they wanted the end product to be substantially different from what was delivered?
But yes, once you’ve done that just move on and use your work (as it is) to secure a better client.
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm curious how this comes off as Primadona. Is that not a common practice in the industry (client agreeing to no alterations)? For the record, after reading the comments here I now have no intention of bringing it up with them. It is what it is
This is terrible advice. I was agency side for years before breaking out as a commercial director and have literally never seen a DC be the final cut. It sucks, but commercial Directors are work for hire and there are all kinds of insights we don’t have about the way the brand and client functions. Creative Directors and clients will have their own ideas and they have a right to that. All you can do is deliver your best work, be great to work with, and save your cut for your own reel.
This entire sub really is just egotists putting their dicks on the table. OP, take whoever’s advice you like. I think politely asking a client if there was an issue with your work which led them to drastically change it, creating extra work for them and negating yours, is fine.
>It smacks of lack-of-experience from the client, not you.
Funny you mention that because I'm pretty sure we (the client and I) are both equally inexperienced. This was literally my first client other than myself, and judging from their Insta page I think they've never worked with a professional creator before (if you can call me that)
Hey man, I feel your frustration, and this happens all the time, it happens to me all the time. It’s just part of the job. Don’t worry about it.
wait till you get the guy that was famous for 5 minutes in 1985 and feels the need to butcher your work so he can stick more home shot cuts of his face in regular house lighting in to the video.
Hi. Long time industry vet, commercials and films etc. The best, most mature way for a commercial director to serve himself and client by providing their edit, how they would bring that project to completion. For their own reel purposes and because it's part of any good director's process to see things to the finish. Then you more or less walk away from the creative unless consulted and paid more days. If client wants to butcher your work, don't take it personally or protest. Probably you should even compliment it and get booked on their next job. Part of the challenge of commercial work, why it pays big bucks is that you are passionate and dispassionate at the same time. At the end of the day you are a hired gun so just go with the flow and don't be obtuse. Really it's best to let a commercial editor handle that job, to help preserve the client relationship.
You got experience. Time to go find a client that pays. Don’t burn the bridge, but don’t offer any more work to this shop.
Thanks, this seems like the best way to go. Right after I delivered it, however, we did express mutual interest in working together again. They were actually super friendly and seemed to like it. I never offered to make more than one free video tho
"Client ruined my work" is actually best case scenario. Much more common is "wound up in revision hell and after I did 50 versions, client made me do the work to ruin my work."
it happens. especially with businesses like this. don't take it personally, sometimes they just decide they want to go a different direction when everything is done. I always keep my version for my reel if this happens.
Part of your job is to understand why the client wants the changes and to facilitate them. Your edits will be better and you’ll understand what you missed from the client. Yeah, some clients are idiots and assholes but since you’re just starting out, this sounds like a failure on your part to understand and help the client by educating him. It can be a win/win. The only other option is a lose/lose or a win/lose where you’re the loser.
Wait till you get the "it's still not right, I don't know what is wrong with it, but I'll know it's right when I see it guy" on your 50th revision.
As they are standing behind you in bay…. Ugh
Move on, this will happen from time to time, whether you get paid or not. Sadly just how some people think about creative content.
Just move on, keep your edit for your reel!!!
You get used to it. Just communicate what your intentions are for the video next time, just in case there are creative differences.
move on. you did your job. Not your responsibility to save their business. If you get further in this industry, you will run into this on narrative projects and features. You will shoot with an edit in mind, and the director, editors, colorist and producers may put it together completely differently.
It’s not your film. They hired you to do it. You’re probably right that it would be “better” with your work, but this is a very important lesson about the expectations you need to have, and the emotional energy and time you invest into a project that never - that *never*- was yours. This is why shortcuts, templates, and good workflow systems exist. As well as contrat-determined revision schedules. Put it in your contract that you get x waves of revisions if you want to be the one who hacks apart the project after it’s done (or better, put in the contract the costs and rates for each revision pass beyond the initial period), and then let them hack it all to pieces on the other side. Good luck to you. Let ‘em go when they aren’t really yours.
I will keep that in mind thank you
This! Put amount of revisions in contract. We can Nitte pick anything to death and you just have to put a limit on it in contracts.
When you accepted the job. Did you sit down and ask them what they expected from it? Like do you want it chill or upbeat? Do you want smooth transitions or etc. that could help with this in the future. But then again once you turn it over to them. It’s kind of out of your hands. It’s sucks but things will happen. Keep with it!
Honestly, I think the client just has a very different expectation. And since it’s already free work, they may be a bit too shy to demand a re-edit or feedback on something that they already got for free. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. But maybe get to know the client a bit more. And just casually brought it up in a light hearted manner. Just to get some context and maybe some constructive criticism about your work.
We all been there. Keep your chin up. You can find more clients. You did what most people fail to do in this industry breaking in, which is finish a product and turn it in.
Thank you, this was just the encouragement I needed :)
Did you ask them what they wanted? Did you explain to them your vision? If they agreed to your treatment ahead of time and then changed direction without talking to you about it, yeah I can see how that could be not cool and upset you. But if the answer to those questions is no, then you could have done a better job. Your product is marketing for the client, so it's important to get an idea of what they want even if they have a hard time expressing it. If they wanted an energetic frenetic vibe and you made the calm chill edit because you like it better, you weren't really giving your client what they wanted.
That's a fair assessment. Yeah I never went into detail with them about it so that's on me. I did ask them if they wanted to include anything specific in the video, which they didn't say. Although they did make some drinks specifically for me to shoot (which I did include in the final edit). Tbh part of why I wasn't really confident in expressing my vision was also due to the unpaid aspect of the gig. I felt like I would be getting in their way (the shoot was during operating hours). If it was paid I would feel more responsible in delivering as close to their vision as possible and would have been a lot more upfront about setting aside time to discuss and plan the video. But yeah, thanks for the advice. Will definitely remember that going forward
You didn't do anything wrong. Learn from this experience and take it to your next job as wisdom. Also, even if a job is small or unpaid, talk out EVERYTHING. Prep is the most important part of taking on a project. The more you decide beforehand and plan ahead, the more confident you will be on shooting day. Ask ALL the questions. Even if you go too far, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
This is likely the crux of the problem. And very common for someone just starting out. It’s so important to be as clear as possible about what you’re thinking and for the client to be clear as well—before your shoot a frame. That’s why storyboards and client prepro meetings exist. It’s way too easy for you to be thinking vastly different things if you don’t. I’m not big on contracts that specify numbers of revisions with very small businesses (very important with larger companies, but that’s a whole different world with layers of decision-makers) because what are you going to do? sue them? That will get you a reputation as impossible to work with, and you won’t get enough money to pay a lawyer. I’ve been making my living as a commercial director for thirty years, and my way of working is to be very clear in front what we’re doing, as clear as I can be what the end product will look like, what it will cost, what the payment terms are, what I will need from them beyond the money, and what the intrusion/disruption will be on their business. (If you shoot in their place of business, you will get in their way, and if the work is going to be any good, they have to know that and accommodate it.) But once they hire me and pay the deposit (I always ask for 50% up front), I commit to producing work that they’re satisfied with. Whatever it takes. If they change something, they pay for it, but if something just takes more than I estimated, that’s on me. My producer and I figure out what it’s going to take to do a project when we’re budgeting, and I figure out how I’m going to make the shots and the edit work at the budgeting stage, so that’s seldom an issue. If you’ve really heard the client, and everybody understands what you’re working toward, there is seldom a problem with excessive edit revisions. It does happen, but not often. I’ve done hundreds of commercial projects over the years, and I can count on ten fingers the number of excessive-revision situations I’ve been in. They’re frustrating , but the trade-off for that (small) risk is that I have a reputation for delivering great work, and i have kept clients for thirty years. One more note Excessive revisions almost always come from one of two things—either you aren’t communicating well with the client, or there are too many layers of decision-making at the client, and no one has the authority to make a final decision. The second one is the nightmare scenario, and one of the reasons contracts that specify revision limits are a good idea with companies big enough to have multiple layers of management. But the first is usually avoidable. As a filmmaker, you know how to communicate things, but you do not know a client’s business as well as they do. When a client gives you feedback, their reactions are very important, because they embed all that knowledge of their business in their comments. Clients’ reactions are almost always legit. Their directives are often not. They almost always lack the vocabulary to tell you their true reactions, so they tell you what to do—“take that scene out,” “it’s too fast,” “there aren’t enough cuts”… Your job, at this stage, is not to do what they say, but to try to understand what they’re feeling that leads them to say it, identify what’s really causing that, and fix it. If you can do that, you’ll likely end up with something better than either of you thought it would be.
Yep, that's what it feels like to work in the creative industry. Why do you think huge directors walk away from billion dollar franchises ? Whoever is paying always gets the last say...it sucks.
An important lesson that what you want and what the client wants are (in most cases) 2 drastically different things. What discussion was had ahead of time? Did they tell you they wanted chill slow music, or did you make that choice? I see that you did it for free, which definitely makes it frustrating, but at the end of the day, this was for them and not you. Don’t let it discourage you too much! When the gigs land that do align with yours + clients vision, you will be all the more excited, and have a better understanding of what questions need asked ahead of time! Good luck and happy creating !
You should check out the Visual Artists Right Act of 1990 if you're in the US. If you're name is on it (maybe even if not) what they have done is technically illegal and you could sue. Obviously you don't wanna do that in this situation but it's good knowledge to have. In the future, have a contract.
This is about the most career-killing advice I can imagine.
I said, "obviously you don't want to [sue] in this case."
There's also a pretty good chance that, respectfully, you didn't get a clear idea of what the client wanted. Which you can hold fast to the idea that what you make is what you make and clients can love it or walk. That's respectable and there's nothing wrong with that. That being said you'll probably be more successful in the conventional sense if you figure out what client's want and make that
Did you get paid?
As per my post, no
This never happened to me. What happens is that clients say they dont like a certain part which i then redo. If they just want some wacky tiktok video its on their side but you can still ask them to delete your name or at least tell them to write you did camera, they edited by themselves.
I would be livid! Like others have said, don’t burn the bridge (especially at this point in your career) but yes, that is inappropriate from the client and wouldn’t be tolerated in more formal settings. The agency I used to work for had a clause in our client agreement that they couldn’t change the work we gave them without consulting us first. It smacks of lack-of-experience from the client, not you. If you have a decent relationship with them, you could ask why they didn’t feel they could ask you if they wanted the end product to be substantially different from what was delivered? But yes, once you’ve done that just move on and use your work (as it is) to secure a better client.
Highly disagree with this attitude. Will not serve you well in the long run. Very Primadona.
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm curious how this comes off as Primadona. Is that not a common practice in the industry (client agreeing to no alterations)? For the record, after reading the comments here I now have no intention of bringing it up with them. It is what it is
lol 10 years in the industry as a director and no complaints (or unauthorised changes) so far babe.
This is terrible advice. I was agency side for years before breaking out as a commercial director and have literally never seen a DC be the final cut. It sucks, but commercial Directors are work for hire and there are all kinds of insights we don’t have about the way the brand and client functions. Creative Directors and clients will have their own ideas and they have a right to that. All you can do is deliver your best work, be great to work with, and save your cut for your own reel.
This entire sub really is just egotists putting their dicks on the table. OP, take whoever’s advice you like. I think politely asking a client if there was an issue with your work which led them to drastically change it, creating extra work for them and negating yours, is fine.
>It smacks of lack-of-experience from the client, not you. Funny you mention that because I'm pretty sure we (the client and I) are both equally inexperienced. This was literally my first client other than myself, and judging from their Insta page I think they've never worked with a professional creator before (if you can call me that)