Question about hiring someone, who you works in a different city.

H

harmonica44

For doing some post production work on a project, I have decided to hire someone in a different city. A different country even. I will send all the footage online. However, I am paying him by the hour, but since I cannot supervise him really, how do I know how many hours he has worked? When hiring this way, how do you come up with a system, of keeping track of hours?

Thanks.
 
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It's not a locality thing. You need to know whether you can trust the person or not. It's really as simple as that. Even with a local person, what are you going to do? Sit by them while they do their work each and every day?
 
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Well I don't know if I can trust him as he is a complete stranger, but having to work with new people is normal in filmmaking, right? So there probably is an arranged system I am guessing.
 
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Ask for an estimate of the total number of hours to complete the project. Assuming the estimate is within the range of what you are willing/able to pay, determine how much overage you are willing to accept without prior approval and make sure that is clear to the other person (preferably put all of this in writing). Schedule review times; maybe weekly, or at logical progress points - i.e. rough cut of each scene, rough cut of full project, revisions, final cut, etc. Have them provide you with a log of total hours spent at each review point. Compare the total current hours against current progress at each review to make sure you are on track to finish within the original agreed upon estimate range.
 
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Check references from people he worked with to ask about their experiences with working with him.
It's not a guarantee, but it will hopefully give you honest info about this person.
 
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No, no portofolio so far. I sent him a scene's worth of footage, and asked him to go to town with it, as a test before I hire him. He did and I am fairly impressed. But I have no one else to compare him to since he was the only one who applied to my add. But I am must say I am overall impressed.
 
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Okay thanks, but I've tried the fixed fee thing before in the past, and there were problems. The people I hired would not really work with me and keep me updated. We would sign an online contract, and then they would not get back to me until it was finished and would want to be paid the fixed me, even though I was not happy at all with the editing, mixing or post production work.

It seems that fixed fees, can cause people to want to do it all without any collaboration, and want to get pain in the end, with an unsatisfactory product, that I did was not given any access to approve, during the working progress.

So how do you avoid that with a fixed fee?
 
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You set benchmarks along the way - pay them a bit at a time (pre-agreed percentages) and they don't get the balance if they don't show the work and it's not to agreed standards.
You have to pay part upfront , though, because otherwise you're asking them to fully trust you.
 
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Okay thanks. I tried once before with a guy but when there was something I wanted to be changed, or redone, he wanted to renegotiate the contract, to get payed for for having to tweak things. If this happens again, is there way to avoid it?
 
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I tried once before with a guy but when there was something I wanted to be changed, or redone, he wanted to renegotiate the contract, to get payed for for having to tweak things. If this happens again, is there way to avoid it?
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Yep. Don't do it. Unless you specifically agree to those terms, if you decide to change your mind, you should get charged more. Set up the terms of the agreement up front so both sides understand the nature of the relationship. If they're going to have a babysitter, supervision needs to be agreed upon up front. If you want a payment scheme, up front... Want to approve each and every step, yep, up front. If you want to be able to change your mind half way through, yep, up front. This is assuming you're asking for a lump sum price for the whole job.

If you're paying by the hour, you can ask for whatever changes or tweaks you want. You're paying for it. Need the job rushed? Sure, overtime rates it is (if that option is available). Just be aware, if they've assigned specific time to your job, you may need to wait for a break in their schedule to fit those adjustments in.

Just to be clear. Work out in advance what is expected by both parties. Include then where, when and how if appropriate.

TLDR: If you want to change the terms of the arrangement, expect the other party to also want to change terms to match those alterations. Make sure the terms and expectations of the arrangement is set out and clear.
 
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Hey Harmonica -

If your guy has no track record (no demo reel, no references, little practical experience) then don't pay him; he has nothing to offer except - hopefully - a burning desire to gain experience doing audio post work. There are plenty of audio post folks like myself out there with varying degrees of experience and corresponding rates, so look around; maybe an ad in Mandy and a few other places. Not to mention that the audio post houses have all trimmed staff, and there are lots of very experienced people with smaller "personal" studios who will work for a lot less than you would expect. This means that people like me had to reduce our rates as well in order to compete and stay in business. So do some more searching; you can get some very nice work for "reasonable" rates. You could even PM me for a quote.


A substantial part of my audio post work is done via FedEx and the 'net with people I have never met. My contracts very explicitly detail fees, due dates, terms of payment, etc. It's all based upon the budget of the client, and my job is to cram as much into the budget as I can. I have a pretty good idea of how long each aspect of the post process will take me to do, so I base my bid upon the linear minute length of the film. I generally get two payments - 50% down and 50% before the mix goes out the door. They get two (2) "tweaks" to the mix. After that they pay my hourly rate or we negotiate new terms.

Another option I have done is 25% down, and I'll do the dialog and/or production sound edit and very, very basic ambient backgrounds so I can get a handle on noise reduction & de-verbing issues; a rough mix then goes to the client for approval. The next 25% is paid and I will do the Foley, send out another rough mix with the DX for approval. The third 25% is paid and I do the sound effects work and the mix. I get paid the final 25% before the full mix goes to the client. They get two (2) "tweaks" to the mix. After that they pay my hourly rate or we negotiate new terms.

And there have been many variations on those two themes.

You should do your homework as well. When looking for bids have the linear minute length of the film, and an honest appraisal of the quality of the production sound. Let the potential audio editors/mixers know how much (again, linear minute length) action (weapons play, fights, etc.) and even "simple" things like vehicles and "crowd" scenes there are in the project as they take more time to sound design. Once the potential sound editor/mixer/designer has that information s/he can give you a realistic bid.
 
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Well no sorry I should have been more specific. He has a portfolio, but it's all documentary stuff, which doesn't look and feel at all, for is what I am going for, with a fictional genre movie. However, I sent him some footage to go to town with, and he is pretty good, so I decided to use him.
 
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