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I've had the unfortunate experience of having a client project go sideways prior to a video being completed.
This was a while ago, and it was the first (and only) time, since opening my video editing business, that this has happened.
As I look back at the comments and emails for traces of where I may have been to blame - one in particular caught my eye. The first one. The very first inquiry that I received, I told them it didn't seem like I was a good fit and I directed them to other places where they could find a video editor. They insisted I was the one for them. We got on a call where I discovered that an editor they had just worked with for a month had left abruptly and taken on another project. "Huh...a big opportunity...that's not cool, to bail on someone without completing their project..", I thought...."or is this a warning sigh?". Other oddities crept into the conversation, but in the end, I caved and sent a proposal. They signed it immediately and then the fun began. 🙄
As the project unfolded, each change request became more and more erratic and each solution I came up with caused them to be more irate. I found myself in a position where I would have to sort of "just take it" so to speak. The comments, the irrational rejections, the bizzarre and often creepy creative choices.
Two weeks of time blocked at the start of this project, burned, while expecting footage to show up,
"any hour now!!! it will be there by tonight!!! I promise!!!"
--- (I could have completed multiple projects before the transfer of footage even began) 4 other new client opportunities on deck that I was not getting started on.
I've never had a client send 3,700+ videos, photos and sound files.
I don't know how fully to give you the scope of what that entails. Perhaps the easiest way to show how questionable this choice was, is to mention that the job I had been hired to do, was to complete a 90 second reel. They had sent footage shot over YEARS, hundreds of hours of it. But we were going to be making something 90 seconds long. How to even begin choosing? We're already through with budgeting and estimating, so how do I even account for time needed to sift through and mark potentially useable clips?
Reviewing the footage - they sent so much! This task alone would take 8 hours a day of watching & skimming footage for nearly a month, just to understand what could be used in the show!
Footage filmed over such a long time period that camera technology had shifted from the start to the end of their footage! Some footage was filmed on whatever smartphone back in 2012, that when viewed now, has aggravating horizontal interlacing lines running through it.
(photo shows an example of interlacing - not actual footage from a project)
When I asked "why did you transfer so much footage?". The answer? "Just wanted you to have it all, for down the road." 276GB's of it, clogging up my editing drive. 40 hours wasted in the transfer process and comsuming my studio's bandwidth. Nearly 1/3rd of it, they didn't even have license to use anymore...some of it was stock footage and definitely not a fit for their project, a toddler-children's show.
They sent sound effects from horror, action and war movies?
Machine gun fire? I am absolutely sure we will not need that.
"Can I delete the 972 song and sound effects files that don't fit a baby show and clear some space?", I asked..
No answer. So frustrating. So inconsiderate.
Then came the emotional attachments.
Now, with most clients emotions are an important part of what we're creating. A memorial service video, for example. You better believe that footage of Grandpa with the Grand-daughter having a touching moment matters. THAT is the clip that brings tears to people's eyes. That is the stuff I am looking for. When I find it, I find the right place for it, I bring focus to it, time it to music, let it shine. Love it.
But this was NOT that.
They were trying to put together a children's show. For TV. A Christian, baby-themed show. When you're creating for a large audience like that you make careful choices. And those choices should align to what you expect the audience will understand and resonate with.
In these cases, being too attached to your material can be a hindrance.
It's important to understand that, your audience doesn't know about your personal connection to that photo of your son on a bathroom floor, under-renovation with a toilet paper roll (???) hanging down behind him. A scarf over his eyes? A giant Bible open on the floor that was then drawn on with a crayon in an editing program a decade ago...what in the world??
Walter Murch, in his book, In The Blink Of An Eye, calls this, "Seeing around the edge of the frame" -- Where a film crew might say, "We risked our lives getting that shot! It was so hard to get to that location!!" It's the editor's job to see what is actually IN the frame - in other words, see what the audience will see, not how much work went into getting the shot, for example. The audience will never see that. When the editor looks at it back in the studio, we're looking at it through a different lens - starting with,
"Does this shot express what this scene is trying to convey?"
This edit needed to be designed with the mom in mind. A mom who is trying to make a split-second decision about whether or not it is SAFE to plop their child down in front of your tv show. I ran this by a few moms that I knew would give me honest feedback. Their input?:
- "That looks creepy"
- "Why is the baby blindfolded?"
- "Is this show about a kidnapping?"
- "I don't understand what is happening here???"
So, when I subtly suggest we use something else...and go off for a few hours and create a dozen options for a client to choose from - I hope they will listen. And when they don't, I roll with it.
But after continuing to comply and find ways to use the photo and then my following some 150-200 change requests, watching the project steadily move away from the vision they initially explained, become more and more bizzarrely patched together... A giant wooden medieval set of doors the parent opens to discover the baby reading?? The baby's head is 1/2 the size of the door but you're not ok with me re-sizing it so the dimensions match? ...at some point, I feel that it is my job to hold the line. Isn't that what hiring a professional is for?
Are we not at some point obligated to say, "No, we shouldn't do that, it doesn't work, for these reasons: it will look off, it's out of context, the sizing/dimensions are incompatible with the laws of physics, and your audience will not like this!"
Clients can be too close to it. Too attached. In this case, I suspect there was more to it than that. Wild mood swings in the comments, even insults, from one end of the spectrum to another. So, perhaps I did all that I could. Staying calm. Letting many of the comments/antics go. Not responding when it had gotten a bit unhinged.
My wife, my attorney, my close friends, all said, "You're not the problem".
"You took the high road at every opportunity, put in the extra hours that you didn't bill them for, worked all day on a Sunday, on your own time, tried to find a way to put their suggestions in place...what more can you ask of yourself?"
But I still feel a pang of sadness. Not for me, unbilled time, future work, or reputation. Not even for the client.
But for those versions along the way that came out of the edit bay that inspired...where I was given nothing but a barely discernable image of a baby and found a way to turn it into something...a whole scene that came out of nothing, that will, unfortunately, never see the light of day.
In a parallel universe somewhere, I envision that there is a children's show that loves the intro I created.
It's got a baby blue door that opens in the clouds...
...the camera zooms on through and down over the sleepy town...it settles over a house...
..and finally into a kid's room where they're playing in a blanket-fort lit by flashlight.
...there's a giggle as they are enjoying their game of castles and knights in an imaginary world.
I hope that show succeeds!
After all, life is too short to work on something that causes this much angst and anguish.
"Find work you want to do, where you want to be and with people you want to work with".
- Said by me. To my wife. Often.
It's not bad advice. I guess I needed to hear it too.
My attorney said, "Thank God!"
My wife said, "Amen to that!"