How to Start a Professional Video Making Career!

1. Introduction: Your own video production company. Or freelancing and being asked as a camera operator or video editor for a television show. That means you're getting paid by doing what you love, your passion, that is super exciting and the dream of many. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Being self employed means that you have a business and that comes with all sorts of business stuff, things that most creatives hate or have no clue about. We just want to make videos for a living, not deal with the business sites. And I get that. I'm Geordie, by the way. Most of you probably know me from the Cinco Youtube channel. I've been there too. I graduated from film school and immediately started out as a freelancer, not knowing what I was doing. I struggled a lot in my first years, and I had to figure out the business side, which I did not learn in film school. But I am proud that I didn't quit, because today I own two film studios and employ a team of four that work for me. I was able to turn my passion into a six figure production company. I didn't had anyone to tell me how I could land my first client, where I could find new clients, and how I should grow my business. Looking back on it, my production company could have a whole lot faster if I knew what I was doing. So you are in luck to day because I'm going to share all the secret details step by step so that you can kick, start your own video making career and make a living firm passion. By the end of this course, you'll know exactly where to find potential clients, how to negotiate and successfully lands a production. It's not rocket science. Growing a business is easy as long as you know what you're doing and following a clear path. Businesses that fail simply don't know what you're doing. So let's kick start your video making career together. Start this course and learn all the details on how to successfully land your first client and further grow your business as a video maker. I am super excited and I hope you see you back in a moment. 2. Setting Up Your Goal: Hey, they are awesome to see you in this course. I am super excited that you want to launch a career as a professional video maker. That means you're gonna run your own business. No boss to complain about your own rules. Choosing your own working hours sounds really amazing, but with every nice thing, there's a catch. It's a big leap to start by yourself. Because you're venturing into unknown territory. Like where do I find work? Will I get paid enough? And will I be able to pay my bills? There's a lot of certainty that falls away. You're taking a risk. I know I sound very negative right now. Much different from my excitement when I started the course. And I apologize for that, but I want you to know the risk up front. This is not a course where everything is sunshine and happy walks in the park. This course teaches you the reality of starting your own production business, which comes with ups and downs. And it are the ups that motivate us and the downs that we can learn from. But I'm going to be here to help you minimize those downs a bit, creating a bigger chance for success. And all of that starts with setting up your goal, see it as your business plan. What do you want to do and where do you want to land? Obviously, we want to make videos. But what kind of videos are we just going to do? Everything or only post production, perhaps. Making this choice upfront is very important. It's like choosing which Pokemon you want to start with. Squirrel bulbs or Charmander. Once you make that choice, you cannot go back as a starting video maker. You tend to take every job you possibly can. This means that you don't have a goal in mind. You'll eventually land to your first client. Say it's a TV studio, looking for someone to set up the cameras, cables, et cetera. You do a good job, And the next time that the client comes back to you, they will ask you to do the same tasks over time. You're slowly being marked as the person who does that and you don't know what that thing is going to be. If you didn't start your business with a goal. You'll end up towing cable, setting up bricks and whatnot while you actually wanted to be a video editor and all that's because of one client. Now we'll talk more about this later, but the way you get more clients is through connections. Your first client might know other potential clients and you'll be introduced as the guy who can set up things. I mean, if you're looking for a video editor, would you hire a cameraman or a video editor? Maybe that cameraman is a great video editor but the only work or experience they can show is camera work. All right, I think you understand where I'm going with this. So let's define a goal within the realm of video making. What tasks do you like to do the most? And I'm going to break this down into three categories. The first one is production. Then we've got video and sounds, and finally, post production or video editing. Now the first one, production basically means everything, but your focus will be different there. We'll talk more about that in a moment. The other categories focus on a specific task. However, they are still very broad. A cameraman, for instance, could also be a drone operator or a steady cam operator. Two different tasks, yet boats capture video. It depends on the type of clients that you want to work for. That will define how specific you have to go. The higher up your clients are so big agencies or studios, the more specific you want to go because these budgets are a whole lot more. This means a single production could have room for 20 crew members or even more. And to get the most out of the production, you want to have 20 people that are specialized in a certain fields. Is there a crane shots planned? Then they'll look for a crane operator instead of an all round camera operator. But if that isn't your thing, you want to keep your skill set broader. You look for smaller clients with lower budgets. Say a local production company that has a job for two people. They usually look for someone who can do camera work as well as lighting a bit of audio, and perhaps fly a drone. And the other person is the director and can help with setting up equipment. So your skill set is suddenly broader. Keep in mind that you're still not doing everything. Alright, so far we've talked about one type of client, an organization that arranges the production and that looks for creatives to fill in the roles that they need. These could be agencies, studios, or production companies. Working for these kinds of organizations makes you a freelancer. You never work directly for the end clients. Your client is that organization in between. So that teaches us that if you want to specialize in something, we have to make connections with agencies, production companies, or studios. If you want to take a broader skill set, then your goal is to become that production company, which is the first category that I mentioned. That means that you're going to look for end clients. This means a local bakery who likes to have some videos for their social media. Or perhaps an organization that launches a Kickstarter campaign and is looking for a production company to make their video. Or your city is looking to promote tourism through a nice video. A couple that is getting married. A wedding video. Now, this doesn't mean that you cannot operate the camera yourself. Definitely at the beginning you will, you represent a production company and your local construction company will totally be fine with the idea that you do the camera work as well. But as the demand for higher quality production comes, be prepared to look for freelancers to help you out. And the bigger those productions become, the less creative work that you'll end up be doing. Most of your time will go to finding people to do the creative work, e mailing, sitting together with the client. That's what production does. And it's up to you to decide whether you want your video productions to be big budget or small budget. But keep in mind that even if you're choosing to keep your production company small, you'll always end up doing more administrative tasks than if you were to be a freelancer. As a production company, you can grow, you can eventually hire people and really build out a business. But as a freelancer you can too. The better you get at a certain skill, the more production companies will pay you. Great cinematographers can easily charge over $1,000 per day and you can also hire people in bigger production. Cinematographers oftentimes bring their own AC and other crew members that can help them with their specific task. Are you a great video editor? You can hire people to do the rough cut for you, so that you only need to focus on the finishing touch. So in both worlds, there are lots of growth possibilities. However, your strategy will be different. And depending on how big you want to grow your own business, you'll either specialize your skill more or you'll be doing more administrative tasks. It's a broad spectrum and I want you to think about that. Where would you like to be in five years from now? Take a moment to think about that. As a video production company, you also need to have a clear goal. What kind of projects do you want to take? Are you really into event videos? Perhaps. And maybe that is something that you need to focus on. Maybe you want to do more commercials then focus on that. Or perhaps weddings, you are a production company specialized in weddings. Where would you like to be in five years from now? Take a moment to think about that and then I'll see you back in the next lesson. 3. Change Your Mindset: I'm going to keep this lesson short is I don't want this course to be about what makes a great entrepreneur and that you have to change your mindset. Get up at 05:00 A.M. go for a jock and then take an ice cold bat. You know, those kind of typical videos, we are creatives. We don't get up at five, we edit all night and then go to sleep at five. That's who we are. However, we do plan to make a living from being creative. That means that we need to charge money for our services, and that means we are running a business. Even if you are the only person in it, you are still a business and for many creatives, that's something that they don't really know how to handle. So I want to talk briefly about the mindsets. Take the typical artist, they like to be creative and the only way that they can is by doing their own thing. Nobody, and definitely not someone who doesn't know about their craft, should tell the artist what to do. And when working with clients, that can go very wrong. If you're choosing to make a living as an artist, you're going to have to make compromises. Someone is going to pay for your services, so they have every right to demand certain things. As an artist, you should always advise your client, Tell them what is best, but the final choice is with them. You know, if you're the camera operator on a film set and the director asks you to make a static tripod shot, then the only thing that you can do is to advise the director to make a dynamic dolly shot. Explain your reasoning behind that choice, but keep it positive. If the director demands a static shot, then so be it. It is their movie. They are paying you for it unless you become that director. But that's a whole different story. You'll have clients that will demand a lot, who are very nit picky and want to change every single thing about your proposal. But you'll also have clients that give you creative freedom. They are of course, a blast to work together with. Either way, you're putting the client first. Customer is king and they're always right because at the end of the day, you want to make sure to get paid. I hope you've also taken the time to think about where you want to be in five years or what your career goal is. Don't worry if you still don't know, maybe after watching this entire course you'll get a better idea. But if you do, imagine that goal for a moment and I'm going to take an example. You want to make event videos for other businesses. The grand opening of a new garage or an anniversary of a golf course, the celebration of a successful year. And the company wants to throw a party for all the employees. And by the way, all of these examples are things that I have done in my career now. You don't want to grow too much because you value the creative part in these productions a lot. You want to operate the camera and do the editing, so depending on the event, you might need to hire one or two extra crew members. You want to be known as the best production company for business event videos. Now with that goal in mind, we can get a better understanding on how to start our journey. And we'll talk more about that later in this course. But what does that mean for our mindset? We are selling a video production service. Our clients are not people that know something about video production. I mean, they hire you because they believe an event video has the potential of growing their own business even more. And that is exactly what you want to talk about. Such clients absolutely don't care that you have a great camera and that you can shoot in slow motion or that you have a battery powered LED light which you can carry around on the event. If that's your selling point, you will lose the clients. Tell your potential clients on how you can help them with their business. An event video can be shared with those who were at the event to relive that moment. And it can be shared to those who didn't make it. It can be used on social media to bring engagement to the business page. It can be used in an e mail to investors to showcase their new achievement. You see it are those things that your client wants to hear when your goal is to become a freelance camera operator for commercials. Of course, your pitch is going to be different because your client might be an agency. They want to know if you can do the job and if you have the equipment to successfully complete the task. It all comes down to what the client wants to hear. And it's up to you to change your mindset accordingly. All the artistic decisions are for yourself. If you want to take out a slider, then do that. If your client is a bakery, they don't care about the slider, but you do, so don't tell them about it. Just bring one, al right? We're gonna pull on that first client. But before we can do that, we need to prepare ourselves. We've got a goal in mind, we know how to communicate, but we don't know yet what to communicate. And that starts by defining your own services. 4. Services: So far we've learned that we should treat our career as a business and that you should communicate like that as well to potential clients. And what's your goal in mind? We're going to work on the services that you provide in this lesson. The biggest mistake that I did when starting out was being too flexible. I would go to a client, ask them a bunch of stuff, and try to guess what their budget would be. So I would then make a price quote which listed a whole bunch of things like the amount and type of lights that I would bring, which camera I was going to shoot on, a Sassi, like a slider or a gimble. This would then add up to a total value and I would send that over to the client. A complicated proposal that the client doesn't know anything about, they just look at the final price and wonder all of this stuff needed seems calculated really good. So I'll think about it. And when a client says, I'll think about it, you basically lost them. And this also raised a second issue. You put a slider and a gimble on your price quotes. That means you're going to have to use those things or your client is legally able to ask you to deduct those fees. That limits you and the edits. And what if you see an opportunity to make a cool Ip movement but you didn't have that on your quote. Does that mean that you cannot bring your chip with you? I mean, if you have laying a home or you bring it with you in your chute, what's the difference? So instead we're going to tackle this differently. We're going to create packages. These are the services that your clients can choose from. Let's say that you're doing a corporate movie. Propose three different packages, Bronze, silver, and gold. Now define what the difference is between each package, But don't include details like the gear you're going to use. Make sure that your client understands the differences. For example, a bronze package could include one shooting day and one editing day. That's it. The silver package includes one shooting day, one editing day, a logo animation, and a Tre D graphic. When you're at the client, you can already discuss what those Tre D graphics will be. For example, a map of the construction site that shows certain numbers. Make sure that your services make sense to the client so that they see the value in them. Now if you were to say I'll include Tre D graphics, but I'm not sure about what yet, they'll likely not choose for that package. And by the end of the day, you always want to try to sell your gold package because it gives you the most work and revenue. A gold package could include everything that the silver has, including drone shots. A drone is something everybody knows, so you can definitely define that. Now just don't say that you're offering to shoot on a DJI Mavic pro. That's just gibberish to them. Add an extra shooting day perhaps, and tell the client what's more that you can do with that shooting day. Large companies need that extra day of shooting because their site is so big. Always keep in mind that the client needs to understand their benefits. If you only have one day, you cannot shoot all the facilities at the company perhaps. So with the gold package, you can't cover every process. And that's it. Those are your three packages. Of course, if your client does ask for something more specific, you can always be flexible. And I would always start from one of these packages. Now, for instance, if the bronze package is still too expensive, is there a way you can make it more affordable for your client? Perhaps half a day of shooting, but always start from those packages and adapt from that if needed. You'll notice that your convergence will be much higher when working with such packages. Now we'll talk about pricing in the next lesson. But if your date price would be $500 always ask a bit more for extra gear. Just don't mention that gear. Ask a day price of 700. Instead that gives you 200 extra room to bring any gear that you think is needed. It also allows you to rent something, perhaps without it being a cut from your day price. Now of course, this is when you're working, or act as a production company, you're going to work directly to the end client. This means that you're going to need to do that sales pitch yourself and offer the complete package to successfully deliver an amazing video. If your goal is to freelance and not deal with the end clients, so you're working for a production company, then you don't have to create those packages, of course, because you're not doing a sales pitch. Instead you work by day prices or half day. I know some work with hourly fees and that's totally up to you. But I would avoid that because oftentimes you say 2 hours, but you end up working 4 hours. It could lead to discussions, 2 hours of work is half a day. I mean, you're losing time by putting all your gear into your car, driving to the production, do your thing, go back home, unload your trunk, you know, just half a day. And also you'll earn something extra. If that happens on a different chute, you might be working 12 hours. So it lifts each other up. Now, what should you charge? Where do you begin? You don't want to ask too little or too much and end up losing the clients. Well, that is for next less. 5. Pricing: If you're a production company, you're flexible in the fees that you work with. Are you going to a local business? You might want to lower your fees a bit. Do you have a meeting with a big company? Increase the fees of your packages? When working as a freelancer, you can't really do that because oftentimes you'll be working for the same organization. That's also the idea behind freelancing. You do a good job and the hope that they'll ask you again. And if you start by charging too little, you're locked into that fee for a long time. So as a freelancer setting the right fees is even more important. Asking too little when working directly to the end client doesn't affect the next client that you work for. All right, let's start with the freelancer. It's not easy to pin a number on this as it depends a lot on where you live and what the income standard is. But you want to start with what you want to earn per hour. Let's say you're working for a boss. What would your hourly income be? Start with that as an example, let's pick $15 an hour. Now keep in mind that you'll also be doing a lot of work outside of your freelancing job. You're self employed, so it comes with some administration work. There's prospecting, finding clients, so we can easily set it to $20 an hour, and then comes taxes. Now this is very different from each country, but from where I am, Belgium. You need to keep in mind that 60% of your income goes to taxes. So my $20 an hour would end up being eight. If I want the $20 I'm going to have to charge $50 an hour. Those are my base fees. I do not go below that. Now, if a production company asks for your freelancing services, you can save 50 bucks an hour, unless they also ask you to bring your own camera. Or if you're a freelance editor, you probably need to edit on your own computer. Think of it this way. This is equipment that you need to pay for, but it's actually meant for the clients. So you shouldn't be paying for it from your base hourly fee. Or 50 bucks for a standard set of equipment like a computer, a camera, some lights, et cetera. You can easily charge 60 or $70 per hour. Of course, you never say that. Your fees include the gear. The $70 is just your hourly price. If you're a tread artist and you need expensive rendering computers and whatnot, you can charge even more. So that way you always have the extra money to upgrade your hardware. Being able to set aside money allows you to grow. So it's super important, working for a production company that requires you to take your own camera, will really appreciate that you always come on set with a modern camera. Oftentimes they also demands that, so you need to be able to buy new equipment occasionally. So those hourly fees translate into a half day price. I would just do it times four, rounded up, so that's 300 for half a day and 600 for a day. Now these numbers are the basis. This is where you typically start at. It doesn't calculate in that you can do something unique. Why are shoes from a specific brands more expensive than off brand shoes that use the same materials? Well, the brands they stand for something, they are known for something. So if you're a freelance video editor and you're really good at it, you can show a portfolio of highly admired projects that you worked on. You can charge more like I said before, a good cinematographer can charge over $1,000 per day. And that is excluding gear, because once you go into the high end productions, you cannot calculate gear anymore into your fees. The production needs to rent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in gear. So it doesn't make sense that you need to care for that yourself. But that's what the future holds. We're taking our first steps into a video making career now. What about if you are the production company? We've talked about those packages before. Bronze, Silver, and Gold. What should you charge for them? Well, your hourly fee remains the same. $70 A bronze package has one day of shooting and one day of editing. That means $1,200 in total. Now, I would not go below that. Again, keep in mind that these numbers translates to where I live in Belgium. Do your own calculations for the region that you live in. Now as a production company, you need to be flexible. What if we charge 1,500 for the bronze package instead of 1,200 That gives us 300 more, which I can use to perhaps rent something. Or maybe you notice that you're spending a lot of time with this client. You have to meet a lot, send so many E mails and whatnot. Then that extra 300 covers that for the silver or gold package. And by the way, you don't have to name your packages like this, it's just an example for those. I would even add an extra amount to cover a freelancer for an entire day. That way you're with two people and you don't have to do it alone. When a client chooses a higher package, they also expect premium quality. So make sure that you can deliver that premium quality. If they are paying for a gold package. And they see you coming alone on production day, they wonder where all that money went to. So being with a small crew also shows where the money is going to and that you're going for that premium quality. And you don't even have to specify that in your packages that you include an extra camera guy. Because if you do, your client might question if the extra person might be needed. Definitely in a bronze or maybe silver package. And yes, some clients are like that. So if a freelancer asks 600 a day, should you calculate 600 extra? No, you should ask 800 more. You add a commission for yourself and there every agency, organization, production company, works like that. Imagine you would do a simple corporate video by yourself. You would earn the same amount than if you were to do a big production with 20 crew members. If you don't had commission, it wouldn't make any sense. If you can land the bigger clients, you should earn more because landing those big clients takes effort. It took me over four years to finally land bigger projects on which I could earn commissions. Before that, things weren't always so smooth. I had months with an income of less than 500 bucks. There were times where I wanted to quit because I couldn't find clients. So after those four years, the extra income was making up for that, and that's how you should price your services. Now let's work on that contract and land you your first. 6. Important Legal Terms: We know what to charge, we know what kind of clients that we want to attract. That lay in line with our goal. We are ready to land our first client. Now however, you also want to make sure that everything goes smooth. So before you start that sales pitch, let's look over at a contract. I know boring stuff, but this is super important and I'm going to break it down into three categories. When you agree on a price, you ask your clients to sign a contract. This can also be on the price code itself. By the way, it doesn't have to be a different paper bundle. That means it doesn't have to be pages long. Just something simple to cover yourself in and that both parties are on the same page, no pun intended. Now, none of this is necessary, but I do recommend it. We're going to start with fees. So you charge 600 a day price for editing a video. In the contract, you can state that a day price is 8 hours and for every extra hour, 70 bucks is added. That way the client knows about it up front and there won't be any discussion when you add the extra fees to your invoice because you eventually worked for two days. Alternatively, you can work with revisions. Perhaps two revisions are included, and for every extra you charge 100 bucks. Freelancers oftentimes end up working very long days. You start early in the morning and are still working at 10:00 P.M. So even though you're working one day, it has become a very long day when shooting weddings. This happens very often and it's very important to have something about that in your contract. You can say for every hour after 07:00 you charge an additional 70 bucks at a wedding. I would then go to the bride and groom at seven and ask if you're still needed to stay longer. Reminds them about the extra fees. To avoid discussion, the whole contract comes down to avoiding discussion and making sure that you're getting paid for the extra work that wasn't agreed on upfront. And depending on the type of client, it's going to be different how you formulate that. When sending over a price quotes, most of the time your client will not respond to it, definitely not. If you're a production company and you do commercial work, businesses like to ask multiple price quotes to compare or you send over your quotes, but you don't hear back. And when you call your clients, they always say, I'll look into it, I haven't found the time yet for you, that's very frustrating. So you want to lock the deal in as fast as possible and that can be done by letting them sign a contract. When you sit down with the first time you show your packages, try to convince them and do deciding which package they want on the spots and take out your contract and let them sign, and they could sign for a couple of things here that gives you some more certainty. First of all, it could be an upfront payment, which I would always do. By the way, if budgets are getting bigger, imagine that you need to hire a freelancer. That means you have to pay that freelancer. But if your client doesn't pay you, then you are an awkward situation. So by asking, for example, 30% payment upfront, you at least have something for if things go wrong or your client doesn't pay the remaining fees afterwards. But that upfront payment also incentivizes the clients to take action and plan that shooting day for you because they know that they already paid for it. So write down a certain month or time frame when the production will happen. That's what I currently do with my clients. I schedule a delivery date upfront. So for example, when that is October 23, I already sends my invoice on 1 October. The client doesn't have to pay immediately, but they get 30 days to do so. If for some reason the client postpone the production, they are still legally bound to paying that invoice. So there are many ways to do it, but the idea is to give yourself certainty that the production is a go and that you're getting paid for the work that you're delivering. There are some legal things you can add in the contract, like if the invoice is not paid, extra interest fees applies after X amount of days. But those are things that you should consider with a legal adviser. There is one last thing I'd like to tackle, and that is usage rights. You're about to make a video for a client or deliver your freelancing services. The shots that you make, the video that you edit, the graphics that you design, how and where can they be used? It's something that you need to figure out for yourself, but I do find it important to think about this. Imagine you're being asked to shoot a commercial. The client is very nit picky on the budget, and eventually you agree on 500 bucks for the complete production. You are working below your fees, but you think by yourself, it's fine. At least I got to work. And the commercial is only being used on their Facebook page, which hasn't even got over 100 followers. But then all of a sudden you're watching some television and you see the commercial video play on national TV. They paid you 500 bucks to make that commercial, but then tens of thousands of dollars to play it on national TV. If you don't care about that, fine. But I do, that commercial is a creative piece that I made and if I knew up front that they would use it on national TV, I would have charged more. I actually made that mistake once and I wasn't happy about it. The clients didn't know that they were doing something wrong because they didn't sign for it, they had no clue. So ever since I put on the contract, what is allowed with the video I make and what nuts. You can take legal actions if they break that contract. And it's important that you at least write something about usage rights in your contract if you're making a video for free, because it's a nonprofit organization and you think this is nice for my portfolio, but it ends up being used for commercial purposes. You should be able to take legal actions for that because that is not correct and the client is taking advantage of you. So those are the tree things that you should always have in your contract, Making sure that you're getting paid for the extra work that you're doing. Give yourself some certainty to proceed with the job, or at least get paid for it. And finally, usage rights. A contract might feel offensive towards the client, but being correct and transparent is professional and it's actually very much appreciated and will only bring good things to the relationship with your clients. Alright, we are ready now. Where do we find clients? Well, let's find out in the next. 7. Where to Find Clients: Once your video making career is rolling, people and businesses know who you are. You'll get e mails and phone calls to book new projects. If you do a good job for one client, they might spread the word and bring you in contact with someone new. In other words, the train is rolling. But right now we've got a train that sits still. How can we make it roll and get up to speed? Well, people need to know that you exist and a website, social media profiles on which you share your work definitely helps, but it should not be your main focus. I know enough free lancers and even production companies that don't even bother social media, and they still have a website from 20 years ago that never got updated. They don't have the time for that because their train is rolling. What's more important are real life social interactions to day that might scare some people, but we're social human beings. I would rather hire a video editor that I've spoken with than someone who I just find on line. We'll look at the two types again, you are either a production company or a freelancer. Being a production company, you want to get in touch with other businesses and there are many ways to do that. Start by looking at business events. There are also business groups that meet once a month or every other week. You can become a member of that or you can sign yourself up for a certain spot where many business owners are at, such as at the golf course. It's a more casual way of interacting, but it all comes down to networking. The idea is to get to know many business owners and making sure that they know about you. Create a network of contacts at a network event. You don't want to sell your services, you want to meet interesting people. That's your goal, to don't take those contracts with you when you're trying to sell yourself. At such events, it will have a negative impact. Business owners are usually very proud about their business, so they like to talk about it, listen to their story, show interest in their business, and hear out how you can help them. Never say how amazing that you are, but just say how you can help them. That's what a potential client wants to hear. Now, the goal is to spark interest and exchange business cards. There are those that hand their business cards over to everyone would just rug them in the trash. It's better to have three business cards by the end of the evening of three people that you had a good conversation with. Better than 20 cards that you don't even remember who they were. Now at the moment you're exchanging business cards, ask if you can call them to meet up and discuss a potential video production, because that's your next step. Following up on the business cards that you receive, network events can also end up without having any good business contacts. And that is fine. The most important thing is that you're there, that people see your face and learn to know you. Because maybe the business manager that you've spoken to might not be interested in your services, but they do know someone else who might be the next time you go to such an event and you meet the same people, you already have a certain connection. And it's maybe that second or third connection which makes someone show interest in your services. Now, I've been to many of such network events and it's where my entire career has lifted off from. At the beginning, I was going to multiple events per week, and one thing led to another. Eventually, I didn't have to go such events as oftentimes anymore as my train was rolling. And since I began to get a reputation in my region, I was able to get bigger clients. But keep in mind that that can take some time. For me, it took about four years now being a freelancer, specialized in a certain field, it's a waste of time going to such business events. So you want to do something different. Your portfolio is one of those things that is more important. A good website that lists the best of your work. And if you don't have much to show yet, then make a creative work or fictional commercial, create something that you can show to potential clients. And then start looking for production companies or agencies that you want to work for. Let them know that you exist, send them an e mail, or even try to schedule a meeting so that you can introduce yourself. It's kind of like networking, but much more targeted. In cases like this, it is never a bad idea to mention your prices upfront. They're looking to hire you per hour or per day, so there's nothing much to discuss there. Now, when charging 600 for a day, it could be intimidating for a production company to hire you. If you're new to them. It is very important that you do not lower your fees. Because if you propose 400 and get the job, they will always expect that you work at that fee. Instead, say that you work for 600 a day, but that you're more than happy to do your first job at half the price. $300 for a day is cheap for them, so they are likely to hire you. You get a chance to show off that you're capable of doing this, and if everything went well, the next time you'll charge 600. But the client will also know what you're capable of when you're trying to aim for the film industry, you're likely going to have to do internships or work for free. I dislike that a lot, but it's just the way it is. It is very important that you stand your ground here. When there is an internship, make sure that you agree on the amount of hours and what the fee will be after your internship. Now, internships in the film industry are taken advantage of all the time for the production. It's free working force and you'll probably end up doing boring stuff like pulling cables or preparing the set. And you can do your job as being asked and go home. But you're losing an opportunity there. You see your internship is a network event. You are surrounded by people from the film industry. If you're interested in the grip department, talk to the best boy, the key group, electrons, et cetera, show your interest and make sure that they remember you by the end of the day. Also talk with the people from the production that have a higher function. You want the people in charge to know who you are. If there's a group that goes out for a drink after the production, make sure to be there as well if that is your network events. So if you are the production company, then get in touch with business owners by going to network events. Are you a freelancer and want to work for smaller productions? Then invite yourself to meet with these production companies and offer your first service perhaps at half the price. Want to breakthrough in the film industry, Contact bigger studios and apply for an internship, but use that internship to network and make sure that everybody knows who you are at the end of the day, but also that people know your interest. You got to make sure to end up where you set your goal. Don't start talking with the sound department if you have no interest in ending up there, alright? You've got your first project. How do you tackle that production now and make your clients happy? Well, that's for the next lesson. 8. The Workflow of Landing a Job: Now this lesson applies more if you want to be your own production company as you're dealing with the end client directly. This means that you not only need to make a video for your clients, but you also need to agree on a budget. The concept, arranging the production day, finish the edit before the deadline. And overall, making sure that the end client is happy by the end of the day. So that way you can get paid and move on to the next clients. There's a whole lot more work than if you were just to free lance. In such a case you agree on the fees, show up on the production day, do your job, and go back home. That's it. So you just came back from a network event. You've spoken to the manager of a BMW franchise. They are interested in some video content. You exchange cards and the next day you give them a call. So ask if you can meet at their garage and have a discussion about a potential collaboration. And now your work starts with the preparation for that meeting. I'm going to name my contact, Steve for a moment. He's the manager of the franchise, and he's the person I'll be speaking with soon. So, the first thing I'll do is some research. What does the company do? What are its clients? What are the norms and values of the company? Usually, you can find all of that back on their website. In my case, it's a BMW franchise, so that means selling and service cars. Their clients are above middle class. Oftentimes business owners themselves looking to buy a luxury car, they'd rather spend some extra money to get good customer service and that's also their norm and value. All right, so what could the potential videos be? We can discuss a typical corporate video that shows the strength of the franchise and play that back on some TV's in a show room or perhaps a small commercial for regional television to draw more attention to the BMW brands and the franchise. What else do they do? I notice that every time there's a new car release, they throw a big event. That is interesting to me because if I can convince them that they should make an event video for that, there's a chance that they'll hire me every time. Small businesses oftentimes don't like to spend a big amount at once. So a corporate video of $3,000 might be intimidating, but an event video of $1,000 makes more sense. So if you can do five event videos in a year for the same client, you're actually earning more. So make sure to think about some different options which will make the meeting go a whole lot smoother as well. Now, something you should never do is assuming a budget upfront. A small company does not mean that they don't want to spend much on a video production, and a big company doesn't mean that they have more budgets. It all comes down to what the manager or person in charge is willing to spend. I've done corporate videos for local businesses with one or two people employed that paid over $10,000 for a single video project. And I've had very bad negotiations with big companies that have hundreds of people employed that thought $1,000 was too much for their corporate movie. The budget is very much dependent on your sales pitch. And that's the next step. A week has gone by and today I've got my meeting with Steve. I arrive at the BMW garage and the first thing I do is show interest in their business. I ask for a tour and try to get questions answered that I might have. The whole idea behind such a meeting is that you show interest in their business. Never talk about yourself. Steve wants to know how I can help their business. That's how great I am. During such a conversation, I tried to get an idea of what Steve was looking for here. It's my task to advice and share my expertise about what's best for the BMW franchise. During such a conversation, I also tried to get an idea of what you're willing to spend. In the beginning of this course, we spoke about the packages bronze, silver, and gold. If Steve is looking for a corporate movie and you feel that's the right direction, then now is the time to bring up those packages. Oh, it Tell Steve to go with the gold package and explain the benefit of that. Steve has an amazing BMW franchise. It shows premium and delivers premium service to their customers, so it's obvious that they need a premium corporate movie to go with that. A video that shows how much the franchise cares about their clients, and that Steve is the gold package. Now, if Steve finds the budget too much, you can always go for the silver and bronze package, but it would be his choice. My advice is the gold package going for a different package would feel like going against my advice. Now, negotiation and doing a good sales pitch is a whole different world, guys, and I know that you might struggle with that. I did too. We are creatives with a passion for video production, not sales people. So I'm also not going to go deeper into the whole sales techniques. This is something that will evolve over time and you can always follow some courses specific about sales. But the main thing you need to focus on is showing interest in the business, Listening to their story and immediately propose something. Use your packages and start with the most expensive, but keep the options open. Now if Steve is not looking for a corporate movie, I cannot use my packages. It appears that he wants me to shoot an event video. I knew about this upfront from my research, so I'm prepared. I can tell him immediately a price for that. The reason I find it important to come up with a price so fast is if I were to send over a quote afterwards, then there's no moment for discussion. If that price is too high, they might ignore the quote and not let you know about it. If you're seeing a price on the spot and they find it too expensive, you still have the opportunity to propose something different. Never go lower in price. Always propose something different for a lower price. You want to leave the meeting with a sort of agreement. That agreement could be to let them sign a contract immediately, although that's for the advanced sales rep. But it's also just good to be aligned and that you're both excited to work on this project. Send your price code with the contract immediately over when you get back home. If you don't hear back within a couple of days, feel free to send over a follow up e mail. Or even call your contact, ask them if everything was clear and express that you're excited for this project on a regular basis. You want to get in touch until the quote is signed. So that's the whole sales process and a very small nutshell, every person has their own way of doing the sales. Just keep in mind that it is an important part. If you're planning to be that production company. You can't go without unless you find someone else to do the sales for you. But that's also possible. All right, the contract is signed, you are ready for the production, and that's for the next on. 9. Production and Editing Process: It is Production Day. This is where your creative skills comes in which we have a whole different bunch of courses for. So I'm not going to go into how you should film and put your lights, et cetera. If you discuss to send over a concept or scenario, do that in advance so that you have the time to anticipate on feedback. If you need freelancers, make sure to plan them ahead. Are there things your client needs to arrange? Then make sure to also ask that up front. For instance, if you need to film a specific car, ask if they can put it in the show room with enough space around that car. Doing an event video, ask for a time schedule up front, at which time does something special happen. You don't want to miss that moment when a new BMW is being revealed. And I think much more critical is when shooting weddings, such events have a real tight schedule and you definitely don't want to miss anything important. I always missed the cutting of the cake. I had to ask the couple to pretend to do that. Again, shooting from a weird angle because the cake was already half eaten. That was an awkward situation. It was my first wedding movie and also my last. It's good to have a sort of checklist of what you need to film and that implies to almost every kind of production. Even if you think you won't use it in the edit, just shoot it. Remember that the client is king and if they want a certain shot in the edit, you got to listen to that. So make sure that you have everything that is needed. You can always leave without the edit. And if the client likes the video, then great. But if they don't, you always have that option of putting in those extra shots. So make sure that the client makes their preparations so that you can shoot without losing time, and that you've got a checklist of what needs to be shot. You are now ready to charge all the batteries and start filming. During the production day, you do your thing, but I find it important to always brief the client about what you're doing. Because sometimes, like during a wedding, the client isn't always around. They trust your work and let you do your thing when you get the chance, then talk to the clients, tell them what you already. Film. Sometimes they get fresh ideas of other things that you could choose. It happens almost every time you're doing a corporate video and have everything set up in a certain corner of the factory. You're done, tear down your stuff, and move to the other corner of the insanely huge factory. Then the client comes to you and asks if you could do an interview with a specific machine in the background. Well, you just came from that machine, so update the client occasionally at the end of the production day, before you pack your things, the first thing you do is go to the clients and brief them about how things went. Ask them if you got everything that is needed. If yes, only then load your stuff back in the car. And also a form of respect that you don't tear down the sets before saying something. And right before you head back home, let your client know when to expect to edit. It doesn't have to be a specific day, but you can say something like within two weeks. That way they at least have an idea. Perhaps ask if they need the video before a certain day. Like event video is something that often needs to be posted quickly. So if you're doing event videos, always keep your agenda free for the days after shooting. So these are the most important things to pay attention to during productions, which mostly comes down to communication and making sure that you got everything that is needed. We can now jump into the editing. The first thing you got to make sure to do is gather all assets. I'm talking about the logo of the company names for if you shot interviews, perhaps some photos and what nuts. It can sometimes take some time before the client sends all of that over. So it's best to ask such things as soon as possible, perhaps even before the production. And I know we all get a little excited during editing and you want to send over a draft to the clients so that they can already see what it's going to look like. Well, don't ever do that. Your client knows nothing about videography and you could give a deceived impression, like you haven't done the color grading yet and all their shots are in log, hoping to get feedback on the edit itself. Your client will say, this looks like craft. Why does it look so gray and flat? Where are all the colors at? This is not what I'm paying for. Avoid that at all costs. Just finish your edit and then send it over for review. If you still have missing pieces and you really need to send it over, the best thing to do is to create solid blocks with a clear text of what's missing. And if, for instance, the music has not been added yet, then place a text layer on the video that says music has not been added yet. Be clear about the things that are missing if you're sending over a draft. But again, I would avoid sending over a draft so your edit is done and you're about to e mail it over to the client. One important thing that you need to mention in this e mail are the revisions. This is something you should have agreed upon in the contract. It should say, for example, a maximum of three revisions and for every extra, it will cost the client $100 So when your e mail you say, let me know if you have any feedback. Included are tree revision rounds, so you remind them of the revisions. This is again to avoid discussion later on. And trust me, there are people that cannot make up their mind and request 1,000 changes. I had clients ask me to remove a certain shot from the edit, only to add it back in three revisions later. When you get feedback from your client, always be positive about it and let them know that they can expect a revised edit that shows that you take their feedback serious and that you're giving good customer service. Remember, you are a business. Every time I would send over a new revised edit, I always remember them about the revisions that they have left. With the last one mentioning that the next revision adds $100 supplement. Communication is key, the video is done, the client is happy. You send your invoice. Now, what? Onto the next client, I guess? Well, we just made a client happy. We did a successful project that is an opportunity to further grow your business. Your first clients can make the bad role and trust me, things can move fast from this point on. So let's find out about that and the next. 10. Grow Your Business: Your very first client is very important as it could be a jump start to further grow your business. Because if you did a good job and the client is happy, you'll have a reference. And in the commercial industry, references are the most important. That's still many businesses do well without having a website or social channel. It's unimaginable these times. So how can we use a happy client to land more clients? And this applies to both freelancers and production companies. The first thing is asking for a review. You can register your business on Google so that every time someone searches your name or your business name, see a panel on the rights. People can leave reviews in there, which is something really powerful. Potential new clients will use this to determine if they want to work with you or not. If someone is doubting to hire you, this might be the convincing factor. Now your clients can also be unhappy. Eventually that will happen sometime. There are just people in this world who are going to try to screw you over. In such a case you don't want them to leave a review. Of course, only the positive ones. So I would send an e mail to the client after the project is done, asking them to write a review and give them a link. Or they can leave that review when doing freelance work, you can even take this a step further. If you worked for or even did an internship for a production company, you don't have to ask your contact to leave a review. I mean, they usually hire an entire crew, so they're not going to spend their time to write a review for everyone who's there. Definitely not an intern. I spoke about how you should use these production days to network. If your job was to be the second AC, you'll mostly be working together with the first AC, perhaps even with the DP as well. Make sure that they know who you are by the end of the day and if possible, exchange contact information or a business card after the production. And are these people that you can ask for a review because you work together with them? If they enjoyed working together with you, they'll be more than happy to write you a review. So as a freelancer, you could potentially gather more reviews from different people on a single production day. So a positive review on Google. The second thing we cannot forget is that every client is a reference. When freelancing, you can use both the production company you work for as the video project itself, although you have to ask for approval when you want to use the video project as a reference. Definitely higher end productions are very strict about this. I once spoke to a couple of stunt guys that worked on Marvel films. They told me that they cannot even publicly talk about their role in the movies, let alone use it as a reference on their website. Very strict policies, but the production company itself should be no problem. You can use that on your website, add a little logo, or perhaps if you did the production yourself, you can put the entire video on your website as part of your portfolio. Showing logos of the clients that you worked for shows what you already accomplished. Potential new clients will take you more serious. Now, we're not done yet. There's so much more that we can do with a client. Your clients might know other businesses or people that are looking for your services too, but they won't immediately bring you in touch with them. So just straight up ask them. You made a corporate video for the construction company. We'll just ask your contact if they know other businesses that might have interest. Ideally, they want to introduce you, so that means that your client writes an e mail to a potential new contact in which they introduce who you are and what you've done for them. Alternatively, you get a phone number or e mail address that you need to contact yourself. In such a case, always start your communication with, hey, you got your contact information from Larry Construction Masters. I made a corporate video for him and he was really happy with the results. Now he told me you might be interested in hearing more about the opportunities of video as well. Now there are a couple of things in that sentence. I refer to my contact, which gives credibility. You're no longer dealing with a cold contact. Then you say what you did and the positive outcome of that, this immediately lets you know why you're calling. And then you say, very subtle, that they need a corporate video as well. I said the opportunities of video, which has a subtle undertone too, like you cannot miss out on this starting a conversation. That way you'll end up more likely to meet up with that person. So use a happy client to gain new contact. It is much easier to convince a new client if you already did a project for someone they know. But you don't always have to look so far for new work. You've got a happy client, that means they are more likely to hire you again than someone else. Importance here is to stay in touch. Don't let them forget about you. Occasionally, like once every three or six months, you send them an e mail. Ask how going and if they have any new events coming up or certain promotions, you know, it's good to e mail your clients right before Black Friday or the holidays. These are times when businesses want to do promotions and you can help with the video content to promote their product or service. Remind your clients about this and stay in touch. They know what you're capable of and what your fees are, so they are more likely to hire your services again. So as you can see, your first client is not only your first job, but also a door to potentially grow your business further. And that leaves us with one last conclusion video, which I'll see you for in the next lesson. 11. Conclusion: First of all, a big congratulations. We've gone through the entire course. You've learned about the fundamentals of starting a video making career. But there is still a lot to learn. This course is a great guidance, but still very shallow, because starting a business all comes down to experience, and that's something you cannot learn from a course. It could be frightening to take that step into self employment. But trust me, it's also very exciting. I always say you can only regret the things that you haven't done if you take that leap but fail. At least you tried it. And I'm sure you learned something from that experience, which you can take with you in your personal development. The hardest part is to land your first client. And the biggest thing that we learned from this course is to prepare yourself well and socialize as much as you can. Your second client will be much easier, and your third even more. And once a train is going, you've got a filled up schedule, but that takes time. Don't rush it, keep your goal in mind. Where do you want to be in five years from now? If certain clients do not match with your goal, then also dare to decline. Then I know very counter intuitive when you're just getting started. Tank yourself later down the road by taking jobs that aren't aligned with your goal. You'll end up somewhere different. And this is the most important for freelancers. If you want to end up as a cinematographer, then don't take a job within the sound department, or you'll end up there. Study the different roles from a film set and set your eyes on the roles that lead to your final goal. And with that set, I wish you all the success. We have a bunch of other courses on the creative and technical side of filmmaking, so definitely check those out if you haven't already. And since you are my client, I'm going to ask you if you could leave a review down below. I would appreciate it a lot. Thank you so much for watching, and like we always say, stay creative.