https://wordpress.com/read/post/id/58640543/2297/
I think that before you even start thinking about the possible approaches to producing something for a client, you need to meet with them and hear their thoughts on the final product and how they envision it. One person’s imagination may differ completely than another. An important part of a process like this is having to compromise. You might have to sacrifice part of your aesthetic to match that of the clients. At the same time it is also important to let your creative thoughts known and to fight for that creativity. At the early stage you should also be sharing and discussing your inspirations behind a project. Show your clients some video’s, etc that clearly show where some of your thoughts are coming from and show them video’s, etc that show what you want your final to be like. This way you can start to get an idea of what kind of things your client likes and doesn’t like as well as get an idea as to the amount of creativity and freedom that you are being given on a project.
I don’t think that all projects that you work on for clients should involve contracts. I think it depends on how larger company they are and how must trust and communication their is between the two. If you have worked with your client before then I think that contracts may be less likely because their is a greater amount of trust in you from the client. So whether or not their is a contract and what kind of contract it is will depend upon the scale of the project.
I think that you can pitch your idea to your client but be prepared to have a lot of the content thrown back at you and don’t get to attached to the content that you pitch. But I also think that if you are going to pitch your idea to your client then you need have full faith in the pitch and you also need to know it inside out so that you can explain it all and break it down for your client. But I think that you could also develop your ideas as you go along if you are working with a very specific type of client. If they allow you a great deal of freedom on the project then I think that you can develop an idea with the client as opposed to expanding on their idea’s and not your own.
I think that you need to communicate with your client frequently and show them drafts fairly regularly. However I think that before you show them any kind of draft, you need to have a strong draft product to show. I wouldn’t send off a draft for a fair amount of time. But once you are at the stage where you are able sending off a draft, I think the sooner you send it the better because your client may not be quite as attached to certain elements of the draft as you are, so the sooner you hear that ‘it doesn’t work’ the better because that way you aren;t going to build the whole thing around something that doesn’t work.
When I worked on the promotional video for somewhereto_ North West I was granted a lot of freedom on the project. I first mentioned the promo project to Pete (whom I communicated with throughout the project) asking if he or anyone he knew would like a promotional video making for them. This is when we got talking and he mentioned the SYCO event in Blackburn. But he didn’t really speak much about what he was after. I think that this was because this was a project that I proposed to them and not the other way around. So they basically just said ‘yeh, do what you want with it’ and then just let me go off and do my own thing. Pete did comment on drafts, but he didn’t give me a brief to work to, neither did he say ‘Can you film all this’?
I also think that their when filming with Ruth and Jean for the fell care days project, we were granted a lot of freedom during the filming process. Obviously it was slightly different for me as I was filming an interview, but they didn’t really say ‘Can I talk about this?’ and ‘Can I include this?’. So their was a lot of freedom during the filming process. So we didn’t really have a brief besides how long it should be.
Neither of the films were on a budget. They did however have a schedule to them. I had to send off a draft of the fell care days video by a certain date and I had to have it finished by a certain date. With the somewhereto_ project, I was working to the end date of the College assignment as like I was saying, their was a lot of freedom on the project and not a lot of demand from Pete. Bothe films finished within the time frame that I was working on. I did set myself goals to finish them by. I did finish the video for the most part by this date, so the time after, was more or less time that I was allowing myself for editing based on feedback and polishing the video’s.
The feedback that I received on the Coniston project was very limited. Idon’t fully remember what the feedback was, but I think that I may have received a little bit of feedback on dialogue, such as can you include more statistics about the fell care days. But for the most part the feedback was about credits. ‘Can you use these logo’s? and ‘Can you include these statistics in the end credit’s?’
The feedback from Pete for the somewhereto_ video was mostly about fonts. But besides from that he was happy with the video. He said that the font could match the official font used by somewhereto_ North West. I was unable to obtain this font, so I used the closest font I had available. He then that it wasn’t too much of an issue, but it did mean that in terms of promoting somewhereto_ North West, the video would be harder to use to it’s ‘unofficial’ font.
archie bean 