If they cancel on you, are they obligated to pay you anything? Seems kind of one sided if not.

http://www.shaneenglish.com/blog/2005/10/so-im-going-to-put-you-on-hold-reply.html
Everything you wanted to know about being put "on hold."

That's great. Thank you for that link. :)

If they cancel on you, are they obligated to pay you anything? Seems kind of one sided if not.

No, not if you are On Hold. The better position is to put them on "right of first refusal." That means if you get a call for a job and they haven't committed yet, you call them to say, I have an offer for a gig on that day. Do you want me or not?

Regards,

Ty Ford

I'm with Ty on this, only in the Northwest production community it's commonly called "pencil" (vs. pen). "I'll pencil you for this" means that the client/agency who is booking has a right of first refusal. If you get another offer for that day, you go back to the first to either release or write it in pen, meaning you're fully booked and payable whether the shoot goes forward or not.

Postphonement is a little different - you can be fully booked and on 12 hours notice be rescheduled. If the new shoot doesn't work in your schedule, tough luck.

But overall I think there's a lot of variation in different geographical markets and in different markets within a particular area. What might be standard for ad agency work could be different for features... or, different in Houston.

If I were "on hold" I'd certainly call them if I got another offer. Seems fair for them to book or release at that point. If they won't do either, IMO they're not a good employer.

We use "pencil" versus "ink" here as well, Seth. :)

As to how binding it is, I was going to say we cut our friends (long time clients) more slack, but then our friends and long time clients don't cut and run on us.

Regards,

Ty