What is your turn around time for Video. With photography I can have the wedding images ready in a week but tell the customer 3-4 weeks, and before you say its easy, just burn to Disk, its not that easy.
I shoot raw so I have to color correct, convert touch up, crop, vingette every image (700-900) However I have been doing it so long I am really fast.

Video is much longer, partially because I am so busy during the summer, but also because the edit time is so long. I have fixed the capture problems so my video and audio are synced up and knock on wood, only taking one capture attempt per tape. Was a nightmare when that part didnt go smooth.

I am around 60 days to finished product for video, is this reasonable or do I need to get quicker?

I would say 2 months is reasonable. I know some that have 6 month turn around.

I would say 2 months is reasonable. I know some that have 6 month turn around.

Thanks Tim, I have learned to give myself some room, its easy to say its done early, and nothing good comes when its late.

I agree. 60 day turnaround is not at all unreasonable. I generally try to turnaround in 60 days, not always possible, but I try even though I tell the client much longer. I do more than weddings so I need to CYA besides, its better to under-promise and over deliver than the other way around.

Don

I've been using a 30-90 time frame. But for 09' I will probably bump it up to 120 day's since I also do other work like, Bday's, Commercials, Sports etc..

I've been using a 30-90 time frame. But for 09' I will probably bump it up to 120 day's since I also do other work like, Bday's, Commercials, Sports etc..

I have to offer a contrarian opinion. I don't do weddings but I spent a lot of years in customer service oriented industries. 6 months delivery time is far, far too long. Why should weddings be back-burnered to your other shoots or for that matter your "day-job" if you're not in it full-time? Is Bob & Mary's wedding less important than Fred's birthday or an ad for a local business or a high school football game? I don't think so. Once you shoot the day, that product has to become priority one over any new business that comes through your door. Until it's delivered to the client, that project needs to be the only project on your plate (allowing, of course, for the fact that it's reasonable to que it at the end of the line following any other jobs shot earlier that are still in-house). My gut feeling as to a reasonable time? How many hours/days of steady work does it take you to have the product ready for delivery to the client after you first sit down at the editing bench with the camera raw footage? Add a 30% contingency. Add to that the waiting time before the edit cames up in the que while previously shot work is being completed. The result should be your promised delivery time. Under no circumstances should any new shoots coming into the edit after the date of the wedding in question jump the que to be worked before it's done. Just from the viewpoint of a reasonable customer expectation, I would say that in no circumstances should that be allowed to stretch beyond 90 days following the wedding, 30 to 60 days would be even better if you can pull it off. Much beyond 90 days and the excitement of the day is fading as the routine of everyday life takes hold - from a customer satisfaction standpoint you want to deliver while they're still riding that wave of emotions. If you can't handle the volume of business that you're generating while preserving timely turnaround times you really only have two options; a. expand your staff and facilities so you can handle more jobs at once, or b. turn down the business that would overload your capacity. 120 days and you're starting to get into territory where some of your couples will be getting divorced before you finish the video <grin>.

I shoot weddings (full time), both photo and video. Like Denny, I get proofs to the client both online and printed within 3 weeks. I offer two video options one delivery is 6 weeks + or - the other is 4-6 months. On the photo side, a good album takes 4 months. Call me slow but, this is how long it takes me (us) to deliver a product that meets my standards.

Steve, one thing to note is that in many areas, weddings are a seasonal business. Because of this photographers/videographers spend the season shooting and have a limited time at that point to edit. Then in the off season it's full-time editing. I know a lot of guys who work this way.

Also, one of the most important thing to keep in mind on this subject is to be honest, keep your customers informed and stick to your promised time no matter what it is.

-JL

I do 50 to 60 weddings a year as well as other work and it's not a matter of priorities (well it is too a point-a 2 day seminar might need to be turned in a week or less) but in some cases you might have to wait for materials from the B&G although I make it very clear that they need to have any materials I need from them BEFORE the wedding or at least by the day of. I have found that when they forget and tell you they'll get it to you "right after they get back from the honeymoon" it never or rarely happens. IF it get's to that point the edit is still done as far as I can and then it's put on the back burner until I receive the materials. Fortunately it doesn't happen often to me and after a short time I simply tell them I will not include the materials in the finished product unless they have it to me by...(put in date). I've never had a couple get mad about that-they know they've 'slacked off' and 99.9% of those that I have this problem with understand and are fine with the results.
I really don't think 4 to 6 months for photo albums is unreasonable. Every photog I know that produces albums is in about the same timeframe.

Don

I shoot weddings (full time), both photo and video. Like Denny, I get proofs to the client both online and printed within 3 weeks. I offer two video options one delivery is 6 weeks + or - the other is 4-6 months. On the photo side, a good album takes 4 months. Call me slow but, this is how long it takes me (us) to deliver a product that meets my standards.

Steve, one thing to note is that in many areas, weddings are a seasonal business. Because of this photographers/videographers spend the season shooting and have a limited time at that point to edit. Then in the off season it's full-time editing. I know a lot of guys who work this way.

Also, one of the most important thing to keep in mind on this subject is to be honest, keep your customers informed and stick to your promised time no matter what it is.

-JL

The point I'm trying to make is that with any service oriented retail business it is not up to the customer to adjust their expectations to fit around our business needs, it is up to us to organize our businesses so that we can best fulfill their desires and meet their expectations. When push comes to shove, the customer is in charge and the only reason our business exists is to meet their desires. I forget who it was that said it, but a retailing pioneer has been quoted as saying that successful businesses are built on the idea that "The customer is not an interruption to our business, the customer IS our business." Of course the wedding business is seasonal, but as far as the customer is concerned there's only one wedding that season - theirs. Think about how long after the wedding your clients are going to be itching to relive the day. Put yourself into their minds and try to get in touch with what reasonable delivery time THEY would feel constitutes outstanding customer service and then only accept the amount of work that allows you to deliver within that time frame. If there are so many weddings going on that there's no time to edit as you go, rather than deferring the edits until after the shooting season I'd suggest thinking of partnering with someone and hiring staff so you have one or more people doing editing full time while the other does shooting full time, hiring staff assistants to do the tape logging and ingest, that sort of thing. Don't accept work that would extend those times until you have been able to expand your staffing and/or improve your operational efficiency so that you can handle the increased workload without lengthing the turn-around time required for each job. 6 month delivery times? Heck, some full-length theatrical feature films are shot and edited in less time than that.

I shoot weddings (full time), both photo and video. Like Denny, I get proofs to the client both online and printed within 3 weeks. I offer two video options one delivery is 6 weeks + or - the other is 4-6 months. On the photo side, a good album takes 4 months. Call me slow but, this is how long it takes me (us) to deliver a product that meets my standards.

Steve, one thing to note is that in many areas, weddings are a seasonal business. Because of this photographers/videographers spend the season shooting and have a limited time at that point to edit. Then in the off season it's full-time editing. I know a lot of guys who work this way.

Also, one of the most important thing to keep in mind on this subject is to be honest, keep your customers informed and stick to your promised time no matter what it is.

-JL

i don't believe 4-6 months for video. 4 months for album. We are just too lazy or don't have the time me included.

How many hours does 1 album take? i'm guessing about over 5 hours = 1 day max. (just guessing, sorry if i'm wrong).
How many hours does video editing take? over 20 or 30 hours = a few days.

i don't believe 4-6 months for video. 4 months for album. We are just too lazy or don't have the time me included.

How many hours does 1 album take? i'm guessing about over 5 hours = 1 day max. (just guessing, sorry if i'm wrong).
How many hours does video editing take? over 20 or 30 hours = a few days.

while I can't speak for photogs 4 or 5 months is from proofs posting until the people get the choice back to the photog to design the album. In my area it seems to be pretty much the norm.
As for only taking 20 to 30 hours to edit, while that might be right (not counting load inor digitizing time or possibly authoring or burning/printing the finished product) take in to account that many of do more than 1 or 2 events a month plus other work. For example, between the 3rd week of August and the end of September I have on the books 14 weddings, numerous days of AV work and 3 1 day seminars of camera work. Also take into account I sleep ;-) (at least some). Point is I edit in the order that things were shot but do 2 weddings on a weekend and dothat every weekend for a month. 8 weddings. Let's say 1 week to load,edit, author, burn and print. Now you've got 8 weeks of edit work hence an 8 week delivery IF you do nothing or very little else.
Hey I'm not complaining nor am I defending the 6 month turn. Way too much IMO but to each his/her own.
I've always believed that if you infom the client ahead of time that the turnaround time is 8 weeks and stick to it, clients understand and are OK with it.Just make sure you do what you say you're going to do.
Anyway I gotta go do another wedding-#2 of the weekend and a late one at that. Tomorrow, I'll edit!
Don

Really glad I found this thread. I asked one of my competitors about turn around time, he said he could do it in 8 - 10 hours using a xl1 for playback. Being fairly new to the industry I thought I was either doing something wrong or wasting a lot of time polishing the clips. As of now I use FCP-6, log & capture, color correct then burn on DVD Studio Pro. Our Sept. 08 weddings wont be finished until Jan. 09.

Karl Wedding Videography : Tulsa, Oklahoma : Video Highlights (http://www.vhtulsa.com)

I have to say fellas that I am also in the boat of "why does it have to take so long" My company does Video/Photo & We typically have video albums and everything turned in 6 weeks max. The problem with anyone taking 6 months to deliver a project simple. They take on more work than they can handle, and don't know when to say no. At the point that projects are even approaching 6 months you should have help because it has outgrown you. I am not faced with that choice as of yet, but I can hope that by the time I am, I will have the wherewithall to turn down those things that I can't handle. Now, granted, I prioritize my projects by time, but if I have to work on this from 8 in the morning until midnight I do it. My wife in the photo side used to wait for bride picks on albums and we had some that were a year beofre they chose their album. We have started to design their albums for them and then let them make adjustments as needed. As of this year we are delivering everything well within 6 weeks, and thus are flush with happy brides... Anyway, this is a great discussion and I hope it continues as it has without heat.
Bill

Steve,
With all due respect, for a guy who doesn't shoot weddings, you're quick to criticize the way those who do shoot weddings do business.

You say, "The point I'm trying to make is that with any service oriented retail business it is not up to the customer to adjust their expectations to fit around our business needs, it is up to us to organize our businesses so that we can best fulfill their desires and meet their expectations."

My customers are made fully aware of my production times of all my offerings before they ever see a contract, it's in my sales literature. The production times I tell my customers become their expectations. I strive to always meet or exceed all my customer expectations of all types.

Then you say, "If there are so many weddings going on that there's no time to edit as you go, rather than deferring the edits until after the shooting season I'd suggest thinking of partnering with someone and hiring staff so you have one or more people doing editing full time while the other does shooting full time, hiring staff assistants to do the tape logging and ingest, that sort of thing. Don't accept work that would extend those times until you have been able to expand your staffing and/or improve your operational efficiency so that you can handle the increased workload without lengthing the turn-around time required for each job. 6 month delivery times? Heck, some full-length theatrical feature films are shot and edited in less time than that." Again, you're quick to make suggestions and criticism about something in which you do not know the whole story. Sure I could hire 5 more people and turn weddings around in a week or two but at what cost? Beyond salaries, equipment, software and extra rent of a larger space, there's a quality control factor, a management factor and more. Additionally, how much more would I have to charge to cover the expenses. And, full-length features that are shot and edited in less than 6 months have a much larger budget then what my customers pay for the product I provide. If I add on the additional expenses to reduce turn-around times and then double my prices to cover those expenses how many customers will I lose on price?

I run a small boutique photography and video business with a small staff. This is what I'm comfortable doing and I seem to be successful at doing it. I don't want to be a large production. I meet with all my customers personally at all steps of the process. I put my touch on all the products I deliver. Others do it differently and one way isn't necessarily better than the other.

Anthony, it has nothing to do with laziness and it's over simplifying things to just through out hours. That assumes that only one project and only one project gets worked on at a time. An album can range from 1-2hours for a simple one pic per page album to 50+ for a large complicated storybook. I'm working on one now that is 16"x20" in size and has 180 pages over two volumes. Each page is designed by hand (no templates) and has lots of fades, etc. How many hours should it take? And, then there are customer changes too. If the customer takes a week or more to respond (not uncommon) that adds time to the total. Additionally, the album binding houses typically take 4-6 weeks to print and bind the physical book.

It takes me 40-60 hours to deliver an edited video I'm proud to deliver. While I'm sure there are people who are faster and better, for me, it is what it is. I've been at this full-time for a long time. I usually get an email or letter from every customer praising my work. I must me doing something right. Perhaps things in Ontario or Australia are different than in Palm Beach.

--JL

Steve,
With all due respect, for a guy who doesn't shoot weddings, you're quick to criticize the way those who do shoot weddings do business.

You say, "The point I'm trying to make is that with any service oriented retail business it is not up to the customer to adjust their expectations to fit around our business needs, it is up to us to organize our businesses so that we can best fulfill their desires and meet their expectations."

My customers are made fully aware of my production times of all my offerings before they ever see a contract, it's in my sales literature. The production times I tell my customers become their expectations. I strive to always meet or exceed all my customer expectations of all types.

..

You make my point, putting the cart before the horse. You have set up the way you'll do business for your benefit and convenience and then expect your customers to adjust their expectations accordingly. I suggest that any retail business, especially a business selling a service, does a better job by reversing that process. Your customers already have needs and expectations before they ever come to you - the most effective marketing principles suggest that it is up to you to first understand what will best serve the customer - their interests, not yours - and then to organize your business so that you are best able to meet those needs. Your profit is your reward for being able to do that successfully.

It's not meant as a criticism of people who shoot weddings, per se. But the last few decades have seen a tremendous decline in the number of businesses large and small who actually have a clue about what "customer service" actually means and it is a criticism of the general business trend that says the customer needs to adjust their expectations to the needs of our profitability.

i do both as well, and one must factor in the time you HAVE to spend with your family.
If you have kids, by the time they go to bed, you may not have the energy to work more at night if you have been busting it all day. I can manage 3-4 weeks per video, and 4-5 days on images. But it is hard to NOT get distracted.

Steve,
Not to start a board war but, you're way off base. The only relation between turn around times and customer service is whether or not the business meets the promised time. To stereotype and imply that people who shoot weddings have no clue about customer service is not only insulting, it's flat out wrong. There are many wedding videographers (a lot here on this forum) that deliver a great product and great customer service. Because you, who doesn't shoot weddings, doesn't like someone's (mine) turn around time doesn't mean they (I) givebad customer service.

How long did people have to wait to get their RED cameras from the time they put deposits down? I suppose in your world, RED should have hired on twice as many employees so there was no wait time. Perhaps they should have done this and charged 35k instead of 17k to cover the costs of the extra labor. How many cameras would they have sold at 35k? Does RED give bad customer service because the have a deposit and wait business model?

Some Ferarris take 18 months from order to delivery, private jets have a very similar delivery time. These are products that are custom built for discerning clients. According to your business concepts, these companies give bad customer service.

Based on your comments, it seems that only wedding videographers who offer same-day edits are giving good customer service.

If I (or any other wedding videographer) were to take my salary and/or profits and use it to expand my staff to shorten turn around times where would it leave me? This is not a charity business, I (as do other wedding videographers) rely on the income from the business to pay mortgages, support families, pay bills, etc.. If wedding videographers aren't allowed support themselves because you (who doesn't shoot weddings) don't agree with their business policies they in effect become slaves.

What I have said and others on this thread have said is it's important to inform customers of turn around times and always meet them - this is good customer service. And, this is the only place where customer service and turn around times are intertwined.

I suggest you go shoot some weddings. I'm sure once you see what's involved and what's reality in runnign a business you'll see things differently.

--JL

I'm sorry if you interpretted my comments as insulting, certainly no personal attack was intended. Sorry if you took it that way.

I still maintain that somewhere between 45 and 90 days would be a reasonable turnaround but when you start getting into the neighborhood of 6 months or more - I've even heard some shooters quote as much as a year - you're just not treating the customer very well, not giving enough consideration to their satidfaction. Making sure they're fully informed ahead of time is certainly important but it's just one piece of the big picture.

As for running a business, I spent 20 years in customer service and management in the travel industry and then last 20 years primarily self-employed in the training industry. One doesn't need to shoot weddings to understand what is involved in delivering good customer service in a public contact industry.

Steve,
With all due respect, for a guy who doesn't shoot weddings, you're quick to criticize the way those who do shoot weddings do business.

I have to agree with this. Steve, your opinions are generally appreciated, but I think you should be more careful with forming your opinions before you share them on here. I don't necessarily think you mean any ill will, but I've been a member for a while here and I've noticed that you tend to butt heads a lot with wedding videographers.

Steve, I also agree that you are WAY off base in the assertions you are making against wedding videographers in this thread. Comparing my wedding video timeline to a feature film timeline is just plain ignorant.

My budget for a wedding video might be $2-3k, and I'm basically a 1-man show trying to film and edit an unscripted live event. A feature film can have a budget in the millions or tens of millions, and a working staff of hundreds, and works with a scripted shooting schedule. Attempting to compare the two of these is completely unfair to the wedding videographer.

Your solution to simply hire additional staff to get everything done faster is a great suggestion for the fantasy world that YOU live in. I would love to hire someone to answer my phones, do my accounting, design my promotional materials, meet with potential clients, log and capture tapes, rough cut footage, edit final cuts, shoot quality footage, and so on. But did you even stop for one second to consider the fact that maybe we can't afford to hire people for these positions? My market (and most markets I imagine) don't support much more than $2-3k for a wedding video. Now factor in that each of these markets has a slew of new "flash in the pan" competitors that set up shop every year and completely undercut our prices by 50% or more. This is not an easy business to make a living in, and yes it irks me that you're willing to state that we should all just hire on a full staff, when you yourself have ZERO experience in the field.

I like how you also state that 45-90 days is "reasonable" for a turnaround time. What qualifies you to determine this? You have no experience in the wedding videography industry, so you can't possibly be speaking as a professional. So you must be speaking as a consumer. As a consumer, you don't understand the requirements of the field, so while you may think that 45-90 days is "reasonable", you are incorrect. That is, unless you are willing to pay 2 or 3 times more for your wedding video .. but then, if you're a consumer you won't be willing to do that just to get it faster.


As for running a business, I spent 20 years in customer service and management in the travel industry and then last 20 years primarily self-employed in the training industry. One doesn't need to shoot weddings to understand what is involved in delivering good customer service in a public contact industry.

Good for you. Just because I have experience with running my wedding videography business doesn't mean I'm prepared to step into a forum for software developers and proceed to tell them how they are running their businesses wrong. I think you DO need to shoot weddings to understand what is involved in delivering good customer service to wedding clients. I work 60-90 hours a week (6-7 days a week) and it can take me anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 months (or more) to complete a client's wedding video. It's utterly insulting to me that you feel I'm providing poor customer service.

To make you happy I would need to hire more people, and thus not make a living and put myself out of business. Or I would need to work 24 hours a day to make sure you got your video within a "reasonable" time.

I'm trying to keep a level head here, but I work my ass off to provide good customer service. Just this week I averaged 10-12 hours a day, and then worked like a dog at a wedding for 12.5 hours yesterday. I can hardly move today I'm so sore, yet here I sit at my computer finishing up a wedding video from June .. and I'll probably be working for another 6-8 hours today. Tomorrow brings a new week and the fun starts all over again. Meanwhile my friends spent yesterday boating or camping or BBQ'ing or whatever, and they're just sitting around chilling and relaxing today. So for you to come on here and say that guys like me aren't doing enough .. well, it pretty much makes me livid.

Before you share your "opinions" with other videographers perhaps you should take a walk in their shoes first.

Typical turnaround time is different depending on the project I'm working on. I can produce Tv commercials in as little as 4 or 5 hours if I'm not required to shoot, but I've also spent upwards of 2 solid weeks working on a single spot. For larger events, it varies just as much. There's a Mixed Martial Arts event that happens once a month in which I'm budgeted for 4 hours. That's 4 billable hours to cover ingestion, editing, rendering, and DVD menus, and authoring. We're obligated to deliver 30 copies on DVD in full-fledged packaging. A third party provides the footage to me. If I'm covering some other type of event by myself, I usually give each client a more customized quote. The longest time frame I've given is something along the lines of 4 or 5 weeks from the date of the shoot.

As far as a 6 month turnaround goes, I would most likely get laughed right out of business, as would my current employer at my day job. The only time I would take things this far would be if I was doing something for an extremely low rate or for charity. Of course, this is all explained to the client before anything happens. If they don't like it, they can cough up for regular rates or find someone else. Most clients are very penny-conscious, and part of the whole game is meeting their deadlines. Sure, I've had my fair share of talking clients down from the more ridiculous requests like "Why can't you just do it all in 3D animation and have it ready for me by tomorrow morning?" But after explaining a little bit about the process and the work that's involved, we can usually reach a halfway decent middle ground. The thing is that clients want to see value come from their spending. Most people simply can't or won't comprehend all the work that goes into a 30-second TV commercial or a 4-hour long formal event. After all, most people see me standing with a camera on a tripod or up on my shoulder. In most cases, I'm stationary while recording, so I'm sure most people think I just kind of stand around. They don't see how I'm framing the shot, adjusting exposure and focus, keeping track of audio levels, and thinking about how to set up the next shot coming up in a minute or so. And they don't care. They just want their DVD, and if I come through, they refer me to their colleagues and business partners. Whoopee for me. If I don't pull it off, well, maybe they'll call those other guys down the road.

However, I'm more inclined to agree with Steve here. Customer service is one of those crucial aspects that seems to be put off to the wayside. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for all of our clients out there to have deeper pockets and a more laid-back and educated opinion of video production, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. the analogy using the RED camera doesn't really fit in here. Talking about product development is a whole different ball of wax. Instead, think of something more service oriented. Say you want new cabinets installed in your kitchen. If you called up a carpenter and he told you it would take 6 months to install new cabinets in your kitchen, I bet you'd tell him to be on his way and get on the phone with another carpenter who says he'll have them installed and ready to use within 3 weeks. You can also imagine how difficult it will become for the first carpenter who works on such a drawn out time schedule. I don't believe in the philosophy that "The customer is always right", but they're the ones paying the bills- so we're kind of obligated to meet THEIR needs- not the other way around. Any business that's tried it that way has run into trouble. Look to our own General Motors and Ford for more details.

Everyone's business is a little bit different, and that's a good thing. It gives clients options, and creates a diverse market. A 6-month turnaround time might be a great option if you're charging less than the competition, and it could be a good niche for you. Your market and general area may also have a lot to do with it. I need to be mindful of my turnaround times because I know there are other businesses here in town that can do it just as fast if not faster. Why should someone pay me $3k to record an event and produce a DVD in 6 months when they can go to the other guys, spend the same $3k and get the same end result in 6 weeks?

I have to agree with this. Steve, your opinions are generally appreciated, but I think you should be more careful with forming your opinions before you share them on here. I don't necessarily think you mean any ill will, but I've been a member for a while here and I've noticed that you tend to butt heads a lot with wedding videographers.

Steve, I also agree that you are WAY off base in the assertions you are making against wedding videographers in this thread. Comparing my wedding video timeline to a feature film timeline is just plain ignorant.

My budget for a wedding video might be $2-3k, and I'm basically a 1-man show trying to film and edit an unscripted live event. A feature film can have a budget in the millions or tens of millions, and a working staff of hundreds, and works with a scripted shooting schedule. Attempting to compare the two of these is completely unfair to the wedding videographer.

Your solution to simply hire additional staff to get everything done faster is a great suggestion for the fantasy world that YOU live in. I would love to hire someone to answer my phones, do my accounting, design my promotional materials, meet with potential clients, log and capture tapes, rough cut footage, edit final cuts, shoot quality footage, and so on. But did you even stop for one second to consider the fact that maybe we can't afford to hire people for these positions? My market (and most markets I imagine) don't support much more than $2-3k for a wedding video. Now factor in that each of these markets has a slew of new "flash in the pan" competitors that set up shop every year and completely undercut our prices by 50% or more. This is not an easy business to make a living in, and yes it irks me that you're willing to state that we should all just hire on a full staff, when you yourself have ZERO experience in the field.

I like how you also state that 45-90 days is "reasonable" for a turnaround time. What qualifies you to determine this? You have no experience in the wedding videography industry, so you can't possibly be speaking as a professional. So you must be speaking as a consumer. As a consumer, you don't understand the requirements of the field, so while you may think that 45-90 days is "reasonable", you are incorrect. That is, unless you are willing to pay 2 or 3 times more for your wedding video .. but then, if you're a consumer you won't be willing to do that just to get it faster.




Good for you. Just because I have experience with running my wedding videography business doesn't mean I'm prepared to step into a forum for software developers and proceed to tell them how they are running their businesses wrong. I think you DO need to shoot weddings to understand what is involved in delivering good customer service to wedding clients. I work 60-90 hours a week (6-7 days a week) and it can take me anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 months (or more) to complete a client's wedding video. It's utterly insulting to me that you feel I'm providing poor customer service.

To make you happy I would need to hire more people, and thus not make a living and put myself out of business. Or I would need to work 24 hours a day to make sure you got your video within a "reasonable" time.

I'm trying to keep a level head here, but I work my ass off to provide good customer service. Just this week I averaged 10-12 hours a day, and then worked like a dog at a wedding for 12.5 hours yesterday. I can hardly move today I'm so sore, yet here I sit at my computer finishing up a wedding video from June .. and I'll probably be working for another 6-8 hours today. Tomorrow brings a new week and the fun starts all over again. Meanwhile my friends spent yesterday boating or camping or BBQ'ing or whatever, and they're just sitting around chilling and relaxing today. So for you to come on here and say that guys like me aren't doing enough .. well, it pretty much makes me livid.

Before you share your "opinions" with other videographers perhaps you should take a walk in their shoes first.

Welcome to the world of self-employment - it ain't unique to wedding shooters. My grandaddy used to say that the difference between a career and just another job was 4 hours a day plus a day a week. Whether you're giving good service or not depends on how much longer it will be that the wedding from June will stay in the edit until you deliver it (and I'm assuming here that you are in control of the timing and it's not languishing on the bench because the client is still dawdling about music etc). Late August is certainly not unreasonable for a wedding that shot in June. But if you were just now getting to the edit of one you shot last Fall then I'd say you've taken on too much of a workload to give your customers the personalized and timely attention they deserve, maximum value for the money they're giving you. And I have seen delivery times quoted that are that long. You *could* shoot every day and never deliver the final cut - I think we'd agree that that certainly wouldn't be doing a proper job. So what distinguishes an acceptable delivery time from one that is too long? Your personal workload can't be the sole deciding factor, nor can it be simply the maximum that your customers will tolerate before they stop hiring you. Regardless of the nature of their business, one of the hardest things for freelancers to learn is pace themselves, to decline new work at the point when accepting it would mean we can't do the previously existing work properly. Oh, and leave some time to smell the roses along the way. You don't have to do it all - share the workload with other shooters and raise your rates to compensate <grin>.

Of course I am speaking from the viewpoint of a consumer, as you rightly point out. That's precisely the point and I've made no bones about it. I do understand the difference and I've intentionally chosen to advocate that viewpoint for the purposes of this discussion. That's because for any retail business, the customer's perspective is what must be the prime consideration, the primary focus. Serving their interests, satisfying their desires, is the only reason any consumer business exists. As such, the customer's perspective is the only perspective that matters. They don't adjust their needs to the needs of your business operations. The principles underlying good customer service says you adjust your business to satisfy their pre-existing needs.

I don't mean to tar all wedding shooters with the same brush, just those that approach it half-a***d. IMHO, delivery within 3 months is quite acceptable, 6 months has crossed a line into the realm of less than reasonable customer service, and 1 year is going far beyond the pale. Contrary to the examples in a previous post, wedding video is not the same thing as special ordering a 1-off custom Ferrari, a private jet, or a highly specialized technical product like a RED camera. It's a bread and butter product in a retail consumer industry and the timeliness of delivery, the relative immediacy of the gratification with high quality product, needs to be part of the product and part of the sale.

Part of my "day job" is teaching and consulting on project management - efficient scheduling is a vital skill that can be very difficult to learn and yet is crucial to the success of any project oriented business, such as virtually all media production businesses. Often deciding what not to do is just as important as deciding what you need to do. Oh, and in the past I have also taught customer service soft-skills, FWIW.

I think you will find that many of the videographers here do produce a customer made, one of a kind wedding video for their customers. There are plenty of "point-and-shoot" style videographers out there that meet the quick turn around time if thats what the customer wants.

If you watch the work on may of the people on this forum you will see that the kind of artistry that is required to make these high quality wedding videos takes longer, and customers who appreciate this level of creativity and quality are more than happy to wait a month or two longer for something magic that can last them a lifetime.

The analogy using the RED camera doesn't really fit in here. Talking about product development is a whole different ball of wax. Instead, think of something more service oriented. Say you want new cabinets installed in your kitchen. If you called up a carpenter and he told you it would take 6 months to install new cabinets in your kitchen, I bet you'd tell him to be on his way and get on the phone with another carpenter who says he'll have them installed and ready to use within 3 weeks.

I'm sorry but wedding videography is very much like product development. You don't know exactly how or what you're going to shoot beforehand or how you're going to edit it afterwards. It's a creative process, not just a matter of putting square pegs into square holes. I offer a very personalized product, and that requires a substantial amount of my time. This is what my customers are paying for. They WANT a personalized product, not some run-of-mill video. So in your example with the cabinet maker, no, MY clients would not just run to the next video guy in line who can do it faster, because he won't bring the same level of quality and personalization. You're assuming that those of us that take longer to create a wedding video are doing the same work as the guy that takes 3 weeks. Simply not true.


Why should someone pay me $3k to record an event and produce a DVD in 6 months when they can go to the other guys, spend the same $3k and get the same end result in 6 weeks?

Because they won't get the same result. That seems to be what some of you are missing here. The REASON it takes us longer to deliver the final product is because we invest so much more time in what we do.

Something else to consider is that the wedding videography business is quite seasonal in many markets. I have generally 3-4 months out of the year where I'm slammed every weekend. I have no choice but to cram all of my shooting into those months because THOSE are the months that brides have mostly chosen to get married in. So you get a ton of worked dumped on you in a very short time, and the rest of the year is fairly dead in terms of shooting. This is when you edit. I also edit during the summer months, but it's much harder to fit in with everything else going on.

I don't mean to tar all wedding shooters with the same brush,

Yet you seem to have no problem repeatedly doing it in multiple ways.


Shawn,
Your analogy of the carpenter and kitchen cabinets is close but not quite complete. In most kitchens, the cabinets are built in a factory and installed by a carpenter on site. However, in some kitchens, specifically in very high end homes, the cabinets are completely custom built build by hand. In these two cases, it would not be unlikely for two carpenters to both offer outstanding customer service and yet work on radically different time schedules.

I was in a house recently that in the entry hall there is a staircase that took over two years to build as part of a 3 year total build. Every rung of the banister is made out of hand-sanded birch limbs. Every step has an ornate pattern of inlaid wood and in the floor of the landing are four portraits of the home owners kids made out of inlaid wood. There are plenty of carpenters who can build a staircase in a day, so using the logic that's being tossed around in this thread, the carpenter that took 2+ years doesn't serve his customers well.

In wedding videography it is uninformed (especially by non-wedding shooters) to make a blanket statement about how long a turn around time should be. As the turn around time has to do with the complexity of the finished product and the market. My market is different than yours or Travis' or anyone else who is not in my area. And, within my area there are different markets too. I see adds on Craig's List for people shooting weddings for $300. and I know others who charge 10k+. The $300 dollar guy can tell his customers, "why wait when you can have your video quick." While the 10k guy's work may look slightly better and take longer to achieve. Their customers are willing to wait for the quality.

Emily, AMEN!

Welcome to the world of self-employment - it ain't unique to wedding shooters.

What is it with you and this ostentatious attitude toward wedding videographers?


So what distinguishes an acceptable delivery time from one that is too long?

It's quite simple actually. Any time period that is within what you specified verbally and in your contract to your client.

If someone finds that unacceptable, they won't sign a contract and won't become a client. Problem solved. If they accept the terms and sign the contract, and then later become unhappy with the timeline, then that is their own fault.

What's funny is probably around 50% of my videos take longer than 3 months to complete, due to the cyclic nature of the wedding season. You say that's not acceptable, but my clients disagree with you. In fact, I have many clients who encourage me to take "as long as I need" because they want the very best. This happened just this past Friday, for the wedding I'm working on right now. The bride called to thank us because we had chocolate-covered strawberries delivered to their room on their honeymoon cruise. Then she said (and repeated) that her and her husband were excited to see the photographs and the video, but were in no hurry, and wanted us to take however long we needed.

So again, YOU may think that 6 months for delivery is too long, but MY clients don't feel that way. You obviously would never be one of my clients .. and I'm okay with that.

Picking some arbitrary date out of your head is not the answer. If I tell my clients that I produce very personalized and customized videos, and I show them my work and it's vastly different from what "One Week Turnaround Productions" offers, and my clients are fine with waiting 6 months for a better product, then that is "acceptable". I don't get why you feel the need to argue on their behalf if they are already happy with me.


Regardless of the nature of their business, one of the hardest things for freelancers to learn is pace themselves, to decline new work at the point when accepting it would mean we can't do the previously existing work properly.

The more you post the more you show your lack of experience and knowledge of the wedding industry. My "season" is about 3 months long in terms of shooting. I book 90% of my weddings during the summer and fall months (June, July, August). The rest of the year is fairly dead for me. So telling me that I need to learn to pace myself is like telling an eskimo he needs to learn to grow a lawn.

What a wonderful world it would be if I could book 2 weddings every month and pace myself. Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. Again, you seem to know very little about this business but you're quite eager to give advice on running a successful business in it.


You don't have to do it all - share the workload with other shooters and raise your rates to compensate <grin>.

What an awesome fantasy world you live in. I already explained that my market (and many markets) will only support $2-3k for a wedding video. I already have to work REALLY hard just to get people sold on the idea of spending that much for a wedding video .. heck, most of them aren't even interested in a video when they start planning.

It's so easy for you to say "Oh, just raise your rates." And when I raise my rates to $5k and go out of business because I only book 5 weddings, are you going to give me some more good advice then?



Contrary to the examples in a previous post, wedding video is not the same thing as special ordering a 1-off custom Ferrari, a private jet, or a highly specialized technical product like a RED camera. It's a bread and butter product in a retail consumer industry and the timeliness of delivery, the relative immediacy of the gratification with high quality product, needs to be part of the product and part of the sale.

A consumer cannot expect immediate gratification with a high quality product if they aren't willing to pay for it. You really remind me of some of the clients I've turned down in the past. People who wanted the world, wanted it now, and weren't willing to pay for that kind of service. I might as well just respond with, "Sorry, high quality wedding videos don't grow on trees."


Part of my "day job" is teaching and consulting on project management - efficient scheduling is a vital skill that can be very difficult to learn and yet is crucial to the success of any project oriented business, such as virtually all media production businesses. Often deciding what not to do is just as important as deciding what you need to do. Oh, and in the past I have also taught customer service soft-skills, FWIW.

Well, you know the old saying "Those that teach, teach because they cannot do."

Like I said before, step into the world of wedding videography and open your own business before you start telling videographers that they aren't doing things right.

I think 6 months is realistic as long as the client has agreed with it and your work reflects that its a required time frame.

i'm a videographer and i'm not going to take sides with the debate above.

I believe in customer service and MOST customers are very nice and reasonable.

Speaking for myself, i find editing VERY boring and repeatative. Thats why it takes soooooooo long. (i'm embarressed to admit it but its true. I prefer filming, its quite fun and the day goes quite quickly.

I know a few skilled videographer got burnt out because:

1/ long hours from morning to 12 midnight
2/ and have to spend so many more hours looking at the same footage again you already saw live on the day. (editing)
3/ the pay is not great but i can't complain.
4/ i think the main problem is boredom with editing.

About my previous comment. Lazy is not the right word. Boredom is a more accurate word.

I have read this whole thread and I think the best way to solve it is this:

Steve,
I have to extend a challenge for you. Go find a wedding client. Shoot, Edit, and Deliver that video, and then post that video on vimeo and post a link. Tell us how long it took you, how much money you charged, and how many people worked for you. Tell us weather you paid them a fair wage or if you cheated them out of cash, and tell us how much of a profit you made from that video. Now, here is where the challenge continues.. for how ever long you are working on that wedding video pretend you dont' have a day job. Don't touch that money you make from that other job... can you survive on that amount of money? Don't forget we're going to critique the video to the same detail we critique our friends, and the way you critique our business plans. Will it stand up?

I take 3-4 months to turn around a wedding video. That week of the wedding I turn out a quick 3-5 minute edit just to hold them over until the video is done. I have never had a single person complain, infact the average client appreciates that I don't rush the job, and they understand that I have to work on the videos that I shot before their event before I can work on their video.

Louis Maddalena

I'm sorry but wedding videography is very much like product development. You don't know exactly how or what you're going to shoot beforehand or how you're going to edit it afterwards. It's a creative process, not just a matter of putting square pegs into square holes. I offer a very personalized product, and that requires a substantial amount of my time. This is what my customers are paying for. They WANT a personalized product, not some run-of-mill video. So in your example with the cabinet maker, no, MY clients would not just run to the next video guy in line who can do it faster, because he won't bring the same level of quality and personalization. You're assuming that those of us that take longer to create a wedding video are doing the same work as the guy that takes 3 weeks. Simply not true.

Because they won't get the same result. That seems to be what some of you are missing here. The REASON it takes us longer to deliver the final product is because we invest so much more time in what we do.

Something else to consider is that the wedding videography business is quite seasonal in many markets. I have generally 3-4 months out of the year where I'm slammed every weekend. I have no choice but to cram all of my shooting into those months because THOSE are the months that brides have mostly chosen to get married in. So you get a ton of worked dumped on you in a very short time, and the rest of the year is fairly dead in terms of shooting. This is when you edit. I also edit during the summer months, but it's much harder to fit in with everything else going on.

Sorry, but I think you're trying to compare apples to oranges here. While each wedding is different to a point, I've been to enough to know they share a rather high amount of similarities. The guys that developed the RED camera weren't approached by a couple of people asking if they could create a custom camera specifically for them. They're catering to an industry that has all different kinds of needs from a piece of equipment like that. I would think that product development has a different kind of creative process all together. I have a friend who helps to design cell phones for Motorola, and the amount of creativity involved seems minuscule compared to the amount of engineering involved. But, I'm getting off the topic here.

I can see how my carpenter comparison is a little off, but I think there's a valid point in there to a degree. Of course your clients that you work for didn't go running down the road to the next guy! If they did, they wouldn't be your clients then. But how many people DIDN'T choose you for that reason? That's something you'll never know or be able to measure. I only mention this because it's something that concerns me in my neck of the woods. I do research on the competition in my town and do my best to keep tabs on what they're doing. I know of a few places that will charge the same as I would, only they have more people and equipment. I know other places that consist of just a single person like myself. Our skill levels, in my opinion, are relatively equal. My skills aren't as strong with a camera as the next guy, but I can do things with 3ds Max that the next guy can't. I can edit and color-correct fairly quickly, but maybe not quite as fast as someone else. It all balances out, but the point is that I know that these guys can put something together that looks just as good as something I can put together. Because of that, I don't necessarily have the edge in that category. So I have to put some emphasis on things like customer service and not be blinded by the arrogance in thinking that clients will flock to me because I'm the greatest video producer in all the land.

I'm not trying to put you down or be rude in any way here. The original poster asked what a reasonable turnaround time is, and I gave mine. I'm not making any blanket statements or anything like that. Depending on your clients, their attitudes and their willingness to learn about how we do our jobs for them, its up to us as professionals to be flexible enough to accommodate them. Because if we don't, someone else will, and that's not good for any of us here. How you choose to run your business is up to you, and it seems like you're doing well enough. However, the OP might not be in the same type of situation you're in, and in my opinion, its always good to have multiple viewpoints!

Sorry, but I think you're trying to compare apples to oranges here. While each wedding is different to a point, I've been to enough to know they share a rather high amount of similarities.
Yes, they have a lot of the same traditional items... and yes that helps us know where to be at the right time. When we talk about creative process here, it pretty much has nothing to do with the fact that a lot of weddings are similar. It has to do with how we present our product. If all we are talking about is simply documenting a wedding and throwing it on a DVD, then I could see how 'creative process' would not matter.

However, we are not 'action news.' Instead we use creative process to give our clients a reason to refer their family and friends back to us.

I think you have to have a plan in place before shooting. Be able to organize your clips. Surely you must have a theme in mind either during the filming, or immediately upon completion of that task. Take your clips, organize a rough draft, take a step back, load the music and audio, step back, show the rough to someone, fret and agonize over it, re-cut, show it again to anyone, come to terms with the final edit and complete the task.
Anything else is procrastination. I think it's necessary to complete the project while the event is fresh in your mind if nothing else. The time taken to complete a project must vary according to length and technical aspects. We're taking 3 hours of video film, 400-500 clips, editing into 22 minutes for TV within one week, one guy filming and editing.
Unless you're filming and editing a major motion picture why take half a year?
Recap:
One week to film and edit 22 minutes, approx. 44 hours working time, including 22 hours editing, 22 fretting, put the pedal to the metal and finish it, then move to the next.

By the way I am mostly speaking/drilling myself on the above, editing is tough but very rewarding.

However, I'm more inclined to agree with Steve here. Customer service is one of those crucial aspects that seems to be put off to the wayside. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for all of our clients out there to have deeper pockets and a more laid-back and educated opinion of video production, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. the analogy using the RED camera doesn't really fit in here. Talking about product development is a whole different ball of wax. Instead, think of something more service oriented. Say you want new cabinets installed in your kitchen. If you called up a carpenter and he told you it would take 6 months to install new cabinets in your kitchen, I bet you'd tell him to be on his way and get on the phone with another carpenter who says he'll have them installed and ready to use within 3 weeks. You can also imagine how difficult it will become for the first carpenter who works on such a drawn out time schedule. I don't believe in the philosophy that "The customer is always right", but they're the ones paying the bills- so we're kind of obligated to meet THEIR needs- not the other way around. Any business that's tried it that way has run into trouble. Look to our own General Motors and Ford for more details.

Everyone's business is a little bit different, and that's a good thing. It gives clients options, and creates a diverse market. A 6-month turnaround time might be a great option if you're charging less than the competition, and it could be a good niche for you. Your market and general area may also have a lot to do with it. I need to be mindful of my turnaround times because I know there are other businesses here in town that can do it just as fast if not faster. Why should someone pay me $3k to record an event and produce a DVD in 6 months when they can go to the other guys, spend the same $3k and get the same end result in 6 weeks?
I wanted to comment on this too. This business is a lot different than other straight forward made to order products. I liked your carpenter analogy because I got a feel for what you are saying. Let me offer this in return:

You call up 2 carpenters for cabinet instillation. The first guy has all pre-fabbed cabinets. He says can install them in a couple weeks. Then you call the other carpenter. The other caprenter does not have pre-fabbed cabinets. He makes them all by hand - and they are absolutely beautiful. Sure they are just cabinets. They all have shelves and doors... all the same right? Well... not exactly. The cabinets are specially made. The wood is imported and rare. The craftsmanship is unique and beautiful and no one in the area does it like him. He tells you that with his current work load, he can get you the cabinets in 6 months.

It's not hard to see that people will wait for quality. No... not everyone will. And that's fine.

Believe it or not, people kind of like having to wait for their DVD. Yes.. I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out. They would rather hire someone that is sought after, than someone who does not have any business and can turn around in a week and a half. And this next one you will probably find absurd, but wedding videography is one of the few businesses that can get away with it. Having to wait a while builds a lot of anticipation... Kind of how I got months before 'The Dark Knight' came out. (No... I'm not comparing our vids to actual motion pictures, just making a comment about anticipation). Details about their wedding start to fade within those first couple of months. By the time they get their video back, they have slipped into a post marital daily routine. Giving them their video a couple months after their wedding allows them to re-live it all over again, as the images and memories have already begun to fade.

Having said all of that, I think 2-3 months is a good target.

I have read this whole thread and I think the best way to solve it is this:

Steve,
I have to extend a challenge for you. Go find a wedding client. Shoot, Edit, and Deliver that video, and then post that video on vimeo and post a link. Tell us how long it took you, how much money you charged, and how many people worked for you. Tell us weather you paid them a fair wage or if you cheated them out of cash, and tell us how much of a profit you made from that video. Now, here is where the challenge continues.. for how ever long you are working on that wedding video pretend you dont' have a day job. Don't touch that money you make from that other job... can you survive on that amount of money? Don't forget we're going to critique the video to the same detail we critique our friends, and the way you critique our business plans. Will it stand up?

I take 3-4 months to turn around a wedding video. That week of the wedding I turn out a quick 3-5 minute edit just to hold them over until the video is done. I have never had a single person complain, infact the average client appreciates that I don't rush the job, and they understand that I have to work on the videos that I shot before their event before I can work on their video.

Louis Maddalena

Sorry, I'm going to have to decline your challenge. General consumer video services such as weddings and events, etc, are not a direction I choose to go - my passions are elsewhere. Besides, I'll be the first to admit that I wouldn't be as good at them as many of the people who post here - it takes a special talent to be good at it and my talents don't lay in that direction. I have done wedding still photography in the past so I'm not totally ignorant of the business in the trenches but my eye tends more toward reportage and commentary than towards romance. Although I've shot stills since Jonah was a deckhand I wouldn't want to run a neighborhood portrait studio either - some of them do beautiful work but it's just not my cup of tea. In any case, customer service is customer service regardless of the business and the talent to make beautiful wedding videos doesn't carry with it knowledge of the people skills needed to run a business. My ability to make a good wedding video or the lack of it is not a valid test.

Of course you're going to work on projects already in the que before you work on a particular client's wedding - never said you shouldn't. But some people suggested they had other projects such as commercials that came in after the wedding in question that got higher priority handling and jumped the que - IMHO that is giving short-shrift to the wedding customer and is poor service. There comes a time when you have to decide what business you're really in and decline those other projects in order to concentrate on doing your core business really, really well.

You, Travis, and Josh seem to think I have painted all wedding videographers with the same broad negative brush and I have not ... many give their clients excellent product and excellent service. I just don't feel that those who make their clients wait ... and wait ... and wait .... and wait ... and wait, month after month, until they find it convenient to fit finishing the project into their schedule, all the while sitting on the money the client's have already paid, are treating their clients properly. They're putting their own interests ahead of their clients when the key to any business should be that the customer comes first. A 3-month turnaround during the busy season seems reasonable, perhaps less during the off-season. But I've seen people quote norms of 6, 9, or even 12 months and that's just not treating their customers right.

I was even thinking to offer a straight edit video as well, nothing creative, just clean video and sound in a documentary way (so no additional music) and asking about 30% less then what I normally charge for a "creative" video. A clean edit I can finish in a day and per hour I would earn a lot more and couples would get their dvd a lot sooner. I am sure a lot of couples just want it like that around here, nothing fancy, just an overview of their day. Only now a lot don't hire a videographer because they think it's too expensive.

I too have been a solid believer in creative video's and I take a lot of pride in what I do but at the end of the month my bills have to be paid. Therefore I don't have that much problems leaving the creative part behind, for clients that want it like that, and get the dvd's delivered to them by mail 3 days after the wedding. In this way I can make a lot more money with less effort.

I can understand Steve's point of view and I think he is right, if your client has to wait more then six months there is something wrong with the way you do business, you should either hire extra help or you should change the way you work.

Somebody please explain this logic to me .. that if my customers have to wait 6 months or more for their video, but they are happy to do so, that I am still providing bad customer service. Please explain, as I'm dying to hear how this is rationalized.

It seems pretty clear to me that if my customers are happy, then I'm providing good customer service. Steve, maybe you should pop on to my website and read the "rave reviews" my clients have left me. Many of those couples had to wait 6 months or more to receive their video. Do their "reviews" sound like things clients would say if they were receiving poor customer service? I don't think so.

Steve, you may have also more "teaching" experience than me, but I have real-world business experience with clients every single day. Again, until you have your own successful wedding videography business, I don't think you're very qualified to be telling the rest of us how to run our businesses.

Sorry, I'm going to have to decline your challenge. General consumer video services such as weddings and events, etc, are not a direction I choose to go - my passions are elsewhere.

Exactly. Your passion appears to lie with teaching about business rather than actually running one. There's nothing wrong with that, but you need to start recognizing the limitations of your advice when you aren't actually running a business in the field under discussion.



But some people suggested they had other projects such as commercials that came in after the wedding in question that got higher priority handling and jumped the que - IMHO that is giving short-shrift to the wedding customer and is poor service. There comes a time when you have to decide what business you're really in and decline those other projects in order to concentrate on doing your core business really, really well.

Exactly what I would expect someone to say who isn't in the business. Once again, your lack of experience clouds your logic. You're assuming that all videographers have the ability to survive on wedding videos alone. The truth is, wedding videos don't pay very well. In order to survive as a business many videographers have to diversify and offer more than just wedding videography services. But if you take on a commercial job you're generally dealing with a client that needs a finished product in a few weeks or less. You can't take a commercial job and put it at the back of the queue because the client won't agree to that. So many videographers have no choice but to take the work and put it ahead of their existing wedding clients. But again, if the wedding clients are willing to wait then it doesn't matter if another project gets put ahead of theirs, as long as they get their video within the timeline they were promised.


A 3-month turnaround during the busy season seems reasonable, perhaps less during the off-season.

Once again, how are you at all qualified to determine what is "reasonable" for turnaround and what is not? You don't produce wedding videos.


But I've seen people quote norms of 6, 9, or even 12 months and that's just not treating their customers right.

Even if the customer is happy to wait that long for a better product? Explain why it's wrong if the customer is happy. ????

Ask Robert Allan /what his turn around is then ask what he charges then ask him if HIS clients are unhappy. End of story!

Don

...

Once again, how are you at all qualified to determine what is "reasonable" for turnaround and what is not? You don't produce wedding videos.

Even if the customer is happy to wait that long for a better product? Explain why it's wrong if the customer is happy. ????

You're still making my point - suggesting that it is good enough to do the minimum necessary to keep the client from getting PO'ed. IMHO that's the result of the Wal-Mart philosophy in a nutshell. Good enough, never is.

Probably time to lock the thread down...

Ask Robert Allan /what his turn around is then ask what he charges then ask him if HIS clients are unhappy. End of story!

Don


I doubt his clients are unhappy - the clips on his site are beautiful, very cinematic! Any idea roughly where he might sit in the pricing and delivery time spectrums?

We're taking 3 hours of video film, 400-500 clips, editing into 22 minutes for TV within one week, one guy filming and editing.
Unless you're filming and editing a major motion picture why take half a year?


As was stated before, there are a lot of differences between that type of project and what a wedding videographer does. For starters, you're working with less footage. 3 hours? Bah. I generally walk away with 8-10 hours of footage.

You're also working with a script, right, so once the filming is done you know how you want to edit it. With a wedding, you can't script it out. What happens is what happens, and you won't know until you've filmed it. So the editing is far more time consuming as you have to go through it and pick and choose different shots for different purposes, and find conversation pieces that work for different parts of the video. You essentially have to film the event and THEN figure out how to tell the story.

The length of my total edited pieces is also much longer than 22 minutes. The couple generally gets a DVD with nearly 2 hours of edited video pieces on it. That's a lot of creative editing considering there is no script to work from.

Finally, you produce your television show on a regular schedule, right? Well, the wedding season is far from a regular schedule. I might shoot a wedding every weekend for several weeks straight, and during the week I'm meeting with clients, planning secondary shoots (like save the dates or love story videos), shooting secondary sessions, and much more. It's impossible to get a lot of editing time in during the actual wedding season, which is why most editing is done after the wedding season.

There are many reasons why a wedding cannot always be turned around within 3 months.

You're still making my point - suggesting that it is good enough to do the minimum necessary to keep the client from getting PO'ed. IMHO that's the result of the Wal-Mart philosophy in a nutshell. Good enough, never is.

How am I "making your point"? I never said I only do what it takes to keep them from being "pissed off". Don't put words in my mouth.

You obviously didn't take the time to go read some of the reviews on my website like I suggested. If you're going to try and argue with me on this topic, get your facts straight. Go read my reviews and tell me if you think those clients are just a step away from "pissed off". Nonsense.

Face it, you stepped into a discussion where you have no qualification to argue. I suggest you save what face you have left and back out of it.

The bottom line is if I tell my clients it takes 6 months to produce a masterpiece, and they are perfectly happy with waiting 6 months that quality, and I deliver a masterpiece in 6 months, then I'm providing great customer service. Unless you have an argument for why that's not good business, it's time for you to move along.

You're still making my point - suggesting that it is good enough to do the minimum necessary to keep the client from getting PO'ed. IMHO that's the result of the Wal-Mart philosophy in a nutshell. Good enough, never is.

I just realized you're also now critiquing Wal-Mart's business strategy. This is just further proof that you don't know what you're talking about. I'm pretty sure Wal-Mart is a very successful company. For them, "good enough" is working quite well.

So.. this thread was about how long does it take to do an average turn around. Judging on the responses here.. it looks like 2 - 6 months is about what it is.

Of course this thread has turned into... is it bad customer service if your closer to the 6 month mark. I've only done Wedding video for 2 years. I feel like I have learned a lot within the 2 years that I have been doing this. But I can tell you that if you asked me some of the questions that have been asked on this thread, my aswers would have probably been different 2 years ago before I started.

Taking a step back and looking at this from a simple logical point of view, I can see how a 6 month turn around would seem like a long time from someone who has not researched the topic.

The fact of the matter is.. that's just the way it is. Travis made a good point that during peak wedding season, You might do 1 or even 2 weddings in a week. You have to take the jobs when they come or you could starve come November December.

Keep in mind, couples can choose "Simple Sam's Videos" that have a 1 week turn around and no creative element. But the ones that choose us did not. And they are happy to wait for the completion of there video because they chose us.

Keep in mind, couples can choose "Simple Sam's Videos" that have a 1 week turn around and no creative element.

That was just my point, not every client wants to have a creative video, especially if they know it will save them money. If that will improve my turn around times I will accept those as well and deliver in a week. A simple documentary can look just as professional as a creative one if executed right.

If my basic principle would be to only deliver nothing else then very creative videos my clients would also have to wait 6 months and longer and I'm sure they wouldn't be happy (most of them already contact me after 3 weeks, even if I have told them that it might be 1,5- 2 months)

You, Travis, and Josh seem to think I have painted all wedding videographers with the same broad negative brush and I have not ... many give their clients excellent product and excellent service. I just don't feel that those who make their clients wait ... and wait ... and wait .... and wait ... and wait, month after month, until they find it convenient to fit finishing the project into their schedule, all the while sitting on the money the client's have already paid, are treating their clients properly. They're putting their own interests ahead of their clients when the key to any business should be that the customer comes first. A 3-month turnaround during the busy season seems reasonable, perhaps less during the off-season. But I've seen people quote norms of 6, 9, or even 12 months and that's just not treating their customers right.

That's all well and true but why post these comments in here when everyone who posts on this forum provides excellent products and clients have great experience?

We know there are people out there that may not offer great service like in any industry including your own. That's why everyone here can excel in their part of the world because we all care about both the client experience and the products we offer and on this forum we share our successes and how we can improve.

Turn around time is what it takes to get it right, and frankly the amount of edit time can vary quite a bit. I'm hoping to get a sort of "cookie cutter" basic package going to meet the bad economy (yep, call it a "Wal Mart" approach, and it does require speed...). Don't call it "art", but it's a wedding video, and I see another esteemed member of the forum contemplating it too, so I guess I'm not being offensive in suggesting it!

It's the old saying, speed, quality, or price... pick two. Usually the client that wants it cheap also wants it fast, and may not be as concerned with quality (thus why they are thrilled when uncle Bob shows up with his shiny new $200 handycam that cost less than my CAMERA CASES). Fact is probably any regular on this forum could churn out stuff like that with their eyes closed and in their sleep... and stilll make Bob look like a piker...

I think the artistic level of production that you see here is probably because of a strong desire to CREATE and deliver stuff that simply moves the client to tears of joy - that's not as easy as churning out boxes of crackers or taking a box off the shelf and handing it to the client.

ALL of us in business have the challenge of meeting our market (in ALL economic conditions), or meeting a bankruptcy judge... or getting a "real job"... We either do it or we don't - I think there's plenty of full timers here (judging from another thread), and I'll go with THEIR opinions of what it takes to meet their market - sure, I think everyone would like to speed up the creative process, but...



Steve, stick to what you know, to put it bluntly. You don't go to the auto mechanic fixing your neighbors car and tell him he's taking too long to do a job you wouldn't know how to do if your life depended on it... You admit your ignorance of the total "picture", but you act as though you are an expert, please do us all a favor and go shoot a couple weddings, then come back and let us all know how it goes - you must have some friend or family member getting married?? You've got the hardware...

Perhaps even better, since you've declared yourself an "expert" in project management, how about doing a process chart to enlighten us?? Figure 1-3 weddings per week during peak periods, NONE the other 30-50% of the time, with a cyclical demand peaking during the summer months, editing 5-10 hours of video, color correcting, rendering, re-rendering, quality checking, re-rendering <wink>, authoring DVD - full menus and chapters of course, prepping DVD and case artwork, burning, printing, packaging... between promotion, client meetings, and having a life.

Oh yeah, forgot about doing a process chart for the shoot... let's try one for one of the first weddings I shot:
If you're lucky you get a general script - probably should squeeze in a trip to the rehearsal, half the party will be late, so lose an hour or two there... next morning, you arrive at the location to shoot the bride, she's not there, because the hairdresser was late, so you go to the church... and wait... and wait... the pastor warned everyone not to be late and is looking to cancel the wedding (hour mass with another right behind it)... you're set up, but realize that you have to take a "potty break"... in the can, you hear a bell ding, and realize... the bride, who just arrived, is sprinting up the aisle with the bouquet she had to go and find because the florist never showed... and you zip and sprint to start the cameras rolling... Wedding ends a half hour late (Father did a hour mass in a record 42.5 minutes) Pack up while your photog is shooting formals while fighting umpteen family members who are P&S'ing the bride to death with cheapo cameras... 100 degree heat, bride doesn't want to shoot any b-roll or artistic stuff, she's drenched and cranky... see ya at the reception in a few hours... OK, fine... show up at the reception just a tad late, since it's obvious the bride and groom won't be there on time... settle in, get gear ready, eat, since there's nothing else to do... 2 1/2 hours later bride and groom, who for unknown reasons went on a trip to a nearby major city (2-3 hour round trip) and got in a car accident along the way... FINALLY show up. Of course there's no co-ordinator, so the reception goes on FOREVER as the band the brides relative hired plays... and plays... and plays...
You're bored stupid, and although the DJ annonced there was a camera set up for well wishes, not a single person in a huge hall even bothered, SO you quick come up with a new interview style, grab an outgoing member of the wedding party and work the room, half of whom don't speak English... but at least you got something in the can to work with! Finally around 11-ish, you start to pack up, since none of the traditional events seems to be anyhere close to happening... WAAAAAIT! Quick do the cake, bouquet, garter, etc... go home around midnight, wondering why you think this is FUN...

Process THAT, and then let us know what a REASONABLE delivery time is... Wedding videography is not for the academic or faint of heart, nor is it anything approaching a "normal" business... did I mention I still think it's FUN??

Steven,
Yes. He goes on an hourly about $1000 per hour with a 5 hour minimum. Average about $10K 6 to 9 months last I heard.
Oh yeah about 20 to 30 gigs a year for 20 years plus. Father of the short form edit. Do the math. An amonoly? Perhaps.
However I don't feel Travis is making your point. Although I respect your expertise in the audio industry I really don't see your point as valid in the wedding industry. Just because it takes a longer time to finish a product doesn't mean poor customer service. If my client KNOWS it going to take X amount of time because of whatever reasons and they are OK with that does that mean I'm slighting them and do other work in front of them? No, it means I have an edit schedule planned out and they fall into that schedule at the appropriate time and place. Do I do other wirk first. You bet and they know it. When I get a call to do a TV show and am gone for a week they know it why? Because I tell them up front BEFORE they sign up that might happen. I tell them upfront BEFORE they sign that I do other work and that if they want ME then the edit schedule is XX. If they want a 1 week turnaround then they go somewhere else. Bless them and all that.
The point is after 37 years in business and 62 on earth I have never been able to equate fast turn around with good customer service. Not in the wedding video or still industry. Sure, breaking action stuff but that's different. In the wedding industry, there are 2 many variables that can preclude one from turning a quality product in 2 or 3 weeks. Would I like too? Of course but as has been pointerd out I work solo. Always have always will. I shoot edit sweep the floors and clean the toilet. I also have a life outside of video. Not much of one but still. I have never had a single complaint about turnaround time EVER because I tell the client what it is and why it is.
I guess the point is you can not equate turnaround time with customer service in the wedding industry. I know some in the biz that can turn it around in 1 week. Of course the work is BAD.
Plain and simple. Not merely acceptable but BAD. That doesn't mean fast is bad or slow is good but the GOOD ones get booked up quick and take all they can so they can make a living and their clients know it.
I'll back out if this discussiobn now as IMO it's going nowhere. It kind of like trying to explain to someone who's never been in a war what it's like to shoot at someone or be shot it. Til you been there there's no explaining it.
I do however take exception to a few things you've said but I will not hold it personally.It just isn't right to make blanket statements. Never say never, never say always!
Don

It kind of like trying to explain to someone who's never been in a war what it's like to shoot at someone or be shot it. Til you been there there's no explaining it.

Spoken like a true veteran. Thanks for your service.

Steven,
Yes. He goes on an hourly about $1000 per hour with a 5 hour minimum. Average about $10K 6 to 9 months last I heard.
Oh yeah about 20 to 30 gigs a year for 20 years plus. Father of the short form edit. Do the math. An amonoly? Perhaps.


Really? those prizes for wedding videography? That would be wishfull thinking here, around these parts he wouldn't even manage to get 1 booking. Think I have to move to another country. :)