Outsourcing weddings.

[Ger Griffin]

I got an email recently from a crowd out in eastern europe offering to edit my weddings for me for "very low money".
I must say it is appealing to me to let them try one.
What are ye're thoughts on this guys?
Pros and many cons......

well heres what i can initially think of..

Pros,
less work, stress and time on the pc.

Cons,
may turn out to be more stress in the long run.
if/when they get something wrong how difficult would it be to get it corrected.
Then again if they returned the project file edited with the shots...?

I just don't know though. I consider myself to be a pretty handy editor and I'm very particular about the little things.
Im not so sure I'd be happy attaching my name to something done by someone else.

Has anyone ever tried this kindof thing before?

[Noa Put]

eastern europe? Sounds fishy to me, I wouldn't take the risk to be honest. Do they have some credentials or a website with all the relevant business contact information? and, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but what is "very low money", how much are they charging?

[Ger Griffin]

i dont know how much exactly. in fact i dont even have the email they sent me.
Its more the concept I was hoping to discuss.
I dont see how it could be risky if its not the original footage they
would be getting.
Id say these people scourded the weddings website im advertising on
and sent this email out to everyone on it and more.
As far as I remember they were based in Romania.

Id imagine 1 weeks wage here would be the equivalent to 1 months there.

[Noa Put]

How do you mean "not the original footage?" They should need that to do the editing, no?
The concept is not that bad, but I would only let someone do it who I can trust and were I am sure that it is edited in the way I want to.
If you feel comfortable giving your footage out to another editor who's work you have seen, I don't see any reason why not. I'm sure you can ask that question here as well.
Even I do occasional editing for other videographers if they can't find the time and I also have filmed weddings and handed the tapes to videographers that had a double booking. I don't do it that much because I really like doing the whole thing but to fill up time when I don't have that much work, why not.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Ger Griffin

Id imagine 1 weeks wage here would be the equivalent to 1 months there.

You can be sure that they know what you charge and adopt their percentage to that, just because they are from Romania it doesn't mean their stupid ;)

[Victor Kellar]

I make my living editing other studios' weddings.

I have everything very laid out: I have online samples they can access, plus entire weddings on disc if they need that

I have a rate card, explaining what I normally charge to do what; a charge for candid weddings, a charge for stylized/music oriented weddings, charges for same days, love walks, pics etc

I have a resume and a list of current references so the studio can check me out

I have a form letter that includes my gear, my software and my expected time for turnaround plus my expected time for changes, etc.

I don't do a ton of promoting, I've been doing this work in the same market for 16 years but every now and then I run ads on Craigslist etc. I expect the studios to check me out .... and I certainly check them out as well.

I approach this professionally and I think it gives studios some piece of mind; I'm not a hobbyist or a diletente, I'm a professional. I have yet to do work out of country (say to the US) but I have edited for studios in several locations in Ontario; generally they are sending me dubbs of their original tapes and I am sending them back discs. I suggest the dubbs just to protect their assets and a DV to DV dubb has no quality loss. And I charge them for shipping.

The people that are trolling you for work should be held to at least that kind of standard; definitely definitely definitely get references that can be checked with a phone call or e-mail. That;s the best marketing tool I have

[Yang Wen]

Victor: Interesting! Do you have contacts who do the same thing in the Chicago area?

[Victor Kellar]

Sorry, I don't really have any working connections in the States but I imagine there must be people who do similar work in Chicago .. pretty much the same size as Toronto

If you are looking, at least you know some of the questions to ask

[Ger Griffin]

The world is getting smaller now. There was a time
when I wouldn't outsource to anybody who wasn't within driving distance
of myself. But these days, I could forsee a problem being rectified fairly easily.

Lets give an example:

The Brides name has been spelled wrong. Inform the editor, let him make changes, and forward on either A) the fixed .avi clip via internet or B) an entirely newly burned disk via mail.

At the moment Im not busy enough to consider doing this, at least not his time of year. Hopfully some day I'll find myself in the position where it could be neccessary to try it.

Victor have you considered working with foreign clients? and if not why not?

[Victor Kellar]

I don't have any real issues working with foreign clients ... when I did more corporate style video a lot of our clients were in the US and we occasionally hooked up with cameramen and post houses down there

It just really hasn't come up on the wedding side. As stated, the long distance thing is getting easier to accomplish. I do have clients within my province who are hundreds of klicks away

Shipping charges would be higher of course, as would shipping .. thereby turnaround ... time. I know when we did some corp jobs and sent boxes of dozens of CDs down to Illinois things got held up at the border cause they thought it was porn; we since learned how to better "mark" our shipping

For European countries you have the different video standard .. though, I can make PAL discs and PAL DVCAM tape .. and I've sent NTSC copies of weddings to Europe for clients and mostly those will play

As stated, you need to have your Ps and Qs crossed so you don't have tons of jobs going back and forth, thereby slowing things down. For me, charging flat rates as I do, turnaround time is always an issue.

But things change every day and people just get married everywhere don't they? And who knows .. somedays bandwidths and compression schemes may work out so everything can be done electronically

Cool lines of thought

[Kim Swift]

Hi Victor, can you email me your editing rates? I'm in Chicago.

[Brian Luce]

It's tricky because the look of a given production can be so personal and require so much oversight. And if that person is in another hemisphere, it won't be easy to communicate. I outsource websites sometimes and it's not easy. Believe me, so many times I've just wanted to pull the plug and find a local. A lot of these places are chop shops with no aesthetic sense at all. Beware.

[Giroud Francois]

with romanian guys, if there is a scam , it won't be on video, it will when you reach the payment stage and provide your credit card info.