Some jobs operate on a partial payment policy where the first 50% is paid up front, then 25%-25%, or perhaps first & last 50%. The problem is that, some client’s concept of “up front” is “30 days+”. This is no good for you since you may have to run expenditures for tape stock, a freelance assistant, outside facilities and so on, and the costs will come out of pocket unless the client pays up. There have many instances where I had completed a job, the master has shipped, and I still hadn’t received first 50% up front. This presents a real problem since you are obligated to pay your expenses on reasonable terms, but you cannot antagonize your relationship with your client such that they will see you as an “unsavory resource”.

What if I don’t get paid?

There have been very few instances where I have heard of an editor or facility literally holding a master tape hostage because the client did not pay, but it has happened. I highly recommend never doing this simply because the world of post production is small, and word gets around very quickly. No potential client will ever work with you if they think you will hold their master for any reason, legitimate or not. This is further compounded by the tendency of many production companies and advertising agencies to be astoundingly slow payers – some as long as 6 months! So a producer who works for such a company will already know that they will be in trouble with you if you have this reputation. In other words, the guilty know who they are, but they won’t tell you. If you are known as a hostage taker, you could be blackballed. It is a tough call, and there have been many editing companies who have had to bite the bullet and hope the client comes through eventually. Luckily, there is a thing you can get from your bank called a Line of Credit!

I have always tried to insulate myself from the filth of finance mainly because I want to remain the “good guy” in the client’s eye. Try not to get involved with the tension of making collection calls if you don’t have to. If you are a freelancer or a small boutique, you have fewer choices in the matter. I suggest speaking with an accountant directly rather than the producer who hired you, unless you are asking the producer to speak to the accountant on your behalf after many attempts for a response have failed.

I have never been completely stiffed by a client. I have, however, “stiffed” a couple freelancers when they grossly misrepresented themselves or failed so terribly in executing their work according to specifications. One editor said he had experience editing corporate promotional videos and spent three days assembling selected interview quotes, but made no progress whatsoever on structuring the program, designing the look of the graphics, or coming up with a narrative outline. He begged to be given another day, and the results were astoundingly bad. I paid him for only the three days, though he had essentially given me only one day’s work out of four. Despite the experience he claimed, he was a creative dry well.

On another occasion, I contracted a graphics compositer based on the recommendation of a peer to make some green screen composites. This person claimed to have lots of compositing experience and did not hesitate to accept a very high profile job involving uncompressed HD footage, with a tight schedule. He, in turn, sub-contracted the job to a group of mostly inexperienced rookies who proceeded to make a mess of the work. When pressed on the issues that needed repair, he promised to come through and meet the deadlines. The next round of work was equally bad as if none of the issues had been addressed at all, and precious time had been lost. When confronted again, he literally froze in his seat, unable to speak. When asked “yes or no” if he would be able to finish the job at all by the deadline, he said “No.” He was paid only a fraction of his contract. The final product was diminished because of his misrepresentation of his skills, and it cost me thousands to hire someone else at an emergency rate, for 3 days around-the-clock straight to get the job done.

It’s hard to believe that some people would call themselves a professional and do their business so poorly. Please don’t be one of them.

Last, when you finally receive your check, be sure to photocopy and staple it to copies of your invoices in case their check bounces. You may need to fax a copy of the check to the client.

Remember to pay your quarterly taxes!

• Invoice number, billing date.
• Name, address, business or SS identification number
• Name of the project and producer (the one who hired you).
• Client’s purchase order or job number, if any.
• An itemized list of days that you worked, and the overtime hours if necessary.

Production companies and ad agencies are notoriously disorganized and your invoice can get lost in the sauce if you do not provide every detail possible.

Whenever I have negotiated a price for my services, I have preferred to offer a day rate rather than an hourly rate. It is generally accepted that a “day” is an 8 to 10 hour day, so the hourly rate “in your head” should add up to an 8 hour day. I charge 1.5 times the hourly rate from the end of the prescribed day for the next four hours (usually from 8 p.m. to midnight), then double-time after midnight. Be sure to indicate in your invoice if there were any events that incurred overtime. Obviously, your client should know about this up front so it bears saying that they should expect these overages when they receive them. If you did not discuss an overtime contingency, you really shouldn’t bill for it unless you discuss it first with the producer.

I recently encountered a situation where I was booked freelance a month in advance for a period of three weeks. Just before the job began, however, I was offered a much higher paying job. I had to decline the job because I had already been firmed by another client. Unfortunately, the client who booked me for three weeks unexpectedly released me for a whole day twice, and a half day twice, amounting to three days. The producer would not permit me to bill her for the days I did not work even though I she had firmed the entire three weeks. This is bad policy on her part, and I expressed myself about this breach of protocol, but to no avail. I lost a lot of money.

You must express your policy up front before you begin a working relationship with a client. You might not get the terms you wish, but at least you have a say in the issue.

Well, you can’t just seal it up and mail it. Some jobs require a particular procedure for managing the elements and you must follow it for several reasons to be explained later. But first, you must first gather everything that belongs to the project and pack it all up.

• Call the recording studio and have them send any archival elements to you, such as voiceover recordings, project data backup, referenc material, etc. If there were multiple sesson dates, be sure to provide the dates of the sessions so that elements from all of the sessions can be included.
• If it was a film project, call the telecine facility and have them ship the negative to you. You might need to call the production company or ad agency producer to have them call the telecine facility to request a release of the negative. The negative does not belong to the editing company, it is the responsibility of the production company. Some facilities accept the editor’s instructions, some don’t.
• Sort out any junk in your production elements, such as old rough cut layoffs.
• Include any firewire drives, if they are part of the agreed terms of the job.

Here are some tips on packing boxes:

• The “first box” should contain as many final elements as possible, such as the protection master, camera original video tapes, OCN Transfer Master tape, final audio elements, CDs and DVD-Rs of original elements and final renders, and production sound recordings. This simplifies access to the elements most frequently retrieved.
• Keep associated elements together as best you can, such as all dailies tapes, layoff tapes, etc.
• Keep negative or camera videotapes together, in order. Do not pack too many rolls of negative together in one box as it will cause the box to collapse under its own weight.
• Include original script and shooting notes, and a set of final scripts if they are handy. I sometimes include a copy of the script with recording session notes that indicate “buy” takes.

You will need to provide evidence that you actually packed what you say you packed in case someone claims that you are still holding onto something. Also, there are tax implications for which elements are delivered to the distribution outlet and which elements are put into storage, so follow the instructions from the client carefully. Wow, I can’t even begin to tell you about the bureaucratic nightmares I have seen in the disposition of production elements due to poor archiving and inventory management!

Some clients require a formal inventory to be done to account for the disposition of every piece in the project. Here is what required of you in this situation:

• Be sure to include the protection master in one of the boxes. There could be legal and tax liabilities for failing to do so.
• Photocopy or scan the label of every tape and disc. Make three copies of the entire set. Keep one set, place one inside the “first” box of elements, send another copy to the producer.
• If your company does barcoding, barcode each element.
• Type up a formal and descriptive inventory of everything that is contained in each box – one inventory per box.
• Label each box with the client or agency name, the project name, the title of the spots or programs, and a numeric indicator such as “Box 1 of 8,” “Box 2 of 8,” etc.
• Print out five sets of the entire inventory set. Keep one set for yourself, send one set directly to the agency producer, seal one set into an envelope for the storage facility or receiving agent, tape each individual page to the outside of its respective box using clear packing tape, and place each individual page inside its respective box.
• Type up a signature receipt that describes the entire client/project/program, and indicates the origination and destination of all of the boxes comprised in your shipment, fold it into a self-addressed stamped envelope, include it with the shipment. I usually tape it to one of the boxes itself with a conspicuous note instructing the receiver to sign and return the receipt. the receiving agent is familiar with the routine, though you might have to provide explicit instructions to someone who is not a storage facility agent.
• You are responsible for the cost of shipping. Ship the boxes using a bonded, secure shipping company. Get a signed receipt.

At some point, you will receive back your signed signature receipt from the storage facility or receiving agent. Save this document in the job folder. Better still, scan it and archive it along with the other digital elements of the project. This document will SAVE YOUR ASS in case anyone cannot find something and they claim you still have it (you’d better not still have it!).

Finally, there are tax implications associated with shipping certain elements. The tax code may have changed since I last shipped a master tape and sent elements to storage under such strict guidelines, but as of 2008, here is my understanding of how it works. The editing company is permitted to charge tax to the client on the cost of the master tape only. Everything else is considered tax exempt because they are considered material elements used in the creation of the master.

The documentation of all of this in the form of inventories and signature receipts is critical since, if either the production company, ad agency or client is audited, they will ask you to provide them with copies of everything that clearly indicates that ONLY the master was shipped in-state and taxed, and that everything else was shipped out of state to storage. Obviously the tax laws are different state to state, so check on the policy in your area.

There’s no hard and fast rule on it, especially since your gut instinct will probably tell you whether or not the master will somehow become un-final and will have to be revised. My policy on this is to keep everything exactly as it is for about a month, after which I make a call or email to the producer to request permission to archive the project and delete the digitized media. It is actually important that you do this because if the producer gives you permission to unmount the project and its associated media, then he or she calls you back a day later and tells you they need to make a revision, you have a formal record that indicates that the project was released. This justifies you charging for the time to reload the project and its media to do the revision.

Archiving is the process of distilling everything down to only the relevant materials needed to rebuild the project to its original state. As I suggested in the Organizing chapter, I recommend having a dedicated project folder that contains all of the working elements (except the digitized media and FCP render files). The archiving process I describe here pertains to managing the contents of this folder since this is what will ultimately be saved on DVD-R or archival hard drive. Here is a checklist of how I archive a project:

What NOT to archive:

• Anything that could be redigitized from tapes that will be packed with all the other elements.
• Old rough cuts or works in progress that are no longer relevant.
• FCP render files. They can automatically be regenerated.
• Unused AfterEffects renders

Sometimes you will be given a tape to digitize but you must return it to the owner once you are done with it. I suggest saving the digitized media clip if possible since it is likely you won’t be given access to that exact tape again in the future. If the clip you used is too long to archive, make a layoff copy of the tape and include a note that references itself to the project – especially if the timecode of the layoff is different from the original (try not to do this).

When you delete old rough cuts, be sure to delete uncompressed, compressed and DVD files. If you feel it is worthwhile to save some kind of reference of the rough cuts, save the small compressed versions, like 320 x 240 Quicktime or Flash movies.

What you SHOULD archive:

• Make a copy of your final FCP project, name the copied project “[name]_FINAL”. Save the original unchanged.
• Open the Final project and simplify it so that there is nothing left but that which was needed to finish the approved rough cut and master. In the future, if you need access to any clips from the original project that weren’t part of the master, you can always open the original project and retrieve the bins.
• Sometimes I will combine the final elements from the Conform project into the same project with the approved rough cut, if there as an offline/online workflow.
• Do the same with any AfterEffects graphics projects if you were involved in it at all.
• Save any relevant AfterEffects render files, Illustrator, Photoshop, JPEG or sound files that cannot be re-digitized from a tape source.
• From the Final Cut Pro Docuents folder, copy over the Autosave Vault sub-folder pertaining to your project to your project folder.
• Burn a series of DVD-R discs and printout screen shots of the directory to put inside the jewel cases. If you REALLY want to be sure, mount your DVD-R disks and attempt to copy the data off onto a drive or computer just to be sure there isn’t a problem with the disk.

When it is feasible, I like to archive an uncompressed digital file of the master program, without bars/tone/slate. This will give you quick access to the master for any re-purpose of the program without having to digitize the master off tape, or rebuild in the FCP project.

I use an inexpensive archiving utility called CD Finder. Drag and drop any volume directory into the window and it will copy the directory information and volume name so that you can make a search inquiry later on. You can then enter a search inquiry and the results will tell you where the file is located. This eliminates the need to insert or mount volumes trying to hunt down a file.

Some tips on data storage: keep CDs and DVD-Rs safely stored in a zipper case away from heat, sunlight and moisture. More tips here. Remember that the data is stored on the shiny substrate, not the plastic surface. Some cheap disc stock leaves the “foil” part of the disc exposed on the top of the disc making it vulnerable to peeling, scratches or staining from using a marker. Don’t use cheap crap disc stock! I don’t like the dual layer or double sided discs because they are too susceptible to error while burning, and I am also weary of putting so much data on one disc. They’re also pretty expensive, and not all disc drives can read them. Do not put tape on a CD or DVD-R disc. It causes an imbalance on the disc that can cause read problems due to wobbling. Some optical drives are so compact that a label can get stuck inside against the interior of the drive and cause damage to the disc, or require the optical drive to be dismantled to retrieve te disc.

I have recently moved on to archiving onto raw hard disk drives and then mounting them as needed using a removable sled/chassis device. Macgurus makes a variety of products like this. You can bulk purchase inexpensive SATA or IDE/PATA drives, format them, then use them like a regular firewire drive. You can even edit off them if you use FW400 or FW800. When storing hard disk drives, however, you must contain them in a static-free wrapper, safely pad them, and store them in a slotted storage case or box. Through careless handling, I have had the misfortune of accidentally chipping off a tiny electronic component off of the logic board making the drive useless. Sometimes you can find or borrow a logic board from an identical hard disk drive and swap it on, but it doesn’t always work, so be careful!

As I stated earlier, keep HDDs away from magnetic fields, sunlight, heat and moisture.

Chances are, you will be called some time in the future to do a revision of your project. You will have to dig up the original project from an archive and rebuild it to the way it was when you finished it. Or, you may be asked to forward the project to someone else if you are not available.

You are also responsible for safely packing, labeling and making an inventory of the entire body of elements, then shipping them to the client or their designated storage facility. This is a bigger deal than you might think! The editing company is liable for the disposition of all production elements in their posession, including having insurance to replace anything you have lost, destroyed or had stolen, so had better have a procedure in place that accounts for your disposition of the client’s stuff.

But before I go over some points about archiving, you should know about the legal terms of ownership in case there is a dispute about who owns the project.

Whether you are a “for hire” freelancer or a staff editor at a facility, you or your facility own the project files, but nothing else. The client – the one who is paying for everything – owns everything else, i.e. all film, tapes, discs, etc. (provided they actually do pay!). In other words, you (or the facility you work for) own the creative means by which the product was made, but not the product itself. So if someone tells you that you have to submit your FCP or AE project to them so that they can pull the job and go somewhere else with it, you are not technically obligated to do so, although there may be ethical or business reasons why you probably should. This is a judgement only you can make.

There has been only one occasion in my working experience where I refused to submit an archived project, and it was because of the number of years I spent developing it and the terms under which I was removed from the account. It was an Avid project database comprised of hundreds of hours of logged library footage and graphics that I had cataloged for an advertising agency client in New York City. I had worked on their client’s TV commercials for seven years doing over 2300 spots, but in 2003 the NYC agency (my client) was fired. The new ad agency in Chicago promised to work with me transitionally, but then disrespectfully reneged on their offer, dismissing me offhandedly by a freelance producer. Not surprisingly, within 48 hours of the dismissal, I was called by an executive at the Chicago advertising agency asking me for the database. I refused, partly because I was pissed off that I had been lied to and then disrespected, but mostly because they were in Chicago and I knew I would never work for them in the future. Nor did I owe their client anything more in our business relationship. Had I felt there was possibility of working with them in the future, I would’ve been more thick-skinned about the situation. (It was certainly not the first time I had been insulted!).

In any case, it is important that the shipping procedure be conducted properly to ensure accountability. Here is what you should do:

• Alert the receiving party that the master is on its way, and confirm the address and contact information.
• Safely pack the master tape and NEATLY and CLEARLY label it. Pack it to protect it from moisture and mishandling.
• Include a direct line phone number on the label for the receiving agent so that the delivery person can call if there is a problem with security or access of any kind. This will also help the receiving party’s shipping department call the recipient to announce the master’s arrival.
• Forward any tracking numbers to the producer or client.
• Instruct the shipping company to provide a confirmation of delivery. This usually done as a phone call or email, and includes the name of the person the package was handed to. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!
• Contact your client to announce confirmation of delivery along with the receiving person’s name and time of delivery.
• If you are truly paranoid (or if your client is), call or email the recipient to confirm that they received it from the shipping department.

Once the master is received and it actually plays in their VTR without a problem, your job is done. Sort of. See the next section about Archiving.

It is important for you to learn how to operate a VTR so that you know how to pre-stripe a tape for output. This tutorial cannot cover all of the variations between VTRs, but they generally have the same functions. While you can surely figure it our by reading the manual, you are far better off having someone teach you how to do it. Here is a checklist:

• Patch video black into the VTR, set the VTR video input to the correct input mode.
• Pre-set the deck to the correct timecode format: DF or NDF.
• Set the internal timecode generator to Preset, and set the start timecode to 00:58:40:00 via the dial menu.
• Record black for the entire length of the tape, unbroken, or for at least as far as you will need to output your master, plus a few minutes.
• When it has completed recording, patch the output video/audio from your edit system to the deck, and set the VTR to digital input (or whatever mode you are outputting by), then rewind the tape.
• Make sure the VTR is set to Remote control.
• Patch the composite video output of the VTR to a monitor you can watch as it records down.
• Patch VTR audio out to your mixing board or to some other sound monitoring system so you can hear it while it records down.

Do not indiscriminately output to tape with wild timecode unless it really truly doesn’t matter. I recommend pre-striping a tape then outputting in Insert edit mode rather than doing an Assemble edit. Do an Assemble edit only if you are in a time crunch. Drop frame is used exclusively for broadcast/cable programming. Non-drop is used for everything else. Program should start at 1:00:00:00 no matter which form of timecode you use. If you accidentally layout your master sequence in the wrong timecode format, change it, then check your program to see if it still starts at 1:00:00:00. I never output from the Canvas – only from the Viewer. It’s a workaround leftover from a bug in FCP 4, but it always works.

When you output to tape ALWAYS look at a monitor and listen to the sound that is coming off tape, and NOT what is coming off of the editing system. This is called confidence playback for a reason. (Don’t ask me how many times I have outputted an entire program to tape where the VTR was set to the wrong video input and I never bothered to monitor the VTR output. The editing system doesn’t care what the deck is set to!). This will also protect you in case there is a glitch on the tape or a reference sync problem and you can see the results of the problem right off. These kinds of glitches will NOT be seen if you are watching the master record to tape while watching edit system playback. For 4-track outputs, make sure all four tracks are actually recording.

If you have a chance to watch the whole program again playing off tape, then do it. If not, spot check the master tape all the way through, and then go beyond the program just to be sure you didn’t grab a used tape and there is some other leftover program after the end of your output. Even if the tape looked like it was a virgin tape, you had better be sure it was!

But wait! You’re not done yet! Some clients require outputting what’s called a Protection Master. You can either clone your master or simply output another copy of your master. There is a reason behind this other than simply having a backup master. More on this later in the Archiving section. You might also have to output a “No Titles” version, which is your master without any graphical text or credits. This is usually for revising the master for international markets.

Press cmd + zero to change the sequence to a 4-track sequence. Select the Audio Output tab, and change the Outputs to “4″, then select the correct designation of channels according to your mix specs, i.e. 1/2 Stereo or Dual Mono, 3/4 as Stereo or Dual Mono.

• Go to User Preferences and do the same thing.
• Go to Audio/Video Settings, select Device Control, change Audio Mapping to 4 Channels.
• On your master sequence, CTRL – click somewhere on the row of each track next to the track buttons and select Audio Outputs for each track to be sure it is routed to the correct channel. A typical 4-track mix would have full stereo mix on tracks 1/2, and stereo music and effects only on 3/4. In this case, tracks 1/2 should be routed to stereo channels 1/2, tracks 3/4 to stereo channels 3/4. However, if tracks 3/4 are dual mono, track 3 should be routed to a mono channel 3, and track 4 to a mono track 4. The channel patching does not “read” the mix file and do it for you.
• Be sure you have reference tone on all four tracks and that they are panned correctly. Playback should indicate equal levels on all tracks regardless of stereo or mono.
• Check the VTR to be sure all four audio inputs are set to the correct input protocol, i.e. Analog or Digital
• If your edit suite mixer is 4-track capable, be sure you have the correct faders up with the panning set correctly.

FCP has this annoying habit of playing back a four track mix to four tracks on a VTR, but when you output to tape, it switches to two tracks on the VTR. This happens when you haven’t changed the Audio Mapping on the Device Control settings tab in Audio/Video Settings.

You can use the multiple channel presets for regular editing too. It’s not just for output. I have seen documentary editors patch 4 tracks of dialog and effects to mono channels 1/2, and 4 tracks of music to stereo channels 3/4 so they can ride the mix during playback. In other words, you can have as many tracks as you want patched to any number of channels, so long as your output card and mixing board are setup to actually hear them.

Video Demo: FCP setup for 4-channel audio output

If you are using your own mix, I recommend using a limiter effect on any clips that peak sporadically enough to make them hard to keep “in the pocket”. Some interviewees, for example, “lean into” the microphone or surge at certain points in their speech, and a limiter will even things out. Sound levels on a digital scale should not have sustained peaks above -10, meaning closer to zero on the scale. There are various arguments for whether it should be -8 or -12 or some other number, but generally speaking, if you have sustained peaks at -10, you will be safe. Talk to your mix engineer or dubbing facility if you want a foolproof answer. The reason for this is that when you output your master with reference tone at -20 on the digital scale, then use that master as a source for dubbing to an analog system, the relative peak level on the master has to be usable in the analog world. For example, if you playback the reference tone on the digital master and setup the audio record levels on the analog deck to zero, the program volume on the master should not cause the analog record levels to peak to the point of distortion. If you record -20 digital reference, then line up analog record levels to zero, but the program peaks up to -2 on the digitial scale, the analog audio levels will be too high and will distort.

Dialog and overall levels should be checked at various places in a longform master sequence to assure consistency throughout the program. Sometimes the audio meters will show that different sections appear to be at the same level, but the overall loudness is quite different. If the overall levels of the program are OK, but simply too low or high in relation to “line level” (the level at which it is loudest without peaking too high), you can adjust the program “collectively” in FCP using Modify/Levels while keeping the setting to Relative. Or, you can export an AIFF stereo file of your master sequence to your media drive, then import it back into your project. Make a copy of your master sequence and drop in the stereo AIFF file and sync it up to the original mix. Once you have aligned it properly, delete the old sound tracks and leave only the stereo AIFF tracks. You can then adjust the overall mix levels to wherever it needs to be. Do not be seduced into being instructed to “Make it loud!” If you create a master that is over the video standard levels, someone else down the line will just lower it.

If you do not have experience in the video world with sound levels, you should be aware that the standards in video are not the same as in the music recording world. In the music world, the goal is to enrich the mix as much as possible and slam the overall mix up to as close to zero on the digital scale as possible. That is why, when you extract an AIFF from a commercial CD, the levels in your FCP audio meters are flush up to zero. Not so in video. Comply to the video standards no matter what your instincts tell you.

If you are working with a mix that was created by an outside mixing studio, you do not need to do anything to the levels. One could reasonably assume that a professional studio will provide you with a mix that is compliant to video broadcast standards. If it is a simple stereo mix, cut in the studio mix on two additional audio tracks and synchronize the clip to the original audio. Normally, I coordinate with the mixing studio to agree upon how the AIFF file will be created, such as having the first frame of the file be 00:59:58:00 of the master (at the 2-pop). This makes marking the in-point for the edit easier.

Go through various places in the master and check sound sync. If the mix and the original audio are in sync, you will hear either a phasing sound, a very very slight offset, or maybe a “boost” in levels due to it being doubled up. Once in a while, I have come across a mix that is completely in sync except for one scene that has been shifted a frame for some reason. In this case, I slip the picture to match the mix, but only if the slip has no significant effect on the edit. You cannot, obviously, slip the mix without throwing everything else out of sync, unless you start slicing up the final mix. Do so at your own peril!

Once your mix check is complete, delete all of the original audio and slide the final stereo mix up to tracks 1 & 2. Remember to unlink all of your clips first do you don’t delete video along with audio. Delete all of your empty tracks. Check to make sure your sequence’s audio tracks 1 & 2 are a stereo pair. They are by default, but if anyone has been messing with the settings, make one last check. Your master is now ready to output.