Location scouts...

[chicagoshootr]

I always dread these.

I have a long-time client that loves having me scout a location, then acts somewhat hurt when I charge them for the day.

My feeling is that a day scouting is a day not shooting, regardless if I'm booked or not.

I have thrown them in for free on a couple of occasions with this client in the past...maybe I'm sending them mixed messages?

What do you all generally do?

[Baltimore Shooter]

Yeah, I"d say you've been sending mixed messages. You should have been charging right from the start. If you or they hired someone to perform the scouting, they'd have to pay. And you're right, a day of scouting is not a day of shooting.

Consider this scenario:
You agree to scout a location for this client at no charge. You have a meeting set up w/ the owners/managers of the place you are about to scout. Maybe they re-arranged their schedule to accomadate this scouting. Then at 7:30am on the day of the scouting, you get one of those last-minute calls from a network who wants you to shoot something two hours from now (that happened to me yesterday).

What do you do? Do you tell the network you can't because you have a previous booking, even though you aren't getting paid for it, losing even more money? Do you tell the owners/managers of the location you're scouting you have to re-schedule, potentially pissing them off and maybe making them deciding they don't want you to use their location? Do you try to find some college kid to send in your place, knowing they don't know what to be concerned with the way you would be?

It becomes a losing proposition all the way around. Besides, your time is valuable and if you're doing something for a client you should be paid for it.

If it were me, I'd charge the client for it. Also have them re-imburse you for any parking fees associated with scouting and if you're on it for more than 5hrs, they re-imburse you for your lunch too. If they don't like that, let them get a college kid to scout a location and they get what they get.

Warren

[dhart]

I'd sit down and have a heart to heart with the client. You're right, you're sending them mixed messages. Warren has a good point, what happens when you are offered a paying gig the same day as a "free" location scout.

It's been my experience that clients become upset with unexpected charges that they have not budgeted for. They can't go back to their client and collect your location scout fee, so they have to "eat it". Your client will quickly become unhappy with this state of affairs.

I'd cop to inexperience and let them know that in the future they'll need to include your location scouting fee in their budget to the client. Apologize for your past practices. If their a good client they'll understand, if not...

[cameragod]

Sometimes (if only to make my shoot easier) I’m happy to wave the location scout fee. If I do I make sure that I put on the invoice the rate that it would have cost them for me to do it and then I give them the negotiated discount amount underneath so there is no doubt that free is not normal practice and I am doing them a favor… a one of favor.
Any future favors would need to be negotiated and they can see the normal value I place on my time.

[chicagoshootr]

Thanks.

All very good observations, I kinda dug myself into a little hole with this client.

I charged them for this one and I'll keep it consistent. By the way, for a scout, I charge half of my lowest rate...which is my Betacam rate. Is that in line with what you charge for something like this? Just curious.