ristoraven wrote:Just one point: you shouldn't give your clients too tight deadlines. Deadlines should be realistic.
I know that clients comes to you, wants you to create a stunning, Hollywood quality animation, in two days and it should cost 1000$ (including taxes).
If people agrees to do this, it really is not anyone elses fault if the deadlines are not met.
Clients in general don't know how these things are made. They don't have a clue and they don't even care to know. Still, when negotiating about the deadline you should be able to say what it realistically takes and what it costs. Give them examples from Hollywood, like "in this scene it took them three days to render one frame".. Unrealistic deadlines, unrealistic promises - and if someone is able to pull it off in two days with Hollywood quality and 1000$ - these all erode and screw up the whole business. Clients will get that idea that this is easy, this is cheap and so on.
If it takes a month to render, you should say it takes month and a half and you should charge month and a half. Leave room to fix errors.
Thanks, I appreciate the advice, but I've been working in the Industry for over 17 years now, and even when I'm not the greatest negotiating with my clients (it's not my favorite part), I've been managing good enough I think. I understand your point, but for a freelancer like me (my customers are 90% other studios) it would be silly to underestimate them. They know exactly how things are done, and what they want. And more importantly, they also know WHEN they want it.
Anyway, my initial post was not about client managing, but having the flexibility within Octane that other render engines are offering and we are missing (for now).
Thanks for you comment