clients have no idea
polycounter lvl 19
OK I appreciate a lot of people here a not freelance, although I am. And at the moment I am having trouble with a client.
Basically they keep changing the style or animations of characters I am working on, no knowing how freaking long it takes to actually do these things. Then everyone shits on me from a great height complaining that I am delaying the schedule.
We have a really insane schedule working over xmas and new year, also I wrote a contract for 15 days but the entire thing will end up being over 30 days work at least. They have given me 1/2 of the payment but now this shit storm is coming, they have written to me suggesting that they might use another illustrator if I can't deliver assets more quickly.
Not only that but they have assigned two other guys (animator and programmer) to work on the project in tandem while I feed them assets... from day one they have been asking for assets which are impossible to deliver so quickly (this is all in flash BTW).
I have worked with this company before, and their client is renowned for being hard-asses when it comes to schedules (until two days ago I had been pointlessly fleshing out storyboards with final assets, which ate into my time.)
Well the point of it all is that now they have told me they might use another illustrator and take me off the project, which won't work but I'm sure I'd get the blame for. One of the MD's at this company is a really good friend of mine and we go drinking as buddies almost 3 nights a week. I don't want to loose this friendship over something happening relating to work, and the design world here is VERY small.
I just wanted to get this off my chest.
Basically they keep changing the style or animations of characters I am working on, no knowing how freaking long it takes to actually do these things. Then everyone shits on me from a great height complaining that I am delaying the schedule.
We have a really insane schedule working over xmas and new year, also I wrote a contract for 15 days but the entire thing will end up being over 30 days work at least. They have given me 1/2 of the payment but now this shit storm is coming, they have written to me suggesting that they might use another illustrator if I can't deliver assets more quickly.
Not only that but they have assigned two other guys (animator and programmer) to work on the project in tandem while I feed them assets... from day one they have been asking for assets which are impossible to deliver so quickly (this is all in flash BTW).
I have worked with this company before, and their client is renowned for being hard-asses when it comes to schedules (until two days ago I had been pointlessly fleshing out storyboards with final assets, which ate into my time.)
Well the point of it all is that now they have told me they might use another illustrator and take me off the project, which won't work but I'm sure I'd get the blame for. One of the MD's at this company is a really good friend of mine and we go drinking as buddies almost 3 nights a week. I don't want to loose this friendship over something happening relating to work, and the design world here is VERY small.
I just wanted to get this off my chest.
Replies
Some illustrators specify that if any major changes need doing then they will charge for them. I suggest you figure out how important this client is to you then either put your foot down or try and find better clients.
Perhaps the first port of call would be a meeting with the friend you mentioned.
The 3rd party kept changing their idea every week, it seemed this depended on what film they had watched the night before. This led us to redoing, scrapping and changing art assets on a weekly basis, and this delayed the project months.
(Ha! those same people, the publisher and the developer all came from 3 different backgrounds, and each thought they knew best. The final project was a mish mash of ill fitting compromises).
I worked on a project in a studio once, where the design was effectively being done by 2 guys who had come up with idea and formed a company around it. They sold their idea to a publisher, who got us to develop it.
The 3rd party kept changing their idea every week, it seemed this depended on what film they had watched the night before. This led us to redoing, scrapping and changing art assets on a weekly basis, and this delayed the project months.
(Ha! those same people, the publisher and the developer all came from 3 different backgrounds, and each thought they knew best. The final project was a mish mash of ill fitting compromises).
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yes, failing leadership in a team that causes things and ideas to change all the time is a killer for game development. one of my first game projects was like this. he posted asking for help, i joined his team... he was too vague on his description and caused me to not get what fit his "vision"... so i had to redo some of the assets... again and again and again. then one day he contacted me and said we were changing the entire project to somethign completly different and even into a different genre. needless to say that is when i left the team.
i feel ur pain my friend.
This is why you need a good contract. I tell clients up front that if they change their minds and fuck about, I'll invoice that as extra work. Take precautions, buddy.
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Quoted for truth. They need to know they are the ones causing the extra work, and they need to know that the changes they are asking for are not light. One of the best ways to get that point across is not to suck it up and take it in the shorts, but hit them in the pocket book. Let them know up front if they screw around and waste your time its on their dime.
That will help you in the future, provided you survive this. For now I would try and let them know that the set back is due to the changes and you will do your best to deliver the product as close to on time as possible but BECAUSE of their changes it will need to be pushed back. Explain to them in technical terms just how much extra work this is. When their eyes glaze over from technical ma laze you're starting to break thru.
Or you could always drop them before they drop you. You can play the uppity asshole artist card and tell them off. Really brow beat them down for making changes and setting the project behind. Of course that would more than likely burn any bridge or it might make for a good working relationship the next time around, provided you don't start throwing punches...
Its a tough spot to be in, but Per is right with a good contract that agrees on one thing, and gives you the right to bill them and extend the working time if they make changes.
I dealt with this situation last year. I planned out a nice clear storyboard for a video I was contracted to make, only to have it thrown out. Instead, I listened to him over the phone telling me what he wanted to see. Then continued to listen over the phone, over the next couple months, to all the changes he wanted made. In the end, my payment wasn't worth the time I spent on the project. I should have made a better contract, or simply refused to work on it.
The first one there were no contracts, some guy wanted a strange model made, and it was offered for a pretty good flat fee. I made the model based on the concept. Sent him and email with some images of it, he said it was great and asked for me to send him the files, I asked for the money first and never heard from him again. So that was time wasted. I now know to ask for a 3rd or half upfront.
Another one, that I never did because I knew it was going to be a hassle, was actually not digital. I was at a coffee shop in a town nearby and I got to talk to this person about their nail salon, and they said they wanted a mural painted on the one wall, with a Tuscan theme. Which is cool, but then they went on with "so, you know bright teals and greens". They obviously didn't know what the hell they were talking about. I think he also asked a friend of mine if she'd do it after I declined. I don't know if she took him up on the offer though.
My current freelance gig is actually pretty sweet, it's decent paying, and the guy I'm doing work for is really cool about deadlines. Because it's his own independent project he just says Get him the model when I finish it, he checks up of course, but it's pretty nice. Although I still work hard on it, because I'm not going to exploit that sorta thing.
Freelance is initially the balm of woe for escaping the mediocrity of a substandard fulltime job that manages to do everything the wrong way. Sadly, the feeling of escape doesn't last in the long term.
I won't bore you with war stories, I'm just glad I have stability and the stories here reminded me of some of the bad times.
So yeah, I understand your frustration!
r.
I coped with it by rising above any personal issues, and giving the client a new schedule for completion every time they changed something major like the design style. I kept copies of every email chain and notes of all phone calls, so there was no come-back and all cc'd could see that it was being dealt with professionally and reasonably.
I've found it sad that because the freelance market is personality driven - you occasionally have to deal with ignorance and intolerance at the highest levels.
Spark
www.bbriley.com
Astro, I also did contract for Liquid at one point, and when some revisions were asked of me, after the concepts I provided were approved, and I was already onto the geometry. I told them that that would be another payment for new concepts and so on, and that I expected to get paid for what I did, they took a bit to come through on it after some discussion, but they did in the end.
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That's the thing, I was a full employee of Liquid. I guess most contractors are not aware of it but in house employees are pretty much treated the same as contractors except we were given a nominal salary and benefits. We were then given a quota of producing $4k in assets a month of which were were only allowed to bill for 60%. If you are familiar with what LD pays for environment assets $4k is a LOT so we found ourselves working most weekends and working extra hours from home in the evenings to try and make the quota. The system is structured so it always goes in the management's favor. If the client wants revisions LD management is almost always more than happy to oblige since it does not cost them any extra to have an artist spend additional time on it. Meanwhile management draws exorbitant salaries while working 40 hours or less a week and taking (often lavish) vacations every couple of months.
They also stiffed me on the last asset I did for them since one of the management decided that, although the client was perfectly happy with it, it was not "right."
Bitter? Who me? Nah.
Contract is sewn up, I wrote 15 days pay for the project but it has dragged on a bit with nonsense. I'll certainly be looking for a re-writing of the contract if the schedule goes past the 5th. The AD phoned me the day before yesterday to go through the schedule, as he's been half asleep at the wheel enjoying Christmas. It's a shame they dropped the ball, which I am now carrying. I've written several emails to try and claw my way out of the shit.
Of course the MD's and AD's are on two week holidays!
Working over Christmas and New Year - never again. Better bury my head back into max but thanks for the kind words guys.
I guess they just count on art schools churning out NooBs for them to use like lightbulbs(burn em out, screw in a new one, repeat).
I had the same experience that M.Forsyth did ,
I simply kept doing the revisions as they asked because I didnt understand that LD has no character animators so often I was asked to change already approved stuff.I ended up doing 3 months of unpaid work which actually looked like 3 weeks on the brief(never again).
If any polycounters do any work for them:
A>Be prepared to do lots of unpaid revision work
B>Be prepared to be stiffed at the end
Sadly, since they seem to be around for a long time, their business model definitely works.
Im just suprised that they would treat their full-time employees that way........if any other polycounters has similar experiences I would be very interested in hearing what happened.
Most clients always come to freelancers in the final stages of the project and expect us to work magic while they make insane changes.
So my contracts now just specify the time line for the project and a few other things.
If I get the deadlines met yet the clients do not review the work in a timely manner at which they agreed to do and it ends up driving out the time of the contract then they pay extra. If they give a critique that will need work which is outside the scope of the contract then they pay extra. Simple ways to protect myself that work.
Eeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so tempted. Astro and Asteroid, are you guys currently doing contract stuff elsewhere?
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No, I am working full time at Gearbox now. It's nice to be able to spend time on making something look nice rather than trying to churn out assets as quickly as possible to try and make a bullshit quota and try and make a living wage.
And you're right about the art school students, asteroid. They've been heavily recruiting from the Art Institute at Portland. Those guys fresh out of school don't complain about getting screwed over as much and will work for cheap.
As far as how they treat their in-house employees, I've barely touched the tip of the iceberg.
Unfortunatly we didnt set out a proper contract beforehand, the project lead was a complete jackass, trying to get away with paying me less than $5 an hour and getting agro when I said that was unacceptable! Its funny in their own forums you can see how many people have just up and left the project around the same time I did. They get none of the work I did, and their character work looks like dog-shit.
Might be usefull to come up with a polycount blacklist in the jobs/freelance section, or perhaps one with things to remember when starting a new job. just a thought
Spark
www.bbriley.com
Either way a good way for people to speak their mind about companies would make me pretty happy. Often enough people just say nothing so you're not thought of as a risk by companies or whatever.
I`ve a big problem with `anonymity`, apart from the unsubstantiated nature of `votes`...if you ain`t got the balls to stand by what you say, then don`t say it.
For the UK citizens, sign up to BECTU damnit! http://www.bectu.org.uk/games/index.html
there are places to bitch: UK gamedevs might want to sign on for the chaosengine forums. registration procedure is quite a pain tho since they want to make sure that you work in the biz and are not from management or HR.
also, you can check a totally open anonymous bitchplace for the movie biz at vfxhell.com. there~s a lot of rubbish being posted by retards there but once in a while you can find gold. and if you dig through the comments a bit it becomes clear, which places to avoid in general, etc.
This was for a small company and a casual game so I doubt these guys were raking in the dough but still a year for payment is ridiculous.
Luckily near the end I was gaining leeway and being a hard ass right back, telling the clients they needed to figure out what they wanted before wasting my time, because if they waste my time I will charge them plenty extra for it!
Apropo ChaosEngine, fatbabies and whining on `industry` message boards... there is no point to doing so, the only outcome is... more whining, the information needs to be accessible for the common public and presented to national trade and industry bodies, for litigation. It would be a hell of a lot harder for the ubiqutous, incompetent, self serving, middle-management to fire people if everything was above board, and if only people stopped looking the other way.
As for being worried about being blacklisted by HR, I assure you the majority of HR personnel think a `forum` is a room just large enough for four people to get their nails done in. They`ll forgive anything with a gift box of chocolates anyway.
Or even five * or something? One * means they have ripped a freelancer off, 5 means they have ripped off 5 freelancers and should be avoided at all costs.
Equally we could have a list of contractors that are reliable and give them *'s every time someone is happy enough to tell the mod about them. Although that seems unlikely, people are better at complaining.
Partly because everyone's experiences are different, and a company that some people find doesn't suit them well (for personal reasons or whatever) might be fine for someone of a different disposition.
The only way something like that could work was if several different sources all agreed on various points and someone collated and updated them all, rather than taking it on an individual's opinion.
Going along with your last comment, its a safe bet that people would be submitting names out of vengence, but isn't that the point? And like you said, just have a positive voting choice to balance things out. I think overall, a thread like that would suffice to let people know which companies really suck ASS. And keeping it on game art forums is a good idea to me, I don't see the need to expand the recognition beyond potential employees. If companies don't have the applicants then the power is transferred over to us, unless of course they outsource overseas
Clients are the devil. Avoid contact with them at all costs. Do whatever you can to introduce "layers" between you and the final clients. Nothing is more valuable than having someone else to "manage" clients and their fickle expectations. My company discovered that working in conjunction with corporate content writers is a really good deal. The writer we collaborate with has an existing base of clients, many of whom find themselves in need of graphics to go along with the text that the writer produces. The writer handles all interaction with the client, including telling the client what can and can't be done. Their experience and knowledge of the client helps them to decipher exactly what the client really wants. And their unique skills allow them to communicate that vision to us effectively and accurately. As a result, revisions are kept to a minimum, we never have to deal directly with the clients, and project turnaround increases considerably.
We've found it to be a win-win situation. Business connections and relationships are key in any industry. Be sure to keep your ears open, talk to as many people as possible, and establish some contacts that will help to make your life easier. The time invested in developing those relationships will pay off in spades down the line.
The penalty of dealing directly with clients is a time/value cost. Clients waste time, and time is money. Especially to independent contractors. Time wasted on constant revisions and indecision is time that could have been spent working on a more stable, profitable client's project. Fast turnaround on projects is the hallmark of a healthy, profitable independent contractor.
As to who is making the monetary decisions and controlling all of the information? Those are called clients. They always have the final say as far as money is concerned, and they are the ultimate controllers and creators of all information regarding the project. That's what makes them so frustrating. A good middle-man filters the information, so that you only get what you need to get the job done properly. And they encourage the client to make the proper monetary decisions, they rarely ever get to make those decisions themselves. And if you happen to end up with a bad middle-man? Well, that's when its actually good to be an independent contractor. You're independent, and if a middle-man trys to screw you over, you can just refuse to work with them anymore. Never work for unprofitable clients twice. And never give anyone the chance to screw you over.
The fact that the independent contractor gets to see the bill to the client and that you respect him as an independent contractor is already light years ahead of what I'm reffering to. But as you say, it's all circumstantial. Anyhow, I've run out of candor for now.
Appreciate the post though, alot of good info and business sense.
Like you said Hawken a sticky thread in the employement section. If you have a shit experiance with a praticular company, PM a mod. If the mod gets multiple people complaining about a particular complany, or a reputable polycount member gets ripped off bigtime, or a mod finds he has sufficient evidence of bad behaviour then he can add there name to the list. In that case I guess it will have to be locked to the rest of us so people dont rant about bullshit if thats possible.
I mean perhaps it will turn polycount into some sort of an informal union so we stop getting fucked over by people. If companys dont take this forum seriously now, perhaps they will if we continue down this path.
And it doesnt have to be one way traffic, we could do the opposite for companys that are good to work for, I think people would respond to that.
i cant count how many times i wish i would have some point of reference for what to expect out of a company.
If a mod did all the posting then it would be anonymous unless the people submitting complaints wanted otherwise, and the mod could submit relevant information about why the company is blacklisted. Also this means someone trustworthy can manage all this information instead of it turning into chaos.