Bet That Beer Doesn’t Taste So Good Now, Does It?

A client shoots me an email.

Client: “I’m looking for a quote to record a live music gig. We would also need you to put the footage together with mastered audio for three of the songs we have on our EP. We need four cameras and operators, someone to mix the recorded audio, and for you to piece it all together.”

I give them a reasonable quote.

Client: “That’s way too much! We have friends that can do it for a beer!”

Me: “Okay. Good luck.”

Two weeks later, I get a panicked email.

Client: “All the footage and audio are terrible! We need a consult on how to fix it.”

The audio is unsalvageable (peaking at a dB level in the positive), and the video is poorly framed at best, or missing at worst. They didn’t realise some cameras will only record twenty-minute blocks.

They beg me to do something with it, saying money is no object. I take the footage, apply colour grading and Super-8 filters to make it look like it’s intentionally bad, and add the audio from their EP to the footage. The end result is actually really good and looks like they intended to do it all the time.

I wind up charging them the exact amount I quoted to start with, only without doing most of the work.

This story is part of our ‘Clients From Hell’ roundup!

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