advice for freelance work (student)

[joseph alexander]

I'm a student (RISD Barch), and I just completed my first freelance project. However, I'm unsure as to how I should price my services or deal with my clients.

The client ended up changing a great deal of the project last minute. Most notably explaining that he wanted the renders to look good at 4' x 8'. I had initially quoted him for three 2000 x 2000 pixel renders. I didn't know how long it would take to render out a 6000 x 12000 render, so i told him I would give him one perspective at a slightly lower cost to which he agreed to. (big mistake on my part.) At any rate it took 70 hours (including render time, building custom textures, and making last minute changes.) and I charged him $1300 US.

My questions for the proffesionals are:

1.) Is there a way that I can see some expamples of contracts? I'm unsure as to how I should charge. (money down, dealing with last minute changes, charging by the hour)

2.) How much should I try to make? For hour/project. There's a huge demand for this type of work where I am. However for this work to be viable for post grad employment I need to be making at least $20 an hour. I'm also worried that the field will become overly saturated in the next few years.

It seems that this type of work can be very stressfull because clients seem to change what they want during the final stages of your process. Is there a good strategy to tone down last minute changes? It seemed like i was in a position where I felt uncomfortable arguing over any changes regardless of how ridiculous they seemed to be.

Also, I'm curious, do any of you have any horror stories in regards to dealing with clients? I there anything I should look out for?

 

(sorry for all the questions I'm just starting out.)

 

-Joseph

[Iain Denby]

Joseph

It's very difficult to be strong with clients when you are starting out...We've been their!

You will have to use your first jobs as a learning curve. After a while you will be able to judge how long a project is likeley to take and what you need to charge. If you lose out at the moment, then so be it, you will learn from it. Quality before speed and money . As far as changes are concerned, if it was me, then if the changes were minor (something that could be done in a couple of hours, I wouldn't charge for it. If however, they are more involved iether during or after your modelling process, then you need to point out this extra work to your client, and charge accordingly. Any decent client would respect this.

 

For me, render size has no effect on price, unless you are asked for another render at a different size. Also, I'm not sure if such a large render size is neccessary to produce a large final image for display.

 

Some people charge by the hour, and others charge for the job as a whole. To me, an hourly charge is a bit daft and often missleading to the client. You may work very fast and end up earning less than others. I think that all clients are interested in is what they will end up paying for the finished work.

[mbr]

You should look through the posts here about pricing. $20/hour is waaay too little!! The average I've seen on here is 50+/hour (and it can keep going up, depending on how good you are). $1300 is nothing as well. Don't undersell your self or undercut this profession by chargin too little, it will end up hurting everyone in the end.

I would be very clear with the client about render times. If a client wanted it that large after changin his mind I would, at the very least, expect to be able to take my time completing it. That's a big file, esp. if you composite anything after.

As for it becoming saturated, it could (there's another post about that, too), but I think that the field will broaden and become more instrumental in presenations, tv, etc. So I am not worried about competition, I am actually pretty optimistic about the opportunities and the technologies.

Good luck.

[John Dollus]

So, you purchased a full commerical license for the software you use? If you are a student, your school license and any educational software licenses prevent you from legally engaging in commercial work. So the answer to your question is: nothing. You can offer your time for eduational purposes, but charging money is unethical and anti-competitive practice.

After you graduate, you will be just starting out. Right now, you are learning. Take a few business courses while you are in school and learn about overhead, business law and general commercial practices.

 

John D

 

[ December 15, 2002, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: John Dollus ]

[joseph alexander]

The project was, modeled with Rhino and rendered in Flamingo, purchased at a student rate. The student version includes a single user license. (Not bad for $295).

 

http://support.mcneel.com/tim/RhinoDealer/RhinoDealerQueryPage4.asp?Region=NA

 

-Joseph

[Francois]

Hi Joseph. Let's see some images of your project.

 

François

[John Dollus]

That's a really sweet deal from McNeel. Sorry for the suit response, but we have a real problem with this in my area. Anyway, a good way to gauge your pricing would be to call up traditional illustrators in your area. They have been around much longer and typically have a well balanced pricing system. Around here, a single rendering is from $1000-$1500 for an 18x24 with any changes requested by the client performed on a time/materials basis at $75-$100/hr.

Keep in mind, that this is bottom dollar pricing by illustrators around here. Some will not even look at the work without a $5000 budget if they are busy.

 

John D

[mzagorski]

Hmm... I cant even get work for $20/hr.. If I was getting $100/hr for 3D Id be doing backflips. Some people do seem tobe lucky enough to bag this kind of work though...

 

Mike

[Sawyer]

Joe,

 

Work for as little as possible. Put in your dues. If people love what you do you will get more work. Then worry about prices. My experiance has been that people want the rendering but when you throw a fee bang their mouth drops. This is not always the case but it happens. Use the time when you are still learing to play around. Once you purchase the full seats of your chosen program the stakes change.

 

The project I just finished was originally going to be one building on the site, the owner saw the wip and wanted two more buildings. Scope of work had changed, we negotiated and I started over. A 40 hour project went to 70. Main problem was for me where to get the other 30 hours from. I have much more confidence in my skills than negotions so I felt funny handing the invoice but everything went fine. The only thing I have really picked up id that most people are good to work with and if you say "well this is going to cost more" or "let renegtiate the price" just be honest. Architects rarely go under with their estimates. They are pretty hip to the process.