Hi, I have an oral contract and email confirmation that the fixed rpice to shoot, edit and deliver the training DVD master is $8 thousand USD. I have lots of emails where he made requests and discussed the draft videos.

I do not have aformal, writen contract. Is that a problem?

When you don't have a "formal contract" it's always a problem.

If I were you, I'd contact an attorney immediately. The "legal threat" letter might cost a couple of hundred dollars, but well worth it if they owe you $4,000!

Next time, have a written contract.

Yikes! I would back up those emails.

I second the attorney idea - even if only to get a professional opinion on how to proceed from this point. Hope everything works out - a contract is always a good idea.

good luck and i hope things work out.

ALWAYS have a written contract unless you are only talkin a couple a hundred bucs,, even then its a risk to lose a couple a hundred bucs. Lawyer time , and while you are at it have him/her draw you up a standard contract. Feel free to email me and I'll send you a copy of our standard contract ,U..S. version, with a disclaimer on it.

I don't believe "E" mails will hold up as evidence in court since the actual sender cannot be identified. Almost the same as an "Oral agreement" which is absolutely useless in a court of law.
JJK

UK law, I believe, is usually referred to as "common law". You may actually fair better in an UK courtroom than in a Canada or US courtroom. I think you will find that UK Judges have a lot more freedom in determining "meaning" and intent in oral contracts. Your emails should be a great asset in proving a working relationship with the client.

It's very useful to have a lawyer-in-house. My husband says:

I think the nonexistance of a written contract is less of a problem than you think. There has been 'part performance' of the contract, and you can rely on this as evidence of the contract.
'Part performance' in this case is created by the confirming Email, starting on the production of the DVD, by the fact that you have discussed with the other party, the contents and progress of the DVD from time to time, and so on.
If the other party agrees that there was an agreement of some sort, then it is a matter of proving what the terms of that agreement were. Your Emails will certainly help there, if they set out even some of the terms originally agreed on. I could provide a better advice if I had more detail, such as details of the original discussions leading up to the Email, the contents of the Email, and details of the various discussions between you and the client.
As there is a potential $8000 involved, it would clearly be worthwhile seeing a solicitor/attorney. An offer of 50% of the total contract price when the project is 80% finished does not seem a reasonable offer to me. Go to it... (Frank. retired solicitor)

I might add another observation: emails are now considered equivalent to paper documents. Many prosecutions of businesses are now supported by evidence in electronic form and deleting emails is regarded in the same light as shredding documents.

Why not ask for the client to cover all your expenses, and leave it at that? Most people are honest if you deal with them the right way... it shouldn't be unreasonable to explain to them what your costs were and to ask them to cover those costs.

Pursuing the full amount would be a better choice only if it's highly likely that you get the full amount. I wouldn't know anything about UK law to know the chances of that. My uneducated guess however would be that going to court would be a costly choice (legal fees, plane tickets there, will the client even pay if you win, likelihood of winning is not 100%, etc.).

There are several potential issues involved and we don't know more than a scan across the top. Legal advice is worth the cost and has primary aims of getting the money without excessive legal expenses (which means avoiding court). We don't know why the client wishes to withdraw and we don't know any of the details that support arguments for either side. Obviously we can quote from our personal experiences and mention what we believe, but none of these things are directly relevant to BankofCanada. The useful advice, since we're talking about what needs to be done rather than what should have been done, is to talk to someone who can assess the circumstances and present a case. This isn't a job for high powered legal eagles -- just somebody who understands commercial business and can write a good legal letter. This shouldn't, in the first instance, be more than setting out the amount owing and supporting facts. Not expensive. If the client jumped ship because they're dissatisfied, then the discussion will probably bring in information exchanged in emails and contained in meeting notes. If the client is happy to use the product but doesn't want to pay, they would likely have a weak case.
The legal information given above by Frank is significant:
1) the lack of a written contract isn't necessarily a problem (at least in British law) -- a contract is implied by discussions and in court it becomes a matter of establishing what was agreed.
2) a product has been produced satisfying contract obligations -- in court argument would likely involve the degree to which obligations had been met.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

On the issue of what to do with a client who refuses to pay for work partially or entirely completed, I asked a copyright lawyer in Toronto and he said I needed to assert copyright by sneding a letter with this text..."I must advise you that, until we resolve our differences regarding my remuneration for the work I performed before you breached our contract, copyright in the video remains my property. As such, you are not entitled to use or exploit it in any way, and any such use or exploitation will constitute copyright infringement."

It may be better to ask a solicitor in the UK to send this letter, if only to intimidate the client by having the message come on legal letterhead. Maybe that is stage 2.

With regards to this contract, there was no discussion about the video having to satitsfy a certain quality standard. If there were, the Toronto lawyer says this might be used as a basis to refuse full payment. But there was no such condition in the contract.

Even if there had been, I'm not sure it would apply here. This is a training DVD and it shows 3 of the company's people explaining the product - a means of scanning the human body's energy field and using colloidal minerals to correct imbalances (sort of like "liquid acupuncture"). After the draft videos were delivered, the company president decided that he doesn't like the way that he and one of the other people look in the video. This is nothing technical to do with the videos - they are in focus, properly lighted, well framed, good sound, etc. - he just doesn't like the way he appears on TV.

As I look back on this, I guess it's important to help manage your client's expectations about what is posible and what it will take in terms of time and money. Perhaps I should have had him do 5 minutes of his presentation and then immediately played it back through a monitor so he could see at the time how he looked. If he didn't like it, then we could discuss how to improve it (like rent a teleprompter) and what this would mean in terms of time and money.

As people in this forum know, good TV or video is neither quick nor cheap, yet the public often doesn't appreciate how much work goes into it. With this project, I spent a good two hours doing the lighting for each location, and I could tell there was a lot of impatience on the client's part with this. Maybe I have to deal with this by constantly telling them that a quick 10 minutes on video is going to take a 2-hour setup and probably another hour to shoot, maybe more.

Thanks for the comments, everyone, I appreciate the suggestions.
Andrew Hall
Ottawa, Canada

Dealing with clients is the hard part and having the guts to fully take charge is even harder. It's not helped when you're trying to do lighting, sound, log shots, make certain you eat and not to mention direct and produce.
Simple trick I use with clients I have no reason to trust i.e. don't have any history with. I always have burnt in time code on anything I send them. I tell them this makes it easier for them to tell me where they want any changes made.
They get the tapes or whatever minus TC after payment.
Of course this may not help if the client feels the whole thing needs to be reshot, basically he's trying to cut his losses and run. I guess he might feel you should have told him he looks like shite on camera and he should pay for real talent to do the job.
To me the product itself sounds as dodgy as they come, would have rung alarm bells.
Bob.

As people in this forum know, good TV or video is neither quick nor cheap, yet the public often doesn't appreciate how much work goes into it.

You said it, Andrew! I got a call just yesterday from a fella who wanted a 30-minute training video done with animation (he's a dog trainer). Bottom line? He didn't want to pay any more than $300!

I thanked him for the call and wished him the best of luck with his project.

There are a number of lessons to be taken from this experience. Shooting 10 minutes of video with "raw" talent takes a lot longer than an hour, in my experience, if an slick result is to be obtained. And this requires a lot of feedback to the talent, encouragement and guidance. Helps a lot to break into many short shots, which of course increases the number of setups. And getting set up before getting talent on set helps (particuarly when they're thinking they should be back in the office). Bob's comments about workload are most pertinent.

Is the copyright restriction a productive approach in this case? All of you on the North American continent are hung-up and scared of litigation over minor copyright infringement, but I think the Brits are a little more relaxed. If your client does use the video despite your notice, do you go to court? It seems unlikely that he will use it because his reason for unhappiness is his appearance or performance (doesn't think it a satisfactory promotion for his product).

Your goal is to get paid for work done and setting out your case for reasonable renumeration must be at a high priority. Yes, a UK solicitor might be useful. However setting down your argument might be more quickly done face to face with a local attorney (and therefore cheaper). Finding a firm with UK connections might be effective.

My advice should you choose to use it is definately send the letter you lawyer crafted and carbon copy (so he sees it) as many TV or cable stations where he could possibly air it. You probably don't even need to send the copies so long as he thinks you did. Then insist on your full price and keep an break even price as a rock bottom fall back before you sue his ass. A contract is a contract, oral or written... there wasn't any implied termination for convenience clause in your oral contract so the salient issue is: Did you do the job? Good luck.

Probably my contribution re copyright appeared to suggest that I didn't think this a worthwhile approach. Not what I meant. Good first step, but don't rely on that for getting paid.

Thinking this thorugh a little more I'd suggest before unleash the legals you do a little legwork.
It's quite possible this client is going under or at least is having cash flow problems. In that case you could well up with not only no money out of the client but also a healthy legal bill to foot on your own.
So do some snooping around, is this product selling, is the business making a healthy profit, is the future looking rosy for them.

If it's obvious they've got problems calmly negotiate the best deal you can as quickly as possible and get the cheque in the bank as fast as you can. In other words cut your losses and run. Certainly maintain your rights, they're simply repaying your expenses, if they believe the result looks unusable through no fault of your own then why would they want the footage anyway.

To be honest I'd never get on a plane anywhere at my own expense without some upfront payment, at least enough to cover my costs.

To me two things seem odd:

1) I can't believe any client would seriously worry about how they look in a training video, the only people who'll see it are ones who've bought the product anyway.

2) The product itself doesn't sound too legit.

3) Why hire someone on the otherside of the Atlantic for a training video at that price point?

Bob.

Farss,
1.) client image on any media is an critical issue, ask any PR or marketing firm. ( maybe the client is on the "most wanted list").
2.) You maybe right. The client may not want a visual document connecting him to promoting the product,.... but he is offering some funds for the video.
3.)"price point". This is an interesting question. One, the client may want to appear to be bigger and have an international market to his starting clients. Subcontracting jobs in the international market is a trendy mode in the business community.

Then there is the "Dark Side", the client has figured out that the cost to collect will exceed the contractor's resources to sue him in court. But the UK courts are or were a lot better in these matters than the US. I don't know if the EU trade agreements have any impact on the UK courts and legal issues with non-EU countries concerning writtern/oral contracts .

Of course company image is important however I doubt we're talking a company the likes of IBM or Sony. The very fact that the MD can take the time out to star in his training video says a lot about the size of the company.

But what really gives the game away for me is:

"a means of scanning the human body's energy field and using colloidal minerals to correct imbalances"

Now I'll not pass judgement on the value of alternative medicine having used it a few times myself but that's hardly even mainstream alternative medicine. I was wrong in using the term "legit" in reference to the company, rather I was referring to having some doubts about the product and it's possible impact on the companies financial position.

None of us know the fine points of the situation and as such I just feel sometimes it's better to start off with a softly softly approach. I always try to engage the client as much as possible, I've had clients who really didn't have the money to pay me on the day and I'd rather have that level of honesty than total BS month after month. In the end I get the money, I've never not been paid, in full, for a job, eventually.

Of course the client might also just be a total a**hole!

But there's another side to this and many of us, myself included, are to blame. We think we're competing for work when in fact we're cutting our own throats. I don't know how many times I've been told "We're doing this under cost / for free hoping to get more profitable jobs from this BIG client". Of course there's a limitless supply of wannabees who'll make that offer at the moment. I've even had one guy tell me he charges per day what we'd charge to rent the gear, that's why he bought his own kit.

Bob.

Interesting area of intrest here. In the US olral agreements have always been considered legit, although when push comes to shove it boils down to there word against yours. With internet and email more and more email is for sure being brought into play. Cases have been based/built around emails. Lack of paper trails is no longer an excuse as it once was.

However going international is more of an issue. UI would say your best bet it to find a lawyer who deals with the UK, even resides in the UK, to send off a letter. It would have a bit more weight than someone who is local to you do it. Years ago I was ripped off by a Garage in texas to the tune of 3 grand and when I tried to get a lawyer to take on the case I could not find one - why? Because there was a lot of extra money involved for a lawyer not in Texas to be allowed to go into Texas. Think of that on international terms. I don't think many lawyer would want to take on an international contracy dispute for 8 grand. This is also interesting topic because I had a talk with a producer friend of mine yesterday and he was telling me how shocked he was to find blatent priacy of his films in places like Austraila. He said every one of his films is available there in the Blockbuster like stores, however no rights have been sold there. Trying to track down where they came from proves to be usless as the stores simply say "Well we got them from our distributor." and it goes down from there. The stores won't take them off their shelves because a US Cease and Desist order means nothing in Australia and as far as they are concerned the producer has no legal stand there to take merchindise the stores bought "legally" off their shelves. Hiring a lawyer to try and fight an unseen distributor in Austraila is fruitless at this point.

I know what you are talking about is a bit different but the end result could be the same. From what you are saying they have a "finished" product in their hands. Even if it is not the final finished product they already have something they could use. If you do have the resources to fight this I suspect it would cost you more than the money they owe you currently, partly because of the distance. Sneding th eletter is the cheapest way to go and might work out. On the other hand be prepared to write this off as a loss.

You might consider payments to be slpit. Any project I have worked on we have always either gotten, or paid out, in three payments. One payment at the start of the project. One payment in the middle and final payment when the final materials are turned over. And at no time during the actual work process are any "raw" materials turned over. (However in some cases it does not matter - I have mentioned before about how at one years AFM a foregn distributor came in, ripped up the distribution agreement and announced "How come you tried to sell me a film that is already relased in my country?" They were assured they film had never been sold in ther country. They than handed over a legit looks copy of the film. The packaging was simply based on a sell sheet and the "legit" film was a timecoded copy that also had "NOT FOR SALE" scrolling through the middle of the screen every few minutes.)

Filmy, oral agreements being able to be enforce varies from state to state legal systems in the US. If you are in Federal Court (US), this a different ballgame, oral agreements don't play well, but invoices, partial payments, work rendered under client guidelines, etc can be viewed as a "contract".

Farss, I do agree with you about the "a means of scanning the human body's energy field and using colloidal minerals to correct imbalances". But then there is a mega dollar market selling "health cures" that promises cures that modern medicine can not .