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Event contract/rights help?
Curious if any of the experts here (especially any of the SportShooter's) might assist in pointing me to some good resources for contract language/terms that I could use in contract negotiations for image rights/use, etc.?
Here's the situation - I recently shot a sporting event (for fun) as a spectator and through the process of sharing my gallery of the event on various social media sites this caught the eye of the event/media department of a major sporting goods/clothing manufacturer who'd like to hire me to cover a multi-day event where they are the primary sponsor. Obviously, I'm very flattered!
Aside from working out some specific details and negotiating fees, etc. my biggest concern is to ensure that I protect myself and my work. Below are the high level details of what they are looking for...if anyone has any thoughts, insights, recommendations as how to approach I would be very grateful!!
From client:
We are basically looking for someone to capture footage of the entire event. Focusing primarily on our key sponsored athletes, product detail shots, community/crowd coverage and just general photography of the event (basically just like your other images).
We would need you to cover Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mostly likely 12-14 hour days; long and tiring! You would need to work alone. No crew or assistants. We are going to get you as close as possible to the action so we can get the best shots. At the end of each day we would be looking for you to hand us a card so we can start making selects and getting images out to the right people.
As far as rights go I think it would be best to negotiate a cost for a "library of images" for all the materials that you capture at the event. Most likely would need rights to those images for 1-2 years.
Thanks Dgrinners!
John
Here's the situation - I recently shot a sporting event (for fun) as a spectator and through the process of sharing my gallery of the event on various social media sites this caught the eye of the event/media department of a major sporting goods/clothing manufacturer who'd like to hire me to cover a multi-day event where they are the primary sponsor. Obviously, I'm very flattered!
Aside from working out some specific details and negotiating fees, etc. my biggest concern is to ensure that I protect myself and my work. Below are the high level details of what they are looking for...if anyone has any thoughts, insights, recommendations as how to approach I would be very grateful!!
From client:
We are basically looking for someone to capture footage of the entire event. Focusing primarily on our key sponsored athletes, product detail shots, community/crowd coverage and just general photography of the event (basically just like your other images).
We would need you to cover Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mostly likely 12-14 hour days; long and tiring! You would need to work alone. No crew or assistants. We are going to get you as close as possible to the action so we can get the best shots. At the end of each day we would be looking for you to hand us a card so we can start making selects and getting images out to the right people.
As far as rights go I think it would be best to negotiate a cost for a "library of images" for all the materials that you capture at the event. Most likely would need rights to those images for 1-2 years.
Thanks Dgrinners!
John
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Comments
Congratulations!! (I think) Normally clients will under estimate the amount of time needed for a shoot, so I would have some concerns about the 12 to 14 hours est. Is that onsite time? Shooting time? Or total estimated time to account for travel time? Depending on answers you may need to give up sleep for three days.
If you believe there are other revenue streams for these images then make clear in your contract you retain copyrights to all images and they will receive the right to use the images ( how ever you want to specify) but probably in any way they want for their own business use, but not for resale.
A couple of flags, for me anyway, are if they are a "major" sporting goods/clothing manufacturer why don't they already have photographer on staff or on call?
Why No crew or assistants? Why do you "need" to work alone? Obviously I can't be sure, but it looks like this job might need and or benefit having an assistant and or second shooter. Especially if they must have images at the end of each day.
I would not recommend handing over a card ( how you are going to fit 12 hours of shooting on one card will be interesting) at the end of the day, unless they provide the cards and I am working for hire I always download and back up the card before I do anything else. Plus how long will it take them to download the images and return your cards to you? If you give them the cards at the end of the day, when are they going to return them to you? Will this give you enough time to download them to your computer and back up?
If I take the images I am responsible for delivering images to the client. If they get the cards, loose them, accidentally delete the images or otherwise don't get the images who gets the blame?
For me I would ask what they are expecting. Get as much specific info here as possible. Are they expecting 2000 images per day? All the images you shoot? Are you shooting jpg and simply handing these over or will you be doing some editing? Will you shoot both jpg and RAW? A smaller number but high quality images? I would also recommend you at least cull out the out of focus, and other poor images before handing over anything. Are they looking for images that can be printed or exclusively web use? Do they have a list of the sponsored athletes and the type and number of shoots expected? What is their budget?
Once you understand what they want and what is involved in creating and delivering what they want as well as their budget you will be in a position to intelligently negotiate the contract.
Sam
While it feels good to have someone recognize your work, take a step back and understand that there's only one reason you got contacted: The guy wants you to work for almost free. Focus on two words I wrote : WORK and FREE. There are several tip offs. Number one - no assistants. Number two - 12-14 hours days. Number 3 - you hand the cards over.
If you're not shooting professionally, you need to resist the emotional thrill and understand that a working professional would charge several thousand dollars to fufill this contract. This guy is looking to get you to do it for 1/10th the amount.
There are many websites that allow you to calculate your costs of doing business:
ASMP: http://asmp.org/tutorials/details-creative-fee.html
John Harrington has a excellent website devoted to best business practices as well as a great book on best practices. I recommend it.
Finally, there's the reality that if you don't give this guy a lowball price, and force him to either do without or pay a real rate, you strengthen the business of photography. There's way too much of this type of behavior going on and it's impacting professional photographers all over the world.
Just so you know that I'm not asking you to do something I wouldn't do myself: Last year, I did a magazine assignment for a local magazine of a junior college volleyball heading to the nationals. Image was good, well lit, composition worked etc. I made some 8x10s for the team as a way of thanking them for working so well for me.
A few days later, the editor calls me and tells me the college administration wants to license the image. Using FotoQuote, I determine that $1500 is the proper fee. I also knew they'd never pay it. But I quoted it anyway. Of course, they wouldn't hear of it. I offered to take part of the fee out in trade for a credit to be used for college courses but she wouldn't hear of that either.
So, there was no sale. But I won because I put a value on my work. If you take this job for cheap, you do the entire industry harm. Do your homework and quote a real price. Trust me, if you get the gig, it won't be enough. 12-14 hours a day for three days is a LOT OF WORK.
Good luck.
Michael
I sent you private mail with more thoughts...
Facebook
Long story short...the gig did not happen :-( Best I can tell is that they got their quota of people to take the gig before we could begin digging into the details. The really unfortunate part is that we did not get to address any of the many questions I have.
Since you all chipped in, here’s some more disclosure about the client and the event itself just so you know that your assistance did not fall on deaf ears. I think that it’s important you all know how appreciative I am!
The company that contacted me was Reebok (I did validate that the person was a legit employee in their media dept) who are the sponsors for The CrossFit Games which are being held at the HomeDepot Center in Carson, CA July 12-15. Which is a sold out event and being broadcast on ESPN3.
This is an event that I will be attending anyway along with my gear, but shooting who, what, where and when I want for fun is a far different experience than doing so under an agreement/contract where I'm to be paid, which is why I had reached out to the DGrin community for some guidance.
You all raised some very valid and interesting questions - from my experiences in CrossFit competitions I felt very comfortable with what the days/hours would actually entail, who the athletes are, etc. Access or lack thereof made some sense since the organizers of the event (CrossFit HQ) have their own media staff who will have the prime access – not clear to me why Reebok couldn’t or wouldn’t use what is provided by them by CF HQ Media?
There are obviously many detail oriented questions that I will never get answered, especially what they budgeted and were going to pay for the gig. I’m sure I’ll be able to spot the people they did end up hiring and will hopefully get an opportunity to pick their brains at the event?
Bottom line…even though it didn’t work out this time, I feel like I’m much better prepared the next time an opportunity like this might present itself thanks to you all! More than anything I came up with a personal self worth that values my time, effort, expertise, art, etc. that a couple of hundred bucks (assuming they were looking to low ball the gig) would NOT have made it worth my time. Everything has a number and for this particular event and for what I knew about it I was ready (had we gotten to this point of negotiation) to walk away for anything less than $3500 and maybe more depending on the intended use/license of the work.
Now I simply get to go and enjoy the event, drink some beer in the sun and shoot some amazing athletes on my terms and for my own personal enjoyment and hone my skills.
Again thank you all!!
Regards,
John
I would be real interesting to find out what the shooters they are using are doing the gig for.
It sounds like another example of Businesses cashing in on the overenthusiastic wanna be's that are happy to work for free just for the glory of it.
I think it is the snap happy brigade that are just killing some areas of photography and wiping it out as a viable market for real shooters. As pros we can whine all we like about how much better all facets of what we do is so much better but at the end of the day money talks and when it does, we'll walk.
I can't see this changing anytime soon, I think it's just the way things are going to be and those that do want to make a living from photography will have to accept this and move onto and develop new markets .