Production services: Shoot cancellation charges ?

[Lansing LioMember]

Hello everyone. Masato here from Japan. Can you help me please?

I had done recce and pre-production set-up days for a production company who were coming to shoot for several episodes in Japan. Sadly due to an injured artist they had too cancel the first episode shoot at the last minute.

I charged them for the recce and set-up days and for the days I spent cancelling the shoot, rescheduling other shoot, accommodation, flights and shoot wasn’t just one location. Cancelling locations, crew etc..which took some extra days. In between there were more requests from Producer/Director that I have to work with.

The production company do not want to pay for these working days cancelling their shoot and setting up new recce. And those days ended up the same number of days and time as cancellation days.

They are saying that since I and other crew charged cancellation fee of 50%, I am not title to charge for cancellation days and for extra pre-production days and new recce days. They are saying that I am trying to charge twice.

Do you think that is right? Has anyone any previous experiences like this about shoot cancellation and fees that could help me clarify what to do please.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

With thanks and kind regards,

Masato

[Eleni BarbayianniMember]

Hi Masato,

I am afraid they are right. In fact, for us it is standard practice that once a shoot is canceled very close to the shooting dates, we charge 50% cancellation fee on everything, but hence cannot charge cancellation / production time on top of that. It happened to us very few times, but when it happened, 50% of the production budget was paid as cancellation, that was it.

I hope this helps clarify, but it would be interesting to know how other friends from other companies handle this.

All the best,

Peter

Peter Welter Soler
Fresco Film Services S.L.
Spain / Portugal
http://www.frescofilm.com

[Katharina LichtenbergMember]

i agree with peter, but i want to add, that for re-setup and new requirements, these are new charges and can be charged with the regular daily fees or whatever you agreed upon.

[Lansing LioMember]

Hi Peter and Katharina

Thank you very much for your thoughts.
As I understand that once job is cancelled, you are out of work for those days.
However, Producer/Director decided to come earlier for next episode shoot even he didn’t need to and requested to have new recce and meeting. That gave me extra work. Before he cam, I submitted for total expenses estimate which include extra pre-production days and recce days. Production company said anything regarding extra set-up and recce.
Now they are saying that I didn’t provide the dates of different items and If those dates had been legitimate it wouldn’t have been a problem.
SInce this producer/director keep adding more request and changes all the time, how could I deal with that?
Maybe I can take couple of set-up days off, but new recce days and se-up day for that I would like to charge since that wasn’t even in the schedule to be begin with.

Best,
Masato

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