Respect for others time

One thing that I always try and stress in this business is respect for other peoples time. The reason I say this is for a photo shoot or film shoot you have multiple people working with you. And if you are the photographer or the talent if your late you are wasting everyones time, and that isn't fair to the people you are working with. I know personally I don't like my time waisted, and in an industry like this it is true time is money! And now let me explain this for you.

Now let's use a video production for example and a single location day for your shoot:

7am:
 call time so that you can start setting up and the talent can get hair and make up done - estimated time 1.5 hrs

830am:
travel to your location (this can change depending on where your location is from your base camp) So lets say .5hr

9am
blocking and one rehearsal estimated time .5 - 1hr

930 am - 10am
Start shooting estimated time 6hrs

4pm
Finish shooting because you no longer have this location after 5pm

4pm - 5pm
Break down and clean up.

Now this is a rough estimate of your day. So lets say your talent is late by an hour. it now pushes all your time back. Which means you will start shooting later then you want too, which means you will not get all the shots you want. And you may not be to happy with what you do get.

So how do you make sure this doesn't happen?? Well you can't really people are people and you can't really stop people from being late mistakes sometimes do happen. But you can stress the importance of being on time. Clear time sheets stating when call time is and the date, also clear communications in emails or texts messages if you are not making call sheets. Stress the date and the time a number of times in the messages you send out. This way no one can use the excuse I thought it was later or on a different day. Also on your call sheets try using the 24 clock, this way no one get confused with AM or PM.

If you are late all the time this looks bad and since you will be costing people money, you may not get hired back and that is never good. I know if your late on me or a no show all together you'll never work with me again and when people ask about you I wont say bad things about you but I will warn people that you are often late. And that is only fair that I warn others.

So people what I am trying to say is this respect other peoples time, make sure you know when your supposed to show up for your call time. If your going to be late at least call. If I am taking your picture if your a half hour late the chances of me being there when you show up are slim to none unless you call me to inform me your running late. I have had a few no shows lately and this has now forced me to start charging a 50 dollar booking few. If you cancel with 24 hours notice then you will get you money back. If less then 24 hours sorry no refund for you. This might sound harsh but if I am putting my time in to find you a location to shoot and arranging make and hair for you, and you cancel i do believe I should get paid for my time just a little don't you?

Christopher