Crew Connection

That first drone flight, that interview with one of your favorite musicians, that rush you get from living out your passion every day—working in video and post-production is fun. Invoicing is not.

Here are some Crew Connection best practices that’ll help you get paid easier and faster so you can spend more time reveling in that new-gear smell.

Get familiar with the process

You will be paid within 30 days from the date you upload your invoice to Crew Connection. The later you upload it or the more versions you have to upload, the longer it will take after your shoot is wrapped to get paid.

Consistency is key

Once the estimate you created is approved by your client, it becomes a project. You can then easily base your invoice off of that project. If you base your invoice off of your project every time, we’ll likely have fewer questions for you and more time to cut your check.

Need a refresher on creating an estimate? Click here.)

Work smarter

When you’re creating your next estimate, notice how we lump together items like transportation, tolls, etc. under the “Travel Expenses” bucket and additional gear rentals, hard drives, etc. under the “Gear” bucket. Feel free to use that same organization technique when it comes to your invoices. After all, we know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Tally it up

Be sure to include your preliminary total, less our finder’s fee, and your net on every invoice. Not sure what we take commission on? Get the scoop here.

Hard work always pays off

And in fact, it pays off even faster when you include the additional hours that you worked, like 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Provide proof of purchase(s)

Spent some extra cash on the job? Include those lunch, parking, and other receipts as pages of your invoice or as separate “invoices” for the same project.

You’re so close!

Uploading your invoice on Crew Connection is the fastest way to get it in front of our crew coordinators and get you paid. It’s easy. Promise.

There you have it! Even though we built our online database to make getting paid fast and easy already, these little tips will set you up for success from your very first estimate.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a suite of marketing tools at your fingertips. Get your demo reels, stills, gear, awards, and more in front of the biggest clients all over the world—for free. At Crew Connection we pay video and post-production providers within 30 days of receiving your invoice so your work and your life are never interrupted. Need live assistance or want to add quality jobs to your pipeline? Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock. Sign In to Crew Connection, call 303-526-4900, or email info@crewconnection.com.

When you’re trying to produce frequent, disposable video content, there’s something really appealing about trusting the people who gave you the vision and the execution for the project wrapped up with a neat little bow. If that same ad agency also happens to provide the most affordable bid, well that seals the deal, right? Wrong. (Sometimes.) It turns out that ad agencies have been illegally outbidding and undermining freelance video production providers. It’s bad enough that the Justice Department is investigating.

How is this happening?

Creative departments don’t want to break the budget when they’re looking for fast, frequent content with a short shelf life. As clients begin to expect more video for less cost, agencies respond by creating in-house video firms. Such firms become competitors for editors, pieces and parts crews, production houses, post-production houses, and more. It can provide a one-stop-shop for clients and gives the agency access to a bigger piece of the revenue pie. So far, so good, right?

Sure…if it’s done fairly. The shady part is that some agencies use their unique position with clients to steer business toward themselves and away from independent video providers. They do this by telling independent crews the range they should bid in, underbidding them, and then making it look like their in-house firm won the contract fairly. The bids provide a paper trail to make it all look legitimate when in reality, the process was heavily (and illegally) influenced. Not looking so good anymore.

 Okay, what can I do about it?

1. Take the process into your own hands.

After your agency comes up with a stellar vision, get your own bids for the project. This cuts them out of the communication and ensures you get accurate, uninfluenced bids from all parties.

2. Make sure you find quality freelance video production providers.

This can feel like a big job to fit into your schedule, which is why even the sharpest clients fall prey to savvy agencies. That’s where Crew Connection hooks you up. We make the whole thing easy peasy by providing the best crews at the best rates—whether you’re shooting interviews at each of your international locations next week or need à la carte services for your next series today.

If you’re not sure if we are (or anyone else is) a good fit, here are five questions to ask about a crewing service to determine if they’re worth their weight in salt.

3. Hire the best fit.

If you’ve sought your own bids from the best crews and production teams and you still feel the agency is the best fit for the job, by all means, hire them.

Bottom line:

Yes, some ad agencies are playing sheep just as they devour your budget and produce low quality work. But you don’t have to play the game. Be a savvy consumer and skip the con.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

Standard mileage rates are determined based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. Sharply declining fuel prices contributed to this year’s drop. The decrease was relatively minimal because other expenses, such as insurance and maintenance, increased.

What do I need to know about mileage rates?

You can find all the nitty-gritty details and government legalese about mileage rates and more here. In a nutshell: You’ll be paying your freelancers less for the miles they drive for business purposes in 2017.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

When you’re managing a media department, you’re expected to be everywhere at once. It’s not enough to keep up with the newest gear; you have to make important decisions in the marketing, finance, and crewing departments, too. You know you’ve found a good online crewing service when it gives you back time in your day by providing several workflow management solutions all in one.

Here’s what to look for in an online crewing service:

1. Time savings

How much time would you free up if you could skip fruitless Google searches and find both domestic and international video service providers in just a few clicks? Time is money and a good online crewing service saves you both.

2. A rigorous vetting process

Your shoots represent your brand; so you don’t want just any crew on the job. You want the best crew on the job. A good vetting process ensures you’re not just searching a slightly-filtered version of Google. Make sure your crewing service’s database is made up of high-quality crews personally approved by an in-house team of experienced media experts.

3. Usability

Most of us have abandoned a tool that would have eventually made our lives easier because it had too much of a learning curve. An intuitive interface eliminates frustration and saves you time now—not in six months, once you’ve mastered a complex system of workarounds. A simple interface that allows you to search by services, gear, and location makes the process feel as easy as ordering a pizza.

4. Detail management

Rates, dates, gear, travel, and more. The details surrounding video productions are endless and can make even the most organized person feel like throwing computers and phones out the window. The best online crewing services provide a simple place to manage all of the details, including rate negotiations, messages, and invoices.

5. Human touch

Online services take crewing to a whole new level, but in some cases, there’s no replacement for the human touch. It’s nice to be able to pick up the phone if you hit a roadblock or just want to skip the screen for once. The combination of stellar online usability and real-life human backup is hard to beat.
Who couldn’t use a little more time and a little less hassle? A good online crewing service is a way to simplify your workflow and make 2017 smoother and more profitable.

You’ll feel like you’ve just hired the uber-organized assistant you’ve always wanted.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

This article was originally posted to productionhub.com. Read the original article here.

When you’re managing a media department, people expect you to be everywhere at once. In addition to keeping up with the newest gear; you have to make important decisions in the marketing, finance, and crewing departments, too. On those long nights when you’re crunching the numbers to see if you’ll ever be able to hire a little extra help to get it all done, rely on your virtual (and free!) assistant—Crew Connection.

Crew Connection provides several workflow management solutions (did I mention they’re free?) in one, including the following: 

An always-on crewing coordinator

How much time would you free up if you could skip fruitless Google searches and find video service providers in just a few clicks? Time is money and Crew Connection saves you both by providing the world’s largest database of high-quality crews. Search crews by services, gear, and location. Book crews on your own schedule—including that elusive lunch “break” you’ve heard so much about.

The best part? Even when it’s time to hire an international film crew, you can trust that each and every crew member in our database has been personally reviewed and approved by our in-house team of video veterans.  

An administrative assistant who’s always on the ball

Rates, dates, gear, travel, and more. The details surrounding video productions are endless. Crew Connection manages the details, relays messages, and processes invoices in one simple interface; saving them all for future reference.

In addition, those real-life, in-house crew coordinators we mentioned earlier are on call 24/7 for when you need that human touch.  

An advocate for your budget and your reputation

Crew Connection allows you to find the best local crews and provides an estimating tool to make sure you and your crew arrive at the rates you need to stay on budget.  

We also pay crews directly within 30 days—whether we’ve gotten your check yet or not—making you a preferred client with your preferred crews.

Who couldn’t use a little more time and a little less hassle? Crew Connection is the uber-organized assistant you’ve always wanted. Sign up today for the one simple (oh, and FREE!) tool that will simplify your workflow and make 2017 smoother and more profitable.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

If you’re one of those people who drool over email folders and dreams of Inbox Zero, we have something that’s going to knock your mismatched socks off. (It’s OK, we’ve had those kinds of mornings, too.)

Crew Connection’s Archived folder helps you organize the shoots in your Projects tab any way you like. Our most prolific bookers often archive projects once they’ve been paid up so that they can focus on projects that are coming up or in progress.

Simply click the icon of the file box next to the name of the project you want to move into the Archived folder. That’s it!

Once a project is Archived it can’t be undone. However, you can still view it in the Archived folder if you need to generate a PDF.

Just because you archive a project doesn’t mean that it’s been archived for every other user involved in the project. If the crew hasn’t archived it on their Crew Connection account, they can still make changes as long as the date of the shoot hasn’t passed. This action will revert the project back into an estimate that you will need to accept or reject before moving forward. This ensures that you don’t miss out on any important developments even if you have archived a project.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

If you’ve been in the video production industry for more than 30 seconds, you’ve probably noticed that there are a million different ways that a million different companies define their finder’s fee. Allow us to break down Crew Connection’s finder’s fee in one easy peazy set of lists.

As a general rule of thumb, we take a 15 percent finder’s fee on labor and gear. We don’t take any cut of travel expenses. Here’s how those buckets break down:

Items with a finder’s fee

• Day(s)
• Half-Day(s)
• Hours
• Gear
• Travel Days
• Additional Item

Days, half days, and hours all fall into the labor bucket. If the crew chooses to charge a labor rate for travel days, which they usually do, we will take our finder’s fee on that item as well. We also take a finder’s fee on gear, including hard drives and computers in addition to cameras, lights, etc.

Items without a finder’s fee

• Travel Expenses
• International Items
• Miscellaneous
• Adjustments
• Other Items

Travel expenses are a big bucket that includes things like mileage, per diems, hotels, airfare, cab fees, meals, etc. Miscellaneous, Adjustments and Other Items all sound pretty similar, so if you have any questions about how to use those buckets, just contact a crew coordinator at 303-526-4900 or info@crewconnection.com. Just remember that if you’re using them, it needs to be on an item that doesn’t qualify as labor or gear.

Put your new knowledge to work!

We’ve built the Expenses section of your Crew Connection estimate to be quick and easy to fill out. The drop-down menu under the Item column includes the items with and without a finder’s fee as described above. Choosing the right Item will determine what options you see in the Description drop-down menu and whether a finder’s fee is taken.

To get a refresher on creating an estimate from beginning to end, read our step-by-step guide by clicking here.

Though we aren’t heavily involved in each job booked on Crew Connection, we do review every single invoice. We will make adjustments as needed to make sure items are categorized correctly before sending the final invoice to the client.

Automated finder’s fee calculation is just one of the many benefits of using Crew Connection to get in front of some of the world’s biggest clients. Don’t believe us? Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock to share more. Sign up to become a video service provider on Crew Connection, call 303-526-4900, or email info@crewconnection.com.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a suite of marketing tools at your fingertips. Get your demo reels, stills, gear, awards, and more in front of the biggest clients all over the world—for free. At Crew Connection we pay video and post-production providers within 30 days of receiving your invoice so your work and your life are never interrupted. Need live assistance or want to add quality jobs to your pipeline?

In the video production industry, efficiency reigns supreme. So what are we doing to help you get more done in less time?

Crew Connection now has better-than-ever corporate billing processes and benefits.

Becoming a corporate client means that you don’t have to pay 100 percent of the project fees upfront like some kind of pion. (Just kidding!) This allows you to breeze through booking a shoot and not worry about payment details until one sleek invoice shows up on your desk.

This corporate designation is reserved for clients who have booked three shoots with us in the past year on a credit card and have consistently paid up any additional fees in 30 days or less. Crew Connection can’t automatically upgrade you to a corporate client, so here’s how to apply if you think you fit the bill!

Sign up as a client or log in to your profile on Crew Connection and go to the My Account tab.

Choose the Billing Information link in the Client Account Details section on the left side of the page.

Though it isn’t all required, please fill out all of the fields and hit Submit for Approval. If you don’t fill out all of the fields, we’ll get in touch for the additional info—meaning your corporate status will take that much longer to achieve.

Updating your info

You can update your billing information at any time. Just go back into the Billing Information section, update whatever fields necessary, and hit Submit for Approval again. Please give our office a call at 303-526-4900 or email hello@thecrewcloud.com if you do update your info so we can make sure it’s consistent across all of our tools.

Why should I become corporate?

You don’t have to be a corporate client—it’s totally up to you! We offer this service because many clients enjoy the convenience and efficiency of receiving just one final invoice at the end of a project.

Please note that corporate status has its limits. It can be revoked if payments are consistently made later than the agreed-upon 30-day terms.

Exceptions for corporate status

If a large company who is well known to our team needs to book a last-minute shoot, we are willing to bypass the process for becoming a corporate client in order to get the project done on time. We also make rare exceptions on our 30-day payment terms for large corporations that operate on longer pay schedules.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a world of video service providers at your fingertips. In just a few clicks you can search, chat with, and book vetted crews local to your shoot—all on your own schedule. Rely on Crew Connection’s team of media experts to organize the crews and gear you need for multi-day and multi-location video projects anywhere in the world. Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock if you ever need live assistance. Visit CrewConnection.com, call us at 303-526-4900, or shoot us an email at info@crewconnection.com.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make a kitten riding a Roomba feel ominous, look no further. With the right music, editing techniques, and filters—even a beloved children’s classic like Toy Story can become a trailer scary enough to keep you up at night.

Apps with built-in special effects give you the power to do as little as pick a few clips and a genre or as much as basically get a free film school education.

Here are Filmora’s picks for the 10 best free (or almost free) apps for Android and Apple devices. Now you can create a horror movie on your phone while you wait for strange children dressed as strange things to knock on your door demanding free stuff.

Enjoy this list of 20 Of Your Favorite Movies Recut As Horror Films. Because of Halloween.

About Crew Connection

Crew Connection puts a suite of marketing tools at your fingertips. Get your demo reels, stills, gear, awards, and more in front of the biggest clients all over the world—for free. At Crew Connection we pay video and post-production providers within 30 days of receiving your invoice so your work and your life are never interrupted. Need live assistance or want to add quality jobs to your pipeline? Our crew coordinators are on call around the clock. Sign In to Crew Connection, call 303-526-4900, or email info@crewconnection.com.