Sleepy time by Jane.G on Flickr.

Anyways, the SDE (same day edit) played, the dancing started and true to form at weddings, the countdown to departure was on and we hadn’t thrown the garter and bouquet, the sweet table hadn’t opened, Groom and Mom hadn’t danced yet and there were 4 or 5 family shots that needed to be done.

A good rule of thumb that Sean (who is one of the photogs, a colleague, a new dad and friend), and I were discussing tonight had to do with deciding how long after the discussed quitting time do you start charging OT if things go late.  We said 30 minutes, then you’re into overtime hours, payable at the end of the night. So here’s the thought process:  We wake up early…really early to start shooting, go on minimal food most of the day, are on our feet most of the day, are hot, sweaty, always happy (even if we don’t want to be), our minds are on full-tilt all day and I’m away from the family for the entire day.  So, that being said, don’t do this job unless you love it!  smirk!  Just kidding, the real point is that you can’t just walk up to the B&G and say, “yeah, contract says 11:30, it’s 12:01 that’s $100/hr/person”, not cool and probably won’t go over well.  But at the beginning of the night what I like to do is go over the flow of the night and let everyone that needs to know, understand what time I’m contracted to, this way we can all work towards having things run to time.  Also, it gives me a chance to say (as it did tonight) at 10:00, “hey Mr. DJ, any idea when we might be able to get the parent dances out of the way?  Don’t want it to get too late on us”…or something like that.  Giving the B&G a heads up on timing early on makes the onset of the conversation about overtime not seem like a cash grab.  In actuality that conversation about overtime is a great catalyst in moving things forward and sometimes they actually keep you around…at $100/hr/person.  One could only be so lucky.  So, to summarize what Sean and I were saying…30 mins past contractual end time (with multiple previous reminders to B&G as well a the DJ) is when you should start billing the overtime.

Anyways, Jeremy edited the SDE today that Pierre and and I shot the footage for and it was a hit (I’ll post it as soon as I get my hands on the edit).  SDE’s are always a big crowd pleaser. After all the formalities were done, I headed home.  Til next time…

Shoot straight!

Don't mind the shiny bald dome...it's all about the rig!

Same Day Edit