I'm looking for opinions here and suggestions on how to proceed with this.
So I'm looking at pitching my services to a potential client. This is would be for a construction site progress shoot. I'm looking to partner up with the commission that is funding a waterpark being built in my city. I have already flown twice and put together 2 videos (with stills) and plan on doing a new one every week or so to document the progress. I'm going to call to speak with them to hopefully set a meeting up, but I was wondering what the consensus would be on sending a cold email with a brief overview of my services and how I can help them monitor their investment. I would watermark the videos and send them as well, as a preview of what they would be getting. I guess I'm not sure what the reception would be though about asking to do this and then also being like "Oh, by the way, I already did it!"
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!
I've been doing construction progress videos for roughly 7 years. Here are 3 things that added value to my services that didn't even cross my mind initially, but turned out to be pivotal in my continued relationships with my construction clients:
1) Construction mistakes can be easily seen (and subsequently abated) via drone footage, thus saving thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Early on my footage spotted a mistake that saved my client about $10K, which insured my future employment. That was 7 years ago.
2) Aerial footage is a great tool if a lawsuit arises. About 3 months ago my client asked for an exact date for a particular video to be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Since our drones conveniently time stamp our footage, it was easy to give him a date and even a time when the footage was shot. I archive all original footage. I have every second of footage I have ever shot stored in redundancy on enterprise-grade hard drives (WD Gold).
3) Aerial footage makes a good part of any promotional video they may want you to author. I do "prosumerish" video production, so I was able to put together a promotional video for them. I billed the editing out @ $2K, which took roughly an entire day to edit. Here's the video (stock photos and logos provided by client):
I'll share my work flow, which has worked successfully for years:
1) Footage is completely automated, so it's repeatable. The client gets the same exact videos every week.
2) I shoot 2 videos; A POI and a strafe. The strafe moving forward is shot nadir. Moving backward I tilt up to expose the entire property at the end. Drone velocity is programmed @ 6-9 mph, depending on the property. Larger properties are shot @ 9 mph. Smaller @ 6 mph. This is for both POI and strafe. This combination has worked well for years.
3) I shoot 4K, but deliver in 1080p. This allows me to digitally zoom for things like leveling the horizon, etc. I park the smaller 1080p files on the cloud, which the client then downloads. I then email the invoice to their accounting department. I haven't seen my client's face in years.
4) I shoot every 2 weeks with a 3-day target window that I hit 90% of the time. I generally try to have deliverables ready by 4:00 Friday, but don't always hit that target. For example, yesterday wind gusts were 40+ mph. Today (Saturday), they are 12 mph. So the client will ultimately get the footage today, which they will probably not see until Monday.
5) Billing. My prices are going up for this next property. My new prices include a $500 setup fee (this isn't new). Not only do I have to build the missions at home, but then I have to go to the jobsite and tweak them for correct composition. I charge $500 for this. There was one time a client decided to go with someone else. So now I charge for setup. Because this is a recurring client, I charge $300-$400 per deliverable, depending on the property. I have become cognizant of a strategy where they try to get me to discount my invoice for adjoining properties. They tried to get a "2 for 1" one time. I refused, but I compromised by discounting the invoice by $100. So where normally 2 adjoining properties would be billed out $600-$800, I discount it $100. No "2 for 1's."
My client tends to be cheap, which is funny because in the scale of what it costs to build an apartment complex, my roughly $5K/year/property invoices are pretty cost-effective.
Again, I've been doing construction progress for roughly 7 years. Though it is the smallest piece of my aerial company's revenue pie, it is a good, reliable, residual income. I spend roughly 2 hours total time shooting, editing and uploading the footage. Most of the time is spent driving to and from the site and then editing. 2 hours is probably exaggerated. It's probably closer to 1.5 hours.
Best of luck.
D
