Making VFX bids that will land you clients

1. Feel out their budget

If you’re picking up work from VFX studios, they’ll ask for a day rate, and push you to show your hand before they suggest a number. If you’re cutting out the middle man and going straight to the clients, though, they’ll often be willing to give you a rough idea of what their budget is. No serious film producer would start a film without an idea of what the budget for each department is. They know how much they can spend on VFX, and they know that you need to know that number, so that you can design your approach around that number. Of course the number they give you may not be 100% honest, but at least you’ll know if there’s any chance that it can be done. At an indie level, the most common problem is that client expectations massively outstrip what is actually possible on a small budget. That should be a huge red flag, and you should either run, or put a huge amount of effort into managing expectations

2. Context and complexity (How close, how long)

A digital human could be almost impossible to do, or incredibly easy. Without context, you can’t judge the complexity, and you can’t bid. Is the digital human a stunt double flying through the background of a single shot, or is it a photoreal digital actor giving an emotive performance across 400 shots?

Forgetting to clarify exactly what is needed is a rookie error, and could spell disaster if you win the work, or lead you to massively overbid and lose the work. Storyboards are massively beneficial in this, but don’t forget that shot length is big factor in cost too!

3. Gut Feeling (Macro)

Blank pages are difficult for all of us, whether it’s figuring out how to start a newsletter (I finally got there this week), or putting a number down for a bid. But put a number down you must. That gets easier with experience, but it’s never an exact science.

You’re in good company though, that’s how film works. Some guy or gal reads a script, picks a number for the films budget based of the financial resources that they have access to, and the party begins. Then someone decides that the actors will cost X, the sets Y, the VFX Z, etc. It’s all gut instinct.

4. Specifics (Micro)

Trust your gut, but not too much. VFX is complex, and it’s easy to forget all the stages that are necessary. I recommend covering both extremes. Plucking a number out of the air (or being provided one be your potential client) is your starting point. That’s your macro. Now go micro - work out all the potential tasks involved, and roughly how long they’ll take. If your micro bids added together add up to less than your macro, things are promising.

You’ll need to take some things into account for your micro bidding though:

a) Account for optimism

Are you naturally optimistic? If you are, be very aware of that trait, and counter it. Force yourself to imagine worst case scenarios, and bolster the bid accordingly. For me, that means adding 50-100% extra onto my numbers.

b) Account for the client temperament

If you haven’t worked with the client before, do you know anyone who has? Do you know how obsessive they are? How much do they focus on details? Do they trust you?

All these things can make a huge difference to your ability to deliver on budget and on time. If you can’t get this information any other way, feel them out, and look to negotiate a contract that protects you - with clear milestones, and a clear limit on the amount of iterations at each milestone

c) Account for unknowns

Have YOU done THIS work before? Having seen a YouTube video showing that this work is easy because of X or Y bit of software isn’t enough. If you haven’t done it, you don’t know. That ignorance has a tax that must be paid. You can pay it yourself, or add it to the client’s bill, but either way, your bid has to go up, by at least 30%

5. Manage expectations and be a salesperson

A lot of the time, clients just need to know they’re getting a good deal. Thing is, they generally don’t know what a good deal is. You might find yourself bending over backwards to get something that can work for them, and it barely registers.

So tell them that they are, and why. Be somewhat transparent with your numbers - don’t give them your full micro breakdown, unless they really push for it (they will start trying to find bits that they can break off), but show them what the bid would have been if you hadn’t come up with a much smarter plan that can save them X percent.

Practice selling yourself, BUT keep their expectations firmly managed. Under promise, over deliver, and you’ll have happy clients for life