First off, before I get into any of the nitty gritty details, I do have to say that Michael is talented and has a good eye/vision.
That being said, lets get into it.
My fiance and I hired Matchstix to film our Vietnamese engagement (dam hoi). It's extremely traditional with a bunch of rituals. We only had 3 weeks to find a videographer and although Matchstix only had 1 yelp review at the time, we liked his videos/portfolio so decided to take a chance. Best of all, his prices were extremely reasonable.
We met with Michael and he seemed really accommodating. He asked us questions to try to get to know us. So we signed the invoice and away we went. On the day of the dam hoi, he got to my house early to view my parents place and the neighborhood. He blended in with the events so you barely felt him even though he had a lot of equipment (which was nice). Afterwards, he said he would get us a video in 6-8 weeks.
Our dam hoi was on 4/26 and we received a video on 5/21...below the expected time. After viewing it, we noticed that there were a lot of rituals that were left out of the video. Plus, he took the time to videotape us while asking us questions about one another so we were surprised they weren't in there. We asked for him to put the more of the rituals in, some of the interviews, and take out some scenes my parents weren't happy with.
When we first met with him, he told us that we could have a first pass edit. When we gave him our desired revisions, he wanted to charge us the same amount we hired him for...which completely defeated the purpose of hiring someone for cheap. He said our desired edits were "too much" for what would be included in a first pass edit. We asked him if he could do whatever he could without getting paid more. We also asked if he could provide the raw files and surprise surprise, he wanted to charge us for the same amount we initially hired him for. He stated that the edits to the video would take 2 weeks. This was on 6/9....he got back to us on 7/20, WELL over his initial timeline.
The edited video had a lot more of the rituals, still no interviews, but he took out a key scene where my mother-in-law gives me a gift. We asked him to put it back in, which he did but not sequentially with how the events unfolded that day. Which is funny because in the initial first cut, he put it in exactly where it was supposed to be. At this point I was over it and decided not to go back and forth with him.
BOTTOM LINE: if you do decide to hire Matchstix because you like his style, do so but make sure you have a VERY VERY detailed list of all the things you want included, especially if there are a lot of rituals. In the contract, make sure you lay out EXACTLY what you're getting in his quoted price, but don't be surprised when he tries to charge for anything else you ask for.
Oh wells, you live and learn. read more
