creativeteam I feel your pain - it can be madenig at times. I feel as though you have to be tough sometimes and tell them what is what, but only if they go too far.
well they finally got back to me regarding rescheduling of my contract.
TBH in some regards they have been ok, but in others they are a pain.
My main frustration with them is that they treat me as some sort of lackey.
I don't know if in the past that freelancers were not held in high esteem in my industry, but that attitude seems to persist today.
I actually had verbal abuse from one of the senior peoiple there plainly because he had issues with freelancers:) heartwarming eh?He got the sharp end of my tongue though.
The other day I was doing some work and asked them for feedback so I could continue on to the next bit. But no they didn't get back as USUAL..
They seem to do this 'need to know basis thing' where If they don't like what I have done, rather than tell me whats wrong they will just ignore me, work out what they would like to do and get back to me weeks later without ever invlolving me in the process. maddening:)
I am pleased to finish this contract at the end of april, I have learned lots of lessons for the next one:)
Thanks for the advice. i was kind of thinking of just getting another contract and if they do keep drip feeding me work at least I will have 2 amounts of money coming in.
I signed a 6 month contract with a company and was supposed to have 6 milestones of a month each.
Instead what has a happened is that they have failed to check/approve the work for the first month on time and were 1 month late paying me.
Now the second block of work is 'not' ready for me to do and I am sitting twiddling my thumbs.
Do you think I should pull out of this contract. I really feel that there is not really six months of work for me , more like 3 and I am losing out financially.
I have addressed my concerns to this company, but they have been very
vague and not redone the schedule/ contract to compensate for the money I am losing.
Another scenario is that I will end up dong 2 blocks of work( 8 weeks of work) in about 3 weeks to meet their deadlines and redresss the schedule.
Still sitting here waiting for them to get back to me.
Its seems to me that for example if the contract for 6 months was worth 20,000 quid, I am only being drip fed work worth say 10,000 quid for the duration of the contract.
Where do i stand legallly here?
This is my first freelance gig and already its been a bit of a nightmare.
Would have preferred to start on a positive note and don't want to get a bad reputation in my industry if I pull out
just wondered if you had any idea whether its best to go freelance (ie set up a company with me as the sole trader) when working for a games company, or as full time employee but on a short term contract.
If the former is better, should I ask for a lot more since they won't have to pay company tax or buy software or equipment for me
I have been offered a 6 month contract and TBH I don't think the money is so hot, only 2,000 more P.A. than my last job.
I was told by my agent that I should ask for a minimum of 200 pounds a day, but in my experience working for games companies, they never offered even close to that unless you were very senior - art director or similar.
Another worry is the nature of the work. I don't think it will benefit my career long term, its basically optimizing pre existing assets, which is pretty much donkey work.
I hate to turn it down, but I fear that because I am new to freelancing I am going to get stung due to my lack of negotiating experience and knowledge of how stuff works.
They also want to me fly up to their offices every 4 weeks and work in house for a week , which kind of defeats the object for me as working from home was an attractive option for me.
I am sure a week could easily turn in to two weeks if there were any tech problems to resolve.
BTW I am not new to games art, been working as a senior artist for a while, but am new to freelancing.
