Would anyone mind sharing through email of a sample of a school contract that they use. I have just landed my first two schools that I will be starting in August. Also any information or advise that you think would help in this new venture.I keep continually finding new cliffs to jump off of, so far so good.
I know I was waiting for someone to post as well. It could be that it's too vague: contract for what? School portraits? Sports T&I? Action coverage? Administrator portraits? Yearbook shots?
Thank you for the advice John.
A little background, The school I am working with consist of Preschool, Elementary, Middle, and High School. I have began shooting Proms, and events and moved into doing High School Team Sports Packages. Begining the 2009 school year I will begin shooting all class and yearbook pictures for the Elementasry School, in addition I will be selling them their yearbooks. If I make all happy I have a good chance of getting the Preschool, Middleschool and High school which at the time are continuing with the large national company. I also have set up the same plan at another school and hope to duplicate this several times.
I had set up as contract with the HS Sports program and when we had a few challenges it helped to clarrify matters for all involved and keep things flowing smoothly over a few bumps. However that was fairly straight forward and not as involved as what we are trying to do with the Elementary school. I kinow the large companies that do most all the schools have very detailed contracts. I am hoping somebody that deals with schools doing this type of work would be willing to share what to cover any type of legal agreement that we sign with the school.
Also if anyone has suggestion on the actual setup and shooting of 500 students that would be appreciated also. I will be running a two 20d's set up each with two lights and a backgorund light. I am currently looking at sending the 20d's in to crop lines so that I can have all cropping done in camera to minimize workflow. And though normally a raw shooter I believe we will shoot this all jpgs again to minimize workflow. Pricing, packaging, and fulfilment has already been pu into place. We will shoot once in the fall prepaid and a second time in the spring. Instead of specualtive printing we will be using digital proofing return envelopes.
I have never done this before, so any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thasnk you, Cleve.
Contracts with public agencies, I believe, are available for review. You might check with some other districts to see what form the contracts take. But don't you already have a "contract?" An agreement to provide a product or sets of products?
That you will provide xxx in accordance with the description of the desired products? For a certain amount of money? With the school providing a specified amount of access and assistance? Did you respond to a request for bid or a request for a proposal?
The contract is going to be a lot of boilerplate legal language and will likely not give a lot of insight into how to actually produce the results. Outside of terms and conditions which define how much time the "shoot" or shoots might take, how much access to the facility is to be provided, how much assistance from staff or parents volunteers is to be provided, and how the fund-raising side of things is handled and documented, there isn't likely to be any insight into the actual labor and equipment that the contractor will use. And you would need to tailor those kinds of terms and conditions to fit the schools involved or have a set of requirements in hand/mind when entering negotiations.
As it is, your question reads like you have offered (and agreed) to provide a product at a winning bid price but don't know if you can actually provide the product for the price. That's bad for you, bad for the schools and bad for the competition who may have had properly structured and priced their bids.
Now if your bid was not that far below the other bids, it may not have stood out and raised questions to the contracting agency. Nor is it unusual for agencies and businesses to "qualify" a proposal by fact-finding or other discussions, negotiations, etc., to see what went into the bid because the agency is at risk for getting stuck with a default or dealing with the problems that arise when a contract can't be met.
But I doubt people that might actually be competing with you are going to offer up their business methods and recommendations in too much detail.
i used to do preschool photography. in the contract we had the school to sign, its pretty much outline what's in the package or the parents to choice from; what the school gets in return (sales); and most importantly - permission to photograph in their school, their kids.. then at the same time, we have a permission slip for each student where the parents has to sign if they want their pictures take, otherwise we do not take their pic. the last think you want is to hear from a parent yelling at you why you took picture of their kid.
