Chapter 38 — Exercises

The business of video is a doing skill too, and — unlike a shot — you can practice most of it without a camera. These exercises turn the chapter's tools into documents you will actually reuse: a quote, a statement of work, a release, a change-order response, an invoice. Do the drafting ones for real, on your three portfolio projects, and keep what you write. A release template you have already made is one you will actually use on set.

A standing reminder that applies to every exercise here: none of this is legal advice, and laws vary by jurisdiction. These drills teach you what to protect and how the business runs; for anything high-stakes, adapt reputable templates for your region and consult a qualified professional.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

  • ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in a concept.
  • ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
  • ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; where the biggest gains are.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises are collected in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Attempt each one before reading its answer — a quote you built wrong teaches more than a model answer you only skimmed.

A. Seeing the business (no camera needed)

These train the eye for the business layer of video you already watch and scroll past every day.

1. ⭐ Spot the license. For the next five videos you watch that use music, look for how the music is credited — a track name in the description, a library watermark, "licensed via," or nothing at all. Note which ones make their licensing visible. (Answer discusses what the presence or absence tells you.)

2. ⭐ Commercial or editorial? List five videos you saw recently and label each as commercial (selling/promoting something) or editorial (news/documentary/personal). For each commercial one, note that every identifiable person in it almost certainly signed a release. (Answer provided.)

3. ⭐⭐ Reverse-engineer a price. Pick a type of video you have seen a small business use (a testimonial, a product clip, a short ad). Without looking anything up, estimate the days of work it took across pre-production, production, and post. You are practicing the internal day-rate estimate behind a project rate. (Answer discusses the method, not a universal number.)

4. ⭐⭐ Find the scope creep. Think of any project you (or someone you know) has done — video or not — that ballooned past its original plan. Write the first three "small" additions that started the creep. Notice that none of them, alone, looked unreasonable. (Answer provided.)

B. Pricing (Price This)

5. ⭐ Iceberg audit. Write down every cost a full-time freelance videographer must cover out of their rates that an employee does not pay out of their wage. Aim for at least eight. (Answer provided.)

6. ⭐⭐ Build a quote. A café wants a 60-second testimonial for its website: a half-day shoot, one subject, one location, plus editing, one licensed music track, and one vertical cut-down. Using FIGURE 38.2 as a model, write a full itemized quote with your own market's rates — including an INCLUDED / NOT INCLUDED block and payment terms. (Model structure provided; the number is yours.)

7. ⭐⭐ Three models, one job. Take the café job from Exercise 6 and describe how you would price it three ways — as a day rate, as a project rate, and value-based. For the value-based version, invent a plausible business goal that would justify a higher fee. (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ The exposure reply. A stranger messages: "We love your work! We can't pay, but this will be amazing exposure and could lead to paid work." Write two replies: one that declines gracefully, and one that counter-offers (a small paid pilot, or a defined trade you actually want). (Model answers provided.)

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Price your three projects. For each of your three portfolio projects, build a real project-rate quote from a day-rate estimate plus hard costs, and write one sentence justifying the number and naming the pricing model. This is part of your Production Checkpoint. (Guidance provided.)

10. ⭐⭐⭐ The raise. You have been charging the same rate for two years and are fully booked. Make the written case — to yourself — for raising your rates: what has changed (skill, demand, costs), by how much, and how you would tell existing clients. (Answer discusses the reasoning.)

C. Contracts and the SOW (Draft This / Read the Document)

11. ⭐ Clause recall. From memory, list at least eight of the clauses every video agreement should nail down (FIGURE 38.3). For each, write the one question it answers. (Answer provided.)

12. ⭐⭐ Write a statement of work. For one of your three projects, write a complete SOW using FIGURE 38.4 as a model: deliverables (with lengths, aspect ratios, formats), scope of production, revision policy, a NOT INCLUDED block, and an ownership/use line. (Model SOW provided.)

13. ⭐⭐ Critique the SOW. A described SOW reads, in full: "Make some social media videos for our launch. A few revisions included. Delivered when ready." Name every ambiguity that will cause a problem, and rewrite each vague phrase as a specific one. (Answer provided.)

14. ⭐⭐ The ownership conversation. A client, after delivery, says: "Can you send us all the raw footage and the project file?" Write two versions of your response: one for a contract that retained the raw files (so this is a new, paid request), and one for a contract that included a buyout. (Model answers provided.)

15. ⭐⭐⭐ Payment schedule design. Design a payment schedule for a larger project — a $12,000 (or your currency) branded piece shot over three days with a two-month timeline. Decide the deposit, any milestone, and the final, and justify why each portion is where it is. (Answer discusses the logic.)

16. ⭐⭐⭐ Read the deal for traps. A described one-page agreement includes price, dates, and deliverables, but says nothing about revisions, ownership of files, who licenses the music, or what happens if the client cancels after you have booked the date. Write the four clauses you would add and one sentence each on the disaster each one prevents. (Answer provided.)

D. Scope and revisions (The Scope Call)

17. ⭐ Revision or new request? Label each as a revision (a fix, included) or a new request (new work, billed): (a) "the logo is the wrong shade of blue"; (b) "can we also get a square version?"; (c) "this cut drags — tighten the middle"; (d) "let's try it with completely different music and a new voiceover"; (e) "you misspelled our founder's name." (Answer provided.)

18. ⭐⭐ The change-order sentence. Write the one-sentence, friendly response you would give to each new request in Exercise 17 — saying yes-and-here's-the-cost without saying no. (Model answers provided.)

19. ⭐⭐ Draft a change order. A client on a delivered project now wants two extra 15-second cut-downs for platforms not in the original SOW. Write a short change order: the new work, the added cost (your rate), and the effect on the timeline. (Model provided.)

20. ⭐⭐ Write your revision policy. In three sentences a real client would find fair and friendly, write your standard revision policy: how many rounds are included, what counts as one round, and what happens after. (Model answers provided.)

21. ⭐⭐⭐ Five asks, five responses. Invent five different out-of-scope requests a client might make on a single testimonial job, and write your response to each — deciding which (if any) you would absorb as goodwill and which you would change-order, and why. There is no single right split; defend yours. (Answer discusses the trade-offs.)

22. ⭐⭐⭐ The never-satisfied client. A client is on their fifth round of "just one more tweak," all of it genuine refinement, none of it a new request — but you are now working for free and the job cannot end. Write how you would handle it: what you would say, what your contract should have said, and how you get to a lock. (Answer provided.)

E. Releases (Draft This / Rights Check)

23. ⭐ Consent to film vs publish. In your own words, explain the difference between consent to film someone and consent to publish them, using a one-sentence example of each. (Answer provided.)

24. ⭐⭐ Draft a model release. Write a plain-language model release you would actually hand someone on set, using FIGURE 38.6 as a model — including the consideration line and a minor's guardian section. Make it something a non-lawyer would read and understand. (Model provided.)

25. ⭐⭐ Release triage. For each, decide whether you need a signed release and from whom: (a) a paid actor in a commercial; (b) a wide crowd shot at a public festival; (c) one clearly featured face pulled from that crowd for a promo; (d) a 12-year-old in a school video; (e) the recognizable interior of a private restaurant you are filming an ad in; (f) a stranger who walks through the deep background of a public-street shot. (Answer provided.)

26. ⭐⭐ Fix the release failure. A described situation: you shot a moving testimonial, edited the whole video around it, and only then realized the subject never signed anything and has stopped replying to messages. Walk through your options, and then write the single on-set habit that would have prevented all of it. (Answer provided.)

27. ⭐⭐⭐ The whole shoot's paperwork. For your Project 2 (documentary short), list every person and location that appears, and specify exactly which release each one needs, who signs it, and any special care required (minors, vulnerable subjects, private property). Then confirm — honestly — whether you could publish it today. (Guidance provided; part of your Production Checkpoint.)

28. ⭐ Four facts about copyright. From memory, state the four facts about copyright from §38.5 (automatic; available ≠ free; use without permission is infringement; credit is not permission), each in one sentence. (Answer provided.)

29. ⭐⭐ Cleared or not? For each, decide whether the use is safe and say why: (a) a song you bought on a music store, used under a client's ad; (b) a track from a royalty-free library you subscribe to, used in that same ad; (c) a Creative Commons BY-NC track in a paid client video; (d) a public-domain classical composition performed in a new recording you found online; (e) a font you downloaded "free for personal use," used in a paid video's titles. (Answer provided.)

30. ⭐⭐ Whose problem is it? Write the contract sentence that assigns responsibility for asset clearance: what you warrant about the assets you bring, and what the client warrants about the logo, footage, or music they supply. (Model provided.)

31. ⭐⭐ The Content ID surprise. Your fully licensed music triggers an automated copyright claim on a client's upload, and the video is temporarily muted. Write the steps you take to resolve it, and name the one thing from earlier in your workflow that makes resolution possible. (Answer provided.)

32. ⭐⭐⭐ Rescue the unlicensed edit. A described project is finished and beloved by the client — but it is cut to a popular commercial song you never licensed, and cutting to a new track will change the whole rhythm. Lay out your options honestly (from best to worst), including what it costs and what you would recommend, and how you would explain it to the client without alarming them into leaving. (Answer provided.)

G. Getting and keeping clients

33. ⭐ Where work comes from. Rank the real sources of freelance work from most to least effective, and write one sentence on why the top source beats any advertising you could buy. (Answer provided.)

34. ⭐⭐ The follow-up message. Write the short, warm message you would send a client one week after delivering a video — thanking them, checking on performance, and (gracefully) opening the door to a referral and future work. (Model provided.)

35. ⭐⭐ Draft an invoice. Using the elements from §38.6, draft a clean invoice for a delivered project: your details, the client's, an invoice number, itemized work, total, payment terms (net-15 or net-30), and how to pay. (Model provided.)

36. ⭐⭐⭐ Pitch a retainer. A client has hired you three times this year for one-off videos. Write the short proposal in which you offer them a monthly retainer instead — what they get each month, what it costs, and why it is better for them (not just you). (Answer discusses the framing.)

H. Interleaved (mixing earlier chapters)

37. ⭐⭐ Brief to quote. Take a client brief in the Chapter 22 sense (business goal, audience, key message, CTA) for a real or imagined small business, and turn it into (a) a one-line project concept and (b) a quote with a NOT INCLUDED block. Show how understanding the goal (Ch.22) shaped the price (Ch.38). (Answer provided.)

38. ⭐⭐ Budget vs price. Using Chapter 16's budgeting (§16.5), list the costs a two-day branded shoot would consume, then show how those costs become one input into the price you charge. Explain in one sentence why price must exceed budgeted cost. (Answer provided.)

39. ⭐⭐⭐ The archive as evidence. Connect this chapter to Chapter 37: describe exactly what belongs in a delivered project's 08_DOCS and 03_MUSIC-SFX folders so that, a year later, you could prove you have the right to re-use or re-cut the piece for your reel (Ch.39). Why is a rights-clear archive worth more than a rights-unknown one? (Answer provided.)

40. ⭐⭐⭐ The whole business, one job. Write a one-page walkthrough of a single imagined client job from first inquiry to final payment, naming the business tool used at each stage: discovery (the brief, Ch.22), quote (§38.1), contract + SOW + deposit (§38.2), shoot with releases (§38.4), licensed music (§38.5), a revision handled with a change order (§38.3), delivery with captions (Ch.36), invoice and follow-up (§38.6). This is the entire chapter, integrated. (Model walkthrough provided.)

When you have drafted the real documents — the quote, the SOW, the release, the change order, the invoice — you have built the toolkit that turns your craft into a livelihood. Keep them in a folder you reuse. Then move on to Chapter 39, where the rights-clear videos you just protected become the reel that goes out and finds your next client.