Terms & Conditions
T&Cs v6 (20/06/2024)
1. OVERVIEW (This section is changed per project to suit the client's project brief)
This segment provides an overview to your project, what is it we are creating for you, the scope of works, and the agreed deliverables, from our agreed proposal: *proposal name changes per client* :
- Full Day Shooting (up-to 10hrs)
- 60 Edited Photos (5hrs editing)
- x1 Highlight Reel Video (5/6hrs editing)
- All required equipment for the project as per proposal named above
- Overtime Travel/On-Location charged as per proposal named above
- We will not provide any RAW content or original files for this project (see T&Cs applicable below)
- Project Estimate Quoted: £X,XXX
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2. Our T&Cs Applicable to this Contract Agreement:
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T&Cs v6 (20/06/2024)
2.1 Deposits - We require a 50% deposit for all works before going ahead. This enables us to do the behind the scenes prep required to bring your project together. Please note all deposits are strictly non-refundable. This is to cover our commitment made to the project, date booked for your job, amongst other things such as: pre-project prep (storyboards, brief, shot lists), pre-flight admin (if using the drone) and the additional full day kit prep a day ahead of your shoot. You can read more about our non-refundable deposits on our page 'T&Cs in Full'.
2.2 Cancellation fee – 50% of contracted day, per contracted day if cancelled before leaving or arriving at the location. See clause 2.3 for on-location/on-the-day cancellations
2.3 Cancellation On-Location/On-The-Day - If cancelled on the day of the job or when on location, the full rate for the booking will apply. This is to mitigate unrecoverable costs for the day booked out for your project, the prep and commitments made, as well as kit hire, and expenses incurred.
2.4 Inclement Weather Fee – We will always check the weather ahead of a project and plan around the appropriate conditions. However, where unexpected weather affects the booking, we charge an inclement weather fee of £140 for jobs that cannot be rescheduled and £95 for jobs that can be rescheduled, to mitigate unrecoverable costs (the day before prepping for your job, storyboards & shot list planning, kit rental, etc). If these weather changes occur on-location/on-the-day our 50% deposit will be required as collateral instead of the above weather charges, instead of a full day cancellation charge.
2.5 Date Move Fee – If job moved by the client after initial admin planning and paperwork (for the drone), and kit prep, storyboards, shot lists, brief (for the normal cam) has been started (an additional full day's work to prepare), the 50% deposit will be taken as a retainer fee. Meaning, this 50% will be lost, for the date booked out for that job, where we could otherwise accomodate other work. To rebook in another date, you will be required to complete payment of another 50% deposit.
2.6 Safety Briefing (for the drone) – Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group's pilots will always have a safety briefing on location (unless using a drone under 250g where it is deemed safe by the CAA [click 'CAA' to open a new tab] not to do so). We may use a bodycam when completing the safety brief to ensure we have recorded our due dillegence. Time required to complete a safety briefing is covered in the booking cost. Any accident or injury resulting from those not reading/listening to the safety briefing or following the procedures in the instance of an emergency, Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group and its pilots, associates or owners will not be held responsible. Injury due to negligence or not following the safety guidance is the responsibility of that person injured by their own actions/decisions.
2.7 Neighbours (for the drone) – To ensure maximised safety when flying a drone, we may notify neighbours within a 50-100m vicinity of where the job is taking place (when using a drone over 250g - as required by law). We will not not do this if you (the client) have had issues with a neighbour/you do not wish for us to do this. This is a legal requirement with our qualification (drone license) which we will lose in the instance of an accident or emergency. The time to do this is also covered in the booking cost and is inclusive within time-on-location. For general disputes/complaints, as well as those to do with neighbours, please see below clause 2.8
2.8 Disputes/Complaints - It is good practice to notify the police prior to any flight or series of flights (with the drone) commencing and therefore Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group may advise the necessary agencies that drone flights are taking place. If a complaint or dispute arises between the client or our pilot(s)/videographer/photographers, and an individual (such as a neighbour) during the flight or booked job, you indemnify Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group and all associated parties against liability in that dispute unless the pilot has been negligent. Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group will have been granted permission to operate on-location (or not if it's public access; by which we can operate without permissions) and therefore any disputes arising will be between the hiring company and the complainant.
Please also note for information reference: People do not own the airspace above their homes with regards to drones, helicopters, and planes flying over their houses or gardens. Where a person complains about a drone flying over their house or garden, this info section is to make you (as the client/one dealing with complaint) aware that this is not illegal, nor against the law. It is perfectly reasonable for a drone to fly over a house or garden, similarly to a helicopter or plane; which said person does not control either.
2.9 Privacy – where we are filming/photographing properties in which residents already live, it is the hiring company/client/landlord’s responsibility to ensure residents are notified of aerial activities, photography, or video, to prevent a breach of privacy. This includes: where we will be shooting at buildings or properties with windows, to ensure curtains are closed, (or opened but with anything which could be included as a breach of privacy, e.g. someone getting dressed, out of the way, or out of direct view from the window). In the case where we capture photographs and/or video of any items or people which make for a breach of privacy within these photographs/video, and they are published, the legal responsibility will lie on the hiring company/client/landlord - as they will have been aware of our presence on that date and have had the legal responsibility to notify residents.
IMPORTANT: Where we spot that a photograph/video shot has an item or person which could be considered as a breach of privacy within the image/video, we will do our best to remove it/them from the photograph in post production editing or we will not use that footage at all.
IMPORTANT: Where you as the client/footage handler/landlord/(or anyone who has access to the files), sees something within the footage that could be considered as a breach of privacy, it is your responsibility to remove/not use/not publish that content. We will not be held responsible for footage captured, but in your possession, which we cannot amend/adapt/control, before releasing publicly.
2.10 ATC (for the drone) – In certain regions Air Traffic Control must be notified ahead of each flight. If for any reason ATC decline the request to operate on a particular date, you will be liable for the date move fee. We will do our best to accommodate a new date within that week, however, if not, the cancellation fee would apply, and you agree to pay the sum in full, without dispute.
2.11 Restaurants/Bars/Venues & Filming Permissions - In private spaces (especially in the UK) such as bars, restaurants, and venues, it's usual practise to obtain permissions to film/photograph in those places. Organising these permissions is to be taken on on behalf of the client; unless specifically agreed with us that we will take on this role. Should we arrive at a location to shoot and we are turned away as permissions were not obtained/sorted, and where this affects the ability to continue the shoot, the client is responsible for the on-location/on-the-day cancellation fees. However, we will do what we can to accomodate shooting elsewhere where possible.
2.12 Copyright – We own the copyright and ownership to all footage shot, however when purchasing our services, we will license you rights to use the footage as agreed beforehand (See your proposal for info here about what we have agreed, and what your deliverables can be used for). Our footage cannot be sold on or used in any other way to make profit, or to be provided to other companies who may want to use the footage. In the case where other pages or companies want to use our footage, please connect us with them via email: enquiries@avatarmediagroup.co.uk or phone: +44 07392 184394 and we will be more than happy to discuss footage licencing for them.
2.13 Footage: What We Are Shooting For You And What Deliverables You Will Receive – You have requested *explain what the client brief is and what they require* in *Location* for *what*. At the current agreed price of £_____ + travel & any fees, your price includes __________, as well as _________. We will also be creating _____ (any additional marketing content)____, and Image Edits & Enhancements at _______ (price agreed)_____.
For project confidentiality reasons you may not wish for us to release footage to our social media platforms immediately. Please let us know this information in the notes section below. Failure to do so will mean that we will start releasing content as soon as we are able to. If you notify us after we have posted a piece of content, we can seize all posts from that point onwards however the previous posts may stay up.
2.14 RAW Content Files/Sending Them - As standard with video production & photography businesses, we do not share the original RAW files on any projects unless specifically agreed by us with the client in writing beforehand.
Why? In line with UK & USA Copyright Laws, the photographer/capturer keeps ownership of all their content shot (as per our 2.12 clause above). The way this works is that a videographer/photographer will provide deliverables (end results e.g. image edits, main video, reels, etc) for a project, on the basis of the cost of the production. Should the client require any additional content creating, they reach out to the photographer/videographer to create this content. In cases where the client would like to edit the content in-house or with someone else, they can purchase the rights/a license to access all original content for this specific use/ownership of the original files, as per agreed with the business in writing, to do this.
We usually sell a license to access all original content, but keep ownership so we can still use the work on our portfolio, at a reduced rate, compared to an all-ownership transfer at a higher rate. Please reach out to us to discuss if you would like to have an access license, or transfer ownership. You can read more about this using the resource links below:
Copyright UK (Click Here) - UK
https://copyright.gov/what-is-copyright - USA
When selling a license to access all original content for your own in-house editing and use, we will be required to send you a license agreement document outlining the terms of the content transfer (i.e. either a content access transfer or a content ownership copyright transfer) to be signed by you to confirm. This document acts as a form of paper trail and receipt of the 'access' or 'ownership copyright' transfer, to avoid legal issues for both you and us in the future, and ensure the transaction is on record.
Sharing RAW Content Files Explained:
When you go to a restaurant and pay a chef £500 for a meal, you are paying the chef for their skills, the expense of the ingredients, and their equipment (factored into the price) to create your meal for you, and from this, you receive the final result: the meal. You do not pay to access the ingredients or the recipe that the chef used to create your dish so you can go and create the meal yourself.
Similarly, when you pay a videographer/photographer for their services, you are paying for their time, their skills, their equipment, and for them to 'cook you a meal' - for them to produce the edited content: the deliverables.
By paying a videographer/photographer their day rate, you are paying for them for the end result. You do not pay for the rights to access all the original files.
2.15 Editing Images - When booking our services, we will either be providing you with all the original JPEG photographs or enhanced and edited images. Original JPEGs will only be provided when put forward in writing and when the client has not chosen photo edits. Where photo edits have been chosen, the unedited JPEGs will not be provided. Similarly, as per the above clause 2.14, we will not share the RAW photo files.
For editing images, upon receiving the content, it is forbidden to edit images further yourself/with a separate editor as this can ruin the look of the photographs. We edit our images on a colour-accurate screen to ensure they look accurate; editing images further without experience or adding artificial filters can completely takes away the professional look for the images we have captured for you, and therefore tarnishes our reputation where viewers do not know whether you have made these changes, or us. If you wish to change the look of any images for whatever reason, please reach out to us and we will make any changes you wish for.
2.16 Editing Images: The Style - When hiring a photographer you are hiring them for their own artistic editing style. Ahead of the project, on our onboarding zoom call, we will ask you if you are happy with our style that we will edit the images to. If this style is not what you wish for, please provide reference images to style that you like. Failure to provide styles will mean we will be unaware of knowing which style(s) you would like. If we do not hear from you regarding style ahead of the shoot, we will edit the photos to our own creative artistic style. Should you decide you do not like this style and you wish for the photos to be re-edited, we can do this, however, the hours required to re-edit the photos will be charged.
2.17 Requested Angles and Video/Photography Style – At the beginning of the project, we will ask you if there are any specific shots or angles you wish for us to achieve for you during your project. Upon this request/list, we will do our best to capture these for you, provided they do not breach health and safety, aviation (for the drone) regulations, or any other laws. If you do not advise us as to angles you wish to be captured on-location/on-the-day, we will capture photographs, videos and angles that we believe look best, using our skills and experience. We take no responsibility if angles or shots you wish for, that have not been clearly put forward in writing, have not been captured. It is your responsibility to advise us as to what you would like to be captured if there are specific shots.
2.18 Re-Edit Revisions - We will always do an initial video edit and send this to the client to ensure that the overall look is as they wish, text is worded correctly, logos are in the desired place, logos have been used, etc. Upon receiving the feedback, we will make the necessary and required changes before exporting the final product. (Note: this term ‘revisions’ applies to video editing, not photographs). Terms relating to photographs and revisions for these can be found in our 2.17 clause. Upon receiving the final product (main video or reel), if you are still not satisfied, any additional MINOR changes will cost £75 (per revision round). This £75 revision covers our time to re-edit, re-adjust logos, update text, and other non-major adjustments before processing, rendering and exporting.
If you require a major change, full re-edit, or a music change, the cost of re-editing will be applied.
2.19 Music & Audio Licensing - We hold a licensing contract with Epidemic Sound for music. "Commercial" covers as follows: "You're a freelancer or a business creating commercial productions" // "Covered for social media, online platforms and websites" // "Simple clearance for client productions" This license covers you for social media marketing, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and your Website. Please let us know when and where you post it so that we can add it to our subscription whitelist. This will prevent you from getting copyright strikes and/or your account(s) permanently banned.
PLEASE NOTE IMPORTANT: We cannot actively monitor every client we work with and when & where they post the content we've produced for them. Failure to let us know when & where you've posted your content so we can whitelist you, will fall under your responsibility. If your account is permanently banned, we will not accept responsibility for this and you agree to not hold us liable.
Under Epidemic Sound's 'Commercial Subscription Music License' Terms and Conditions, they cover what you are not allowed to do with videos that contain their music. Click Here to view their T&Cs for Commercial Subscription Music Licenses.
If you wish for us to use music/audio which we do not have the rights to use (such as popular songs on spotify, Instagram Reels, TikTok, etc), we can do this, however, the licensing responsibility will be yours if the music/track owner or licensing authority reach out to us regarding a breach by using the music/audio within the specific edit. Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group, its owners, associates, and anyone in relation to the company will not be held responsible for this or for using the music/audio in an edit which has been used upon your request. This will be your responsibility and you agree to exclude us from any court proceedings and/or lawsuits.
2.20 Project Overrunnings (mostly applicable to Construction, Trades, and Long-Term Projects i.e. Retainers) - When starting a project, we will ask for the project timeline/timeframe or (in the case of construction) the build schedule. Our quoted estimate and number of visit(s) will be based on this schedule. In the case that a project overruns, we will need to re-assess the project quote as we will be working for longer than expected. For example: if in year 2022 our rate is X but in 2023 our rate increases by £100, and your project overruns into 2023 when initially it was throughout 2022 only, we will need to reasses our estimated quote and with that potential financial losses incurred.
2.21 Sending/Transferring Content - We do not send across any final content unti 100% of the project balance payment has been completed. This ensures we recieve the full amount due for our works completed, without possibility of sending content without receiving payment due. Failure to complete payment or settle balance on time may result in delays of you receiving said content and results. Where you fail to complete payment on time and delays occur with regard to when you receive your content, you agree not to hold us responsible/or to blame.
2.22 Transferring Large Files (where we have agreed RAW content is to be transferred across) - We have an adhoc office space we use in London on an 'when we need basis' for large-file transfers. Transferring content to you will require some additional costs, which are to be covered by the client. These costs are, but not limited to: travel expenses, hourly rate for our time, the day-booking for the office space, etc.
2.23 Content/Footage Storage - In line with most video production businesses, we do not store content upon completion of the project. It is unreasonable to appoint responsibility, and costs to be incurred, on the video production business to store content forever. Often, project file sizes are upwards of 100GB and these file sizes are highly costly to store. As we believe in providing the best service possible for our clients; usually (but not guaranteed) we will store the files for 1 year on our archive drives before deleting them permanently.
As we keep ownership copyright of all content shot, especially when we are not sharing access to the original RAW files, how can you ensure your content is stored forever/for as long as you need? ---
We offer a few options for this:
(i) Storage drive in-house (our office)
(ii) £5 per/month google drive storage (in-house our office)
(iii) Where we have provided a license for access to RAW content: a harddrive for you to take (and we do not have anything on a guarenteed harddrive in-house in our office) - Client will need to cover costs for a harddrive
(iv) Where we have provided a license for access to RAW content, a harddrive for you to take and a harddrive for us to have all the content stored on in-house (in our office) [this option provides more guarentee and ease if you need us to edit something our end along with you being able to edit bits of content your end]. This option also reduces the risk of accidential deletion.​
2.24 Deleting Confidential Content After Posting - For project confidentiality reasons you may not wish for us to release footage to our social media platforms immediately. Please let us know this information in the notes section below. Failure to do so will mean that we will start releasing content as soon as we are able to. If you notify us after we have posted a piece of content, we can seize all posts from that point onwards however the previous posts may stay up.
Project: *name of project* | Confidentiality: *confidentiality status* (see your own project details for the relevant)
2.25 Transfer Expiry And Costs To Resend Content - Upon completion of your project, we will send you a WeTransfer link to download all the footage and/or devlierables (depending on your project agreement). This link will expire at a baseline after 30 days, though for bigger projects, we aim to change this to 60 or 90 days. Please see below info for your project expiry timeframe. Please note, it is the client's responsibility to download all content within a reasonable timeframe and save the content somewhere external (e.g. a harddrive or directly to the computer) rather than leaving the content in the transfer link/relying on the transfer link to access content. Upon expiry of the download link, the sent content will be gone forever. We will try to remind you if you have not downloaded your content, though this is not guarenteed. It is not always possible to notify clients as we have to manually check for each individual client.
Upon the link expiring, if we have chosen to store the content in our archive drives (as per clause 2.23) and you require the files resending, there will be a charge of £70p/h called our 'Unarchiving Fee' to cover the time required to move the files over to our 'Active Drives' and send the content to you.
For LARGE projects, this will often mean needing to go to our London 'transfer office'. Where this is required, the client will be responsible for the £70p/h Unarchiving Fee, as well as the travel time @ £15p/h, mileage/uber/train fare for travel, as well as the office day rate to re-send files. To avoid these fees, please download and save your content in ample time.
Project: *name of project* | Transfer Expiry Timeframe: *applicable* (see your own project details for the relevant)
2.26 Recording Zoom & Phone Calls - Please note when working with us that we record all zoom & phone calls for quality customer service, experience, training, and marketing purposes. This also helps us keep track of briefs, amendment changes, and requests made. By working with us you agree to the recording and publishing of calls with, but not limited to, yourself, your business, any associated members, employees, other collaborators of the project(s), and/or anyone else when on a call/zoom with us.​
2.27 Confirmation in Writing - Please note, we only confirm services, changes to project briefs, additional deliverables, discounts and price reductions, as well as any and all other major affects to our services and your project brief, via writing in an email. Where zoom and phone calls are recorded, records of these discussions and/or promises (ie promise for a price reduction or additional deliverables, kit, team members attending, pricing, etc) will be held by us, which we can refer back to. Including but not limited to promises, discussions, brief, deliverables, kit, and price reductions, made over the phone/zoom where not recorded or where not put forward in confirmed and evidenced writing, are not valid. Please ensure if something has been said or agreed by you or to you, if not done by us, that you follow this in an email in writing to confirm its validility. Avatar Drones its owners, directors, associates and anyone else involved with the business cannot be responsible for 'things that were said', nor 'agree to XYZ' with no record of these discussions or promises, made. ​
2.28 By Paying Your Invoice(s) - By paying your invoice(s) you agree to all these Terms & Conditions (which are linked at the bottom of all of our invoices via the link: https://avatardrones.co.uk/terms-conditions). It is the client's responsibility to familiarise themselves with all of our terms and conditions prior (and post) to working with us and we cannot bear responsibility if you do not read these terms but which agree to them by paying your invoice. This is a legally binding acceptance.
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Final Note - We pride ourselves on being client focused and will do our best to accommodate your wishes providing they do not contravene the Drone Code (for the drone), aviation laws (for the drone), privacy or general health and safety regulations.
Any additional comments and notes regarding the project by client i.e. what footage will be used for, marketing schedule, whether footage can be posted immediately or kept confidential until a certain date, etc to be put forward in writing in an email to: enquiries@avatarmediagroup.co.uk - along with any specific shots you require to be captured.
We look forward to working with you on this project or upon your next one!
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Regards,
Robert Siddle
Managing Director at Avatar Drones // Avatar Media Group
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