Kill fee · Video
Kill fee in video: what is normal
Video kill fees sit at the upper end of the standard range because pre-production spend is real: 25-50% before shoot day, 75-100% after.
Typical range
25-50% due on cancellation before shoot day, toward the higher end because pre-production is real work; 75-100% once footage has been captured or the edit is underway.
Off-market
A flat "20% cancellation fee at any stage" clause, which underpays the freelancer when a project is cancelled after the shoot but overpays when nothing has happened yet.
One-line fix
Tie the tiers to project phases the contract already names: pre-production, shoot day, first cut, delivery. Each phase locks in a higher percentage.
What we see
Video and motion projects carry sunk costs earlier than most creative disciplines. Crew is booked, locations are held, gear is rented, calendars are cleared. A cancellation the day before a shoot is materially different from a cancellation the day after a contract signs, and a tiered kill fee is the mechanism that reflects that.
The common mistake in client-drafted video contracts is a single flat cancellation percentage that ignores the shape of the work. That structure protects the freelancer badly at the front, and worse at the back: a shoot day that happened cannot be un-happened, and 20% of the fee will not cover the crew invoice, let alone the freelancer's own day.
Anchoring kill-fee tiers to phases the contract already defines (pre-production, shoot day, offline edit, online edit, final delivery) makes the clause hard to argue with. Each phase corresponds to real spend and real time. The client cannot dispute a shoot day happened.
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