The change undoes an earlier approved change
Show them both change orders side by side and ask which one they want. Nine times out of ten the second request evaporates on its own.
Pro edition
Change Order.
The demo shows what a change costs at each stage. This is the instrument that turns that into a decision somebody makes — 7 fields, filled in when the request arrives and signed before anything moves. The point is not the paperwork. It is that “just a tweak” stops being a sentence in an email.
The form
| Field | What goes in it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Project stage | One of the six, named | Everything else on this page is priced off it. Writing it down first stops the conversation starting at "how long will it take". |
| The request, verbatim | Copy and paste it | Paraphrasing a change request is how two people end up agreeing to different things. Quote the email. |
| What it touches | Shots, layers, assets | Usually more than the request implies. This line is where "move it eight frames" becomes "and the four shots downstream". |
| Direct hours | The change itself | The number people expect, and usually the smaller half. |
| Knock-on hours | Re-render, re-version, QC | The other half, and the one that surprises. At delivery stage it is bigger than the change. |
| New delivery date | A date, not "a bit later" | A change that does not move a date is a change somebody is absorbing unpaid, and it is almost always the same somebody. |
| Approved by | A name and a date | The entire purpose of the document. Not a formality — a decision with an owner. |
Worked, at animation stage
“Move the logo reveal eight frames later, and make the type a sans instead of the serif.”
- The reveal shot 3 h · direct
- Four shots timed against it 6 h · direct
- Kinetic type, re-flowed 7 h · direct
- Sound design re-sync 2 h · knock-on
- Re-render, all ratios 1 h · knock-on
- Re-version and QC 1 h · knock-on
16 h direct · 4 h knock-on · 20 h total
Sixteen direct hours and four knock-on. At delivery stage the same request splits the other way — twenty direct and twenty-eight knock-on — which is the whole argument for filling this in before the render rather than after it.
When to send it back instead
The request is a symptom, not a fix
"Make it pop" is not a change order. Send it back with a question about what is wrong with the read, and price the answer instead.
It arrives from somebody who is not the approver
Not a refusal, a routing problem. Forward it to the named approver rather than acting on it, or you will end up with two clients.
The cost exceeds what the change is worth
Say so plainly and in their interest. "This is twenty hours to fix something almost nobody will notice" is the most trust I have ever bought for free.
Five lines that belong upstream of this
A change order cannot rescue a contract that never named a picture-lock date.
| Term | Spec | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Rounds included | Two, at named stages | Rounds are attached to stages, not to a count. "Two rounds" with no stage attached means two rounds at render, which is the expensive end. |
| Picture lock | A date, agreed at brief | The single most useful line in a motion contract. Everything on the curve depends on there being a moment the timing stops changing. |
| Change rate | The day rate, prorated | Not a penalty rate. Charging a premium for changes makes clients hide them until they are worse. |
| Absorbed changes | Under two hours, once | Small and generous, and stated, so goodwill is a policy rather than a thing that quietly erodes. |
| Project files | Delivered, labelled | A client who can open the file has leverage, which is correct and worth being relaxed about. |
6 ways a project runs over
- A change absorbed silently, then another, and by week six nobody can say why the project is 40% over.
- "Two rounds included" with no stage attached, so both rounds land after render.
- The request paraphrased instead of quoted, and two people agreeing to different things.
- Knock-on hours left off the estimate, so the number quoted is roughly half the number spent.
- No named approver, so the change comes from whoever emailed last.
- No picture lock date, which means every stage stays open and the curve never stops climbing.
Hour figures are one designer's estimates on brand and explainer work at 24fps. Broadcast and long-form pipelines have more stages and steeper knock-on costs, not fewer.