It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll make any money off of this, but if that happy thing was to happen, wouldn’t it suck if people felt like they didn’t get their fair share? I know that I would feel like shit. This is why I want to make this as transparent and accountable as possible.
As I proposed in this post, and there seemed to be general agreement on, one way to fairly divide our wads of hypothetical money is by logging our hours. So, this being the day of new resolutions, I’d like to encourage people to develop it as a habit that they eventually don’t have to think about. Personally, I’ve been using this dashboard applet for my Linux system and there seem to be various apps to do it with Mac and PC, including this Java crossplatform one (anyone else got a favourite?). But naturally pencil and paper is fine too, whatever works for you. I’ll be asking people for their hours right before we shoot, after we shoot, and after the project’s over.
Many of the people involved have done this to invoice clients, so it shouldn’t be that tough. However, unlike invoicing clients who are reselling your work at a profit, I’d ask people to consider that padding or guesstimating the time you’ve spent is either taking (hypothetical) money away from people that are being accurate, or underestimating the time spent and ripping yourself off.
Anyway: if you have concerns or questions, now is the time to voice them. We’ll work it out. Otherwise, I’ll assume you’re logging your hours!
So, odds are good we will have the same budget that we had on Infest Wisely — $0 — and personally, I think this makes things simpler than having to decide who gets a tiny bit of money, and who gets none. What I want to talk about is the small, but present, possibility we are able to sell this after it’s made. How will we divide any profit fairly on a project where some people will be contributing an hour, and others hundreds of hours?