Your Freelancer Missed Another Deadline. We Don't.

The economics are clear. An in-house editor in New York costs $75,000-$120,000 per year plus benefits, equipment, and software licenses. A senior colorist is $90,000-$140,000. A VFX compositor with After Effects and Cinema 4D skills is $85,000-$130,000. You do not have enough post work to keep any of them busy 40 hours a week, so you hire freelancers. And freelancers, by nature, have other clients whose deadlines matter just as much as yours. Here is what typically goes wrong: Quality inconsistency. Freelancer A delivers a beautifully graded commercial. Freelancer B, hired for the next project with the same client, delivers footage that looks like it was graded on a different planet. The client notices. You look bad. Communication gaps. You send a brief with 12 revision notes. The freelancer addresses 7, ignores 3, and introduces 2 new problems. Now you are spending 45 minutes on a call walking them through changes that should have taken 10 minutes in a written brief. Deadline volatility. Your client's campaign launches Monday. The freelancer promises delivery by Thursday. Thursday evening they ask for an extension. Friday morning they stop responding. You have been here before. Capacity ceilings. Your agency lands three campaigns in the same week. Your go-to freelancer can handle one. You scramble to find two more, onboard them, brief them, and pray the quality holds. It usually does not.

We work on service-level agreements, not good intentions. Standard SLA for agency partners: Editing turnaround: 5-7 business days for a 60-90 second commercial, 7-10 business days for a 3-5 minute brand film. Color grading: 3-5 business days. VFX compositing: scoped per project based on complexity. Rush SLA: 48-hour turnaround available at 1.5x standard rate. 24-hour turnaround at 2x for existing partners. Rush capacity is reserved for SLA clients — we do not sacrifice your deadline for a one-off project from someone else. Penalty clause: if we miss a confirmed deadline without a valid reason (client-caused delay, footage delivered late, scope change after approval), the project is discounted by 15%. This is in our standard agency contract. We have triggered this penalty exactly twice in our history — both times due to force majeure events. Our delivery record matters more to us than the margin on any single project.

Every deliverable leaves our studio with your agency's branding. Project files, review links, communication with your team — all under your name. Your client never sees BLKRIP. We adapt to your naming conventions, folder structures, and file delivery specs. If your agency standard is "ClientName_ProjectName_Deliverable_v01_ProRes422HQ.mov," that is exactly what we deliver. If you need files uploaded to your Frame.io workspace, your Google Drive, or your Asana project — we integrate into your workflow, not the other way around. Watermarks, end cards, lower thirds, and graphics use your templates or your client's brand guidelines. We work from your style guide and brand kit. If you don't have one formalized, we will help you build one that keeps every deliverable consistent across projects.

Every agency project includes 3 revision rounds. Each round works like this: You receive a Frame.io review link with timecoded playback. Your team (and your client, if you choose) leaves comments directly on the timeline at the exact frame. Each comment can include text, annotations, and file attachments (reference images, revised logos). We address every comment, mark it resolved, and upload the next version. Version comparison: Frame.io's side-by-side player lets you compare v1 against v2 at the same timestamp, so you can verify that the change was made correctly without scrubbing through both versions independently. Revision scope: Each round covers the full deliverable. We do not nickel-and-dime revision counts by counting individual comments — a round is one complete feedback cycle. If you need 4 notes addressed or 14, it's one round. Additional rounds beyond the included 3 are billed at $150/hour. In practice, 85% of agency projects are approved within 2 rounds when the brief is clear. The 15% that go to round 3 or beyond are almost always projects where the client's own creative direction changed mid-production — not a quality issue on our end.

Standard agency partnership includes a mutual NDA covering all project materials, client information, campaign strategies, unreleased products, and creative concepts. We have signed NDAs with agencies handling Fortune 500 campaigns — we understand the stakes. File transfer: encrypted Google Drive links with access expiration, or your preferred enterprise file transfer platform (Aspera, MASV, Signiant). We never use consumer-grade file sharing for agency work. Project storage: files are retained for 90 days after final delivery, then permanently deleted unless you specify a longer retention period. Extended archival storage is available at $50/month per 500 GB. Team access: only the specific artists assigned to your project have access to your files. Our project management system restricts visibility to active team members. No freelancer pool with shared access — every person who sees your footage is a named, contracted team member under the same NDA.

Per-project pricing: Editing from $400 for a 60-second commercial. Color grading from $150/minute. VFX scoped per shot (simple compositing from $200/shot, complex rotoscoping and particle work from $500/shot). Full post-production for a 60-second commercial typically runs $1,200-$3,000 depending on VFX complexity. Monthly retainer: Reserved capacity for agencies with ongoing post needs. $3,000-$8,000/month depending on volume and complexity. Retainer includes priority scheduling, guaranteed turnaround (no rush surcharges for standard deadlines), and a dedicated project manager who learns your brand and preferences over time. Agency markup: we support whatever margin model your agency uses. Our invoices can be structured as white-label line items, or we can provide a rate card that allows your standard 30-50% markup to the end client. We don't compete with your pricing — we enable it.