Subcontracting is one of the most powerful tools available to a production company, and one of the most misunderstood. Done well, it extends your capacity, brings in specialized talent, and allows you to take on projects that would be impossible solo. Done poorly, it risks your reputation, your client relationships, and your creative standards.
At Biricik Media Productions, our subcontractor network is one of our most valuable business assets. It has been built over 17 years through careful vetting, test projects, and relationship investment. Here is how we approach it.
The Three Triggers for Subcontracting
We subcontract in three distinct scenarios, and the management approach differs for each:
- Specialized skills. When a project requires expertise outside our core — aerial cinematography, complex motion graphics, specialized audio engineering — we bring in specialists. These subcontractors are selected for their specific expertise and given creative latitude within our project framework.
- Capacity overflow. When demand exceeds our internal capacity, we bring in crew who can execute within our established workflows. These subcontractors follow our processes and systems, extending our bandwidth without changing our approach.
- Geographic reach. When a project is in a location where traveling our full crew is impractical, we engage local crew with remote creative direction. This requires the most preparation and the clearest briefs.
Finding and Vetting Contractors
I never hire a contractor for a client project without first working with them on something lower-stakes. This might be a personal project, a test shoot, or a small paid assignment. The goal is to evaluate three things: technical competence, reliability, and communication style.
Technical competence is the baseline. What separates good contractors from great ones is reliability and communication. A contractor who delivers 8/10 work on time, every time, with clear communication throughout, is more valuable than one who delivers 10/10 work unpredictably with silence between milestones.
Talent is common. Reliability is rare. Hire for reliability. Train for the rest.
The Subcontractor Brief
Every subcontracted assignment at Biricik Media comes with a detailed brief that includes: project context (who is the client, what is the goal), specific deliverables with technical specifications, reference materials (style references, previous work in the same brand), timeline with intermediate checkpoints, and contact information for questions.
This brief takes time to prepare, and that time is non-negotiable. An incomplete brief creates confusion, rework, and quality inconsistencies that cost more to fix than the brief costs to write.
Maintaining Quality Control
Subcontracting does not mean abdicating creative control. At Biricik Media, every subcontracted deliverable goes through the same review process as internal work before it reaches the client. This includes:
- An intermediate checkpoint midway through the assignment
- Full review of the deliverable before client presentation
- Revision requests that go through us, not directly to the subcontractor from the client
The client should never know that a subcontractor was involved unless you choose to disclose it. The quality, communication, and experience should be indistinguishable from fully internal work.
The Business Relationship
Pay your subcontractors promptly, fairly, and respectfully. They are extensions of your business, and how you treat them determines whether they will be available when you need them next. Our standard is Net 15 for subcontractor invoices — faster than our client payment terms — because the people who do the work should not wait the longest to be paid.
A strong subcontractor network is a competitive advantage that takes years to build. Invest in those relationships the way you invest in client relationships. For more on building production capacity, see our scaling guide or visit cemhanbiricik.com.