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Posted by R&B on 04/17/06 01:58
"Krazy Kanuck" <limbery@removethisaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:4437dd4f$1@news.accesscomm.ca...
> Hi I'm offering to cover a dance show (which I had done a couple of years
> ago) and I'm wondering what to charge that would be
> reasonable....previously, I did the show for $150 and edited, and produced
> burnt DVDs that I charged an additional $10 for including the cases,
> lables, and inserts.....
> This time, I offered to do either
> 1. taping and editing and doing the DVDs for $200 plus $15 for each DVD
> (they sell between 25 and 50 copies)
> or
> 2. $500 for taping and editing and producing one copy of a burnt DVD and
> they can do all their own copying, and packaging themselves....
>
> ....I thought that the first time, I wasn't making much considering the
> work and I think that since they were very pleased with the job I did that
> time, I wouldn't be out of line raising my prices a bit....(I've also got
> a better camera now, as well as two camera editing capablitities)
> Any comments or other suggestions?
> Len
You are underpricing your services by a huge amount. This is not a "small"
production. Unless, of course, you approach it as a "small" production.
Then, of course, it will have a "small" production look to it. That may be
exactly what the client wants. But...
Figure...pre-production costs: How much time did you spend on-site doing a
site check? Surely you did this. That's an hour, minimum. Any time spent
planning the shots? An hour? More? Did you attend any of the rehearsals
to rehearse your shots, and to check out the best camera angles for the
various different things happening on stage? This should all be included in
your costs that you pass on to the client.
Figure...production costs: How long was the show? 2 hours? If, so you
gotta figure about six hours of production cost. Most pros charge a "day
rate." It should be based on the amount of equipment you're making
available. One camera? Two? Three? Were there other shooters involved?
Their hourly rates should be built into what you charge? What about
lighting? Sound? All of this adds up; you can't just give it away. Factor
in the setup and breakdown time. You don't just wiggle your nose and have
all the cameras, lights and sound equipment magically show up on cue.
Figure...post-production costs: With a 2-hour show, how much time will it
take to edit the thing into usable form? Surely you're not just dubbing the
raw, unedited footage shot from 1, 2 or 3 cameras to tape (or hard drive)
and expecting anyone to want to watch it in its unedited state, so you're
likely going to edit it in some way. If you shot with just one camera, on a
2-hour show, that's at least 2-hours of logging and/or digitizing the
footage (bringing it into your computer). Multiply that time spent
digitizing by the number of cameras you shot with. 2 hours of footage
recorded on each of 3 cameras will take a minumum of six hours to log and/or
digitize. How long to edit? The rule of thumb (not an exact science, mind
you) is to figure about an hour of editing time per finished minute of video
if you're doing your job properly. Any schmuck can leave shots on the
screen for 30-seconds or a minute at a time, but if you're actually editing
this into a form that adheres to modern acceptable editing techniques,
there'll be plenty of edits (fast cuts, never leaving any shot on screen for
more than a few seconds). Are you creating any graphics for use in the
final production? Animating any of those graphics? That stuff takes time.
If the show ends up being 60 minutes in finished, edited form, you may have
spent somewhere in the area of 50-60 hours (give or take) on EDITING
ALONE!!! Maybe more. And finally, there is the step that includes
exporting the final edited sequence and authoring a nice looking DVD,
something that could easily take half a day (or more) once you factor in the
building of graphics for motion menus, etc.
You see where I'm going with this?
This project could easily take a total of 70 or 80 "man hours." Or more.
And you're going to charge $500 for that? Let's assume it takes 75 hours.
You charge $500 for the project. Congratulations, you've just paid yourself
a whopping $6.67 per hour, barely more than the federal minimum wage. Do
you really believe that the skills you bring to a project like this are no
more valuable than that of the guy in the funny paper hat who asks you, "You
want seasoned or curly fries with that?" for a living? Gimme a break.
Look, I hate to come off sounding condescending. I really do. I want you
to be successful. I want us ALL to be successful. But with all the video
producer wannabes (anybody with a camera an video editing software who
thinks they're now equipped to do video production for a living)
short-changing themselves like you're proposing to do, it drives down the
cost of this stuff, and in the process, it hurts everyone in the video
business.
Stop and think about what it is you're doing. If every Tom, Dick and Harry
with a camcorder knew how to do this on their own, they would. But
customers hire people like us to do this stuff because WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE
DOING. There's VALUE in that!!! NEVER FORGET THAT!!! Customers EXPECT to
pay for our expertise. Otherwise, they'd turn to their good ol' Uncle
Charlie to do it for them.
The job you described is a $5,000 job, minimum. I probably wouldn't
consider doing it for less than $7,000. And if they wanted 3 cameras (which
I would strongly urge them to do), it's probably a $10,000 job.
Can they get it done for less than that? Obviously, yes.
Make mine curly fries.
Randy
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