Posted by doc on 06/18/06 06:31

i would argue the 1hr/min of video as we have shot, digitized, edited, and
produced 1,000's of hours of footage and log every minute of our operation
as a producer and our experience is a ratio of a high of 25/1 that is 25
mins shooting, digitizing, editing, and production output per min of
finished video and mind you this is the high, our typical production is a
ratio of 18 to 1 (18 mins to 1 min of finished video)

OTOH you might be using a Mac with FCP and of course those long rendering
times and crashes would account for your 60:1. could be. :o)

drd


""R&B"" <NoneOfYourBusiness@All.com> wrote in message
news:3t-dnW9gh_Kka9_ZnZ2dnUVZ_uWdnZ2d@giganews.com...
> "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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