IS there a way....

Green Hornet

Green Hornet

Veteran
I just got a call from a lady who does not seem to know the business.
She wants me to shoot (4) 30 minute segments at $150 each, raw footage.

I would only be at the location(s) 30 minutes total each day.
She wants to do interviews, on the street.
The actual usable footage would be clips about 30 seconds or so in length.

Being as she only needs 30 second clips, is there a way to download the 30 second clips to a memory stick?
That way I can get paid, and transfer to her onsite, to her memory stick.

Is there a cable that can connect from the camera to a memory stick?
 
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I advise you pass on this gig.
Either she pays your day (of half day rate) and camera rental or she doesn't.
 
Part of me wants to pass, part of me thinks that a 30 minute gig for $150 paid same day, could be easy enough if I can offload the footage to her.

If I have to bring it home, and meet up with her a second time for each 30 minute segment, it is a lot of setup for a short gig.

That is why I am thinking that if she can provide an easy way to download to her same day, I might do it.
 
I could almost gaurantee that you would be at the location for more than 30 minutes, especially being that you said she doesn't know the business. Add to that travel time getting there, set up, breakdown and travel home and you have used up at least 1/2 a day. Then, would you be able to get work for the other half of the day? So chances are that you will have used up a day for $150. There are memory sticks that would hold your footage, they're called P2 cards, but I dont think you want to give her them. Unless you take a laptop and edit the footage on the spot to give her the 30 seconds she needs, you will have to do it at home later. Or tell her to bring a FW400 drive with power supply and you can offload to that. Hmmm...all of a sudden it doesn't really sound like an easy $150. Tell her to call a couple of rental houses and ask what they will charge for a camera, tripod, P2 cards for a day. Just for the gear she'd be looking at about 2 to 3 times more than what she wants to pay for you and your gear.
 
Hm,
does she want HD at all?
For 150$ I´d say DV is good enough, just hand her a tape...
If she wants you to edit/encode it - charge your regular fee...
 
I agree to pass on the gig. I've had a bad experience that sounds similar to this.
 
Do the job.

If you would otherwise be @ home in your underwear watching MTV and scratching your private parts, then why not. $300/hour is not a bad rate.

1. You never know what kind of relationship you will gain from helping this woman out.
2. Emphasize the "30 minutes and i'm gone" factor so you can get back home and finish watching MTV
3. Don't be greedy either. $600 bucks for 2 hours of shooting is worthy of you at least taking the footage home and putting it on a Data DVD for her and meeting her at Starbucks to give it to her the next day.

Gee wiz people.
 
^ Seriously, though. That's a no brainer. 600 bucks for 2 hours worth of work is just fine.

Hell, mail it to her so you don't have to leave the house again, or make her come to you if you're worried about that.

To say "pay my day rate or leave" when you've got nothing lined up tells me that you don't want money. ( To those suggesting such an idea. )
 
Yep. You could always get a contract. And in that contract state the rate for anything beyond the agreed upon time. And get in writing what the rate includes. i.e. 150 bucks for 30 minutes of shooting, having to go home to offload, and meet again for delivery. I often hear on this site minimun 50 bucks for self and 50 bucks for equipment hourly rate. If that is an accepted minimum, you are doing better than that in 30 minutes. You go home have a sandwich and transfer the clips.
Just get it in writing.

Jason
 
I'm surprized some of you would advise him to pass on this gig. This is the type of work I would jump at if I was in this for the money.
 
We advise him to pass because it just cheapens the entire video industry. You've got a $6,000 camera, plus all the relevant support equipment, maybe a $10,000 investment total -- and your skills as a shooter, etc... you shouldn't be pulling that gear out of the box for under $900/day.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is: cheap clients are the worst clients. They begrudge you every penny they give you. They have no idea that what they're asking for amounts to taking extreme advantage of you, and they think they're paying a fortune. By catering to this cheap client you devalue those of us who do this for a living, who are professionals and who expect professional compensation.

Tell this individual that your day rate is $900/day. That because it's such a short gig you're willing to charge a half-day rate of $550/day.
 
Great! so Barry agrees you should do the job, although Barry would even do it for much less since $900/day on a standard 10-hour day equates to only $90/hour. In most cases that would be a 12-hour day @ only $75/hour

However, she is offering you $300/hour....so you should be fine!

*shrugs* what's the rocket science here? *smile*

Even if it took you 4-days to do all 4 spots, so what. C'mon people, do the math. if you're only there for 30-minutes or even a full HOUR, she's still offering you DOUBLE what Barry said he would charge her.

And again, if you're not busy...what's the harm?

I personally think it's unethical to charge someone a 1/2 day for only 30 minutes of work. ESPECIALLY to a lady who doesn't seem to know the business and is offering you $300/hour for your time..............but that's just me.
 
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sigh......
that 300 dollars an hour will "POOF" once she realizes it will be more than 30 minutes total time.

anyone else ever hear the famous "How much does a commercial costs? It's only 30 seconds long?!?".

Your right, it's not rocket science. She'll agree to a day rate or she won't. That simple.

PS. don't assume what others will work for. Some of us range anywhere from 400 to 2K a day depending on project.
 
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Shannon, you are joking, right? Have you done a job like this? There's no possible way it'll take 30 minutes. And $300 for your "time"? What about your gear? Let's put it this way: what if you didn't own that $10,000 of gear and had to rent it -- what would that cost you? Are you going to go into a rental facility and say "I know you charge $400/day for this stuff, but I only need it for 30 minutes, so can I give you like $30 and we'll call it even?" That won't get you very far, guaranteed.

But, whatever. Feel free to run your business any way you want. I'll stick with esperman and others. I've been doing this a long time, I've seen "deals" like this before, and they always turn out the same way. Maybe this time will be different, but I've done it enough to have some pretty good instincts on how these things go.
 
So, Barry... You are saying that rather than have to risk potential hassle or underhanded tactics that may have one ending up making 150 bucks for a 6 or 10 hour day or whatever... that one should just have a full day and a half day rate, and charge that. Period. Right?

Jason
 
Nothing wrong charging a half day rate for labor, as long as you don't cancel on your client when another full day gig drops on you. As for renting gear you MAY need, there are no half day charges. It really all depends on your situation.

Please keep in mind most freelancers go a long time before payment on most jobs. And when you figure your insurance and taxes....it costs alot to be in business for yourself. And most people need to pay off their gear too LOL.
 
Here we go with the scenarios. Let's talk about what "is", not what could be.

If Green Hornet sticks to the agreement, he'll be fine. If she breaches the agreement, he can walk. *shrugs* What the big deal?
But to to toally deny the job in advance because of bad past experiences that "OTHERS" have had (not him), is about as retarded as never voting again because my last President was an idiot. *smile*
Good or Bad, we should 'learn' from our past experiences, not abandon them.

So let's see.....Hmmmmmm, it's just a talking-heads interview on the public street right? She only want's to actually use 30 seconds of each interview, right?

LOL

Yes....I would do the job, and I encourage anybody who has an extra 2 hours on their hands to do it as well. Heck, I've been farting around on the web for the last two hours on DVXUSER.COM!!! What did I get for it? Psssshhhh $600 bucks is a new P2 card!

So why should Green Hornet (or anybody else) sit around chatting on the internet all day while their brand new HVX200 is doing nothing, when they can go out & get some sunshine, add a credit to their resume', become more proficient with operating their camera AND ALSO make a "VERY" quick $600 bucks in 2 hours while ding it?

I vote "YAY". Do the job Green Hornet. If it's a wash.....let us know. If it's a success......let us know.

I'm sure I'll be here for another 2 hours. *smile*
 
Well, a "half day" is kind of bogus anyway. If you accept work on a "half day" basis, it's not like you can schedule two "half day" jobs to get a full day out of it! And as esperman says, you don't go cancelling on someone because you got a better offer somewhere else (unless, if you have to, you supply to your existing client a replacement shooter who's as good as you are and is willing to take the job off your hands!)

Things cost what they cost, and what they should cost. I don't go to the car dealer and say "look, you got that car just sitting there doing nothing, I'll give you $40 bucks for it, that's better than nothing right?" That just isn't what's done. If you want to be a bottom-feeder sucking up the little scraps of time for pennies here and there then I guess somebody's gotta do that, but if you want to be a professional and be viewed as one, you have to act like one and be expected to be treated like one.

Shooter's rates usually hover around $300 to $600 per day depending on where you are, what the prevailing market conditions are, etc. Then there's camera rental on top of that. Even a DVX or PD150 would probably still command $150/day, and I haven't brought the HVX out of its case for under $400/day.

There are businesses that do video by the hour, I've never met someone who does less than a 3-hour minimum but I imagine they're probably out there. If you want to charge $100/hour and a 3-hour minimum, show up and wave the camera around and fork over a tape, well, that's a different type of business but I imagine you could make it viable. That's a yellow-pages type of business, not really an HVX type of job, more of an AG-456 type of job, but with the three-hour minimum you could probably make it work.
 
Well, Shannon, you can make every mistake yourself, or you can learn from others' mistakes. One way's expensive and painful, the other way can get you way ahead quickly. If that's "retarded" to you, then I don't think we're gonna see eye to eye on this.

Good luck to you whichever way you decide to go, Green Hornet!
 
I think it's always easier for someone that get jobs on a regular basis to say "don't do it", but if someone is starting out, not saying that's Green Hornet' case, or had a couple of bad month, $600 for 2 hours might just help pay the rent or the credit card bill for that month. Most people in L.A are willing to work for free on shorts or Music Videos... I think Green Hornet should do the job if he has nothing else to do, who knows. He might also want to let this woman know that this is unusual but that he is willing to do it to hopefully start a working relationship with that woman business.
 
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