Who's already paid for their HVX with HVX work?

Barry, No surprise to hear your response! You have given so many of us so much help with the HVX over the past year...Thanks mate!

Can we get some more $$$ figures? This is getting interesting!

:dankk2:
 
wow! thanks for the info everyone and yes please keep them coming!!

I second benandaim, thank you Barry for all your inputs. Mucho gracias :)
 
I think weddings in 24p mini DV can earn some good bucks, I have 3 booked for next month at $1300 a pop, Providing u know this cam pretty well u can produce such great images! I am only a beginner and already the rewards are starting to come. Good Luck :beer:
 
mjjason said:
For those starting out what are the best avenues for seeking out and securing work?
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Quit buying gear, don't buy gear and invest your time and money into marketing and selling your services. Your job is to build your business, not to be a producer, director, camera operator whatever, if you build your business and treat it like a business then you'll get to do what you love; whatever that is. i.e. producer, director, camera operator....

You can always rent or borrow gear but you can never rent or borrow a customer !

Once again, repeat after me:

You can always rent or borrow gear but you can never rent or borrow a customer !

Do this:

Make 20 calls a day every day for three months to gather information about companies or individuals who you think might use your services, skills or products.

NOT SALES CALLS ! Just a call to find out who they are what they do and if they use XYZ services. Don't talk about you unless they ask about you. How do you feel when you pick up the phone and someone starts selling or telling you right off the bat? It does not work. But, people love to tell you what they do. Listen to them and usually their dime will run out and they'll say "Well, what do you do?". If you listened, you'll tell them what you do and how it BENEFITS THEM. They do not care what camera you have all they care about is what YOU can do for THEM to help them achieve their goals.

We use the Suspect, Prospect, Client analogy.

You might Suspect someone could be a client but until you call them you don't know. They may say, yes we use video all the time but the guy is way over priced he charges us $500 for a commercial or whatever. Well, guess what...they're not a qualified client are they... they don't value the service. So they're off the list. That is a successful call for you because you know not to bother with them.

They may say Yes, we use Barry Green and we love his work. Well, you know Barry isn't doing it for free and they likely have seen and know good quality work. They are a qualified prospect. You never know when Barry might be busy or decide to write a book on widgets. You mail and keep in touch with Prospects on a regular basis. It's taken me 6-8 years for some clients to finally call. Then they become a client.

Make 20 calls a day for three months and send your business card to the ones that respond and drop them a postcard every 3-6 weeks.

In three months you'll know your market, your potential clients, who your competitors are and you'll be on your way with the foundation for a successfull business. You'll still keep making those calls but now most of them will be follow up calls on potential jobs they told you about.

At the end of a year of doing this you'll have plenty of work but you'll keep doing the calls or hire someone to do them for you. Marketing and sales can never stop when you own a business. McDonalds, Coke, Sony, Panasonic all big companies with worldwide name recognition still have to do it and so do we.

Now, at the end of that year instead of twenty information gathering calls a day you'll make ten info gathering, ten follow ups and two client calls to say hi and or thanks to your customers.

This applies and works whether you're wanting to shoot for large companies like Disney like we do, or if you just want to get started in production carrying sandbags as a PA. If you're a PA you're running PA business, if you're a shooter or producer that is the business you are running and you have to find, qualify and keep in touch with your prospects and clients.

This system works if you work it. It's kept our little company in business for 28 years working for some of the largest clients and projects on the planet and some small ones too.

You now have the answer, it's up to you to make it happen.

Best of luck to you!

Robert Starling
Starling Productions, Inc.
Las Vegas, Nevada
 
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Robert, that is a fantastic post and much appreciated. Very sound advice there that I will putting to much good use.
 
benandaim said:
It's Aussie dollars numbnuts! (just kidding) :beer:

I'm getting about $100 per/hour (includes editing time at the moment)
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All right mate, put some shrimp on the barbie and open some tinnies, I'll invite some sheila's over for later :)
 
robstar1 said:
Once again, repeat after me:

You can always rent or borrow gear but you can never rent or borrow a customer !

Do this:

Make 20 calls a day every day for three months to gather information about companies or individuals who you think might use your services, skills or products.

NOT SALES CALLS ! Just a call to find out who they are what they do and if they use XYZ services.
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Amen to that!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

I'm out here in the boondocks of Southern Oregon, and for all you new guys out there Mr. Starling is so right on, you need to get the above tatood to your asses, because it hasn't been said any better. We're living proof of that here.

We started our company 11 months ago off of a 20 minute fishing short on an Sony A1u an imac g5 and Final Cut Express.

Obviously we went to HVX/FCP/MacIntel when comitted. In our first 11 months I calculate we brought in enough money from corporate jobs to produce our fishing series completely independent. We've also established ourselves as the premiere production outfit in our region.

A lot of it was the HVX, but even more of it has been the very things Starling is talking about here.

Had we not devoted time to our fishing series and made the 20 calls instead of our 5 to 10, we would have easily hit the $100k mark this year alone easily. And that's out here in the land of Dueling Banjos!

Because of our location, my past production experience and our production priorities we did buy extra gear but it was specific.

Oh, and YES, we have definitely paid off our HVX200..... :beer:

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I had a huge blessing with my HVX-202. Barry did a launch in Sydney at a hotel near me and somehow I managed to hear about it and get along. At the time I had made a few low budget music clips and was using a Panasonic GS-400.

Barry did such a great job that night at explaining the camera. I took the plunge a couple of months later and bought a HVX. It was a huge financial stretch for me which I labored over but one week after the purchase I scored a music clip with a budget and it was paid off.
 
More than "paid off" on first 3 days SD/DV project.

(Progressing on the HD part, where Barry book & DVD are unique ressources to learn.)
 
Paid off and enough in D Bank for a down payment for the AJ HPX2000.
Other ways I keep my name out there for the public to know me is.
Donating my service for small productions Last year I worked with
Benny Parson, NBC NasCar announcer and Jr Johnson the living legend NasCar Driver/Owner/Bootleger. A water safety video for the Army Corps Of Engineers
2 30 sec spots, They also use it at Civic clubs, and my name in there at the end . "Donated by Pumpkin Creek Video. Most of the people that see this need video

There were 2 other projects that I donated.

This year I shot footage for a project for our Art Gallery and have started the edit. Another project is for the local Habatat for Humanity. and this has opened the doors for projects for Lowe's on 5 productions comming up this year.
This Community has been good to me, so this my way of giving back.

Cecil B. deMule
 
got my first hvx in feb. 06', paid off by april. bought the second one at the end of may and paid off by august.
about 85% of my work comes from commercials.
 
Camera cost me 53000 NOK (Norwegian Kroner) (6,5 NOK = 1 AM$)

So far I've used it for:

3 concert vids (17000 NOK)
1 wedding (did for free)
1 giant promo for my hometown (25000 NOK)
6 student films (rented it out for 8000 NOK)

But I get new offers all the time now. For people setting up a business, I recommend "The Independent Video Producer" by Bob Jacobs. It's the only one specific for our genre, and a bit outdated, but it contains LOTs of tips.

My personal tip is also: if you can do a cheap-ass production for poor folks, do it anyway. At each of my jobs, I've met 2 new interests. So not only money counts, also contacts.

good luck!
 
You guys see what I mean about Starling? :thumbsup:

Excellent post, Robert. I'm tempted to make it a "sticky" in the "Business/Jobs" section, but I want it to come from you, so if you would copy it and then go there and make a new thread on marketing your services, I'll "sticky" it!

Thanks again, and thanks to everyone who's sharing their experiences here!
 
Got mine paid of in my first ever job, so that was a nice start, now after half a year I can say I got it more then 3 times paid of and still more to come! Love the camera and the workflow...
 
Rob... That's some good advice for sure. I did this very thing in a round about way about 2 years ago here in Orlando when I had to coordinate an HD shoot. Within 1 week, I knew who was shooting HD.. their rates.. and their clients and type of work. Through doing one HD shoot and letting others know that I could handle it.. I ended up getting a few more to go along with my SD stuff. Then when the HVX was announced I eagerly awaited a year to buy it. Renting the Varicam was great but at 1500 per day plus operator so many projects just died right there unless they were well financed. So these calls and this venture directly lead to me getting out there as an HD guy which has further commenced with the HVX.

Now I just think it's about thinking of ancilliary markets like the Venice Project and others. There's money to be made on them there small screens too.
 
Our HVX is paid for. We always charge a seperate rental rate and labor rate.
 
Make Robert's a sticky!

Make Robert's a sticky!

Great post Robert. Everyone should take his advice to heart. I've been lusting after an HVX200 since it came out, but couldn't afford the intial expense. Focusing on my business, I landed an HD gig and was able to pick up an HVX200 two weeks ago, only after I had secured the well paying work.

I'm still waiting to receive Barry's book, but this site has been invaluable source of information!
 
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