in need of pricing advice

R

raw911

Active member
i was asked to shoot and edit a instructional dvd ... basically a talking head with some text inserts at times ..... supposedly about 1hr in length ... im in need of advice and sugestions on what the going price scale is for this type of work .... ive only been involved in wedding dvd's which were part of package and editing sunday services for church broadcast ... so this would be a new venture for me and something to add to my portofolio ... any and all suggestions are welcome ...a llil background im in the nj/pa area and use FCP and would shoot with HVX200 ... have been editing and shooting video / photography for a long while now ...

thanks in advance
 
This type of question has been asked quite often. I was looking for an answer myself a while back and did a search of this forum. You'll find several threads regarding this subject.

One of the answers I adopted was to determine your hourly "rate" and use that to calculate the cost of the project.

The author used the following rates:
pre/post production meetings $25/hr
shooting $80/hr
post/editing $60/hr

I've adopted these rates and have had no problems with clients balking at the project cost. If you are also producing copies for the client for distribution, don't forget to charge for material costs.
 
Okay that is a hard question but do this in this order.
1. Ask them what is there budget.
2. Ask them have they contacted any other companies to do this job and got any written quotes.
3. Ask yourself if you are doing this as a friend or a owner of a business that is trying to make a profit.
4. If you don't need the money charge them double what you think it should cost and give them a 10%-15% discount for allowing you to shoot and edit.
5. DO A GOOD JOB!!! you already have the skill to edit so if need be take it to be color corrected, audio sweetened, etc..

So I would figure like this
Shoot with HVX200 for a 1 day shoot = $800-$1200 in your region. Includes rental
Edit for 3 days at around $40/hr = roughly $1000
Then you double that as your quote = roughly $4000 minus 10% equals $3600.
So I would quote $3600. :)
They might say you are crazy they might yell so I would call up some companies that I know would be more expensive and and show them there quotes. Don't give them copies of the quote unless they ask hard. If they still ***** show them some examples of training videos that they like and let them know that the company paid more than $3600 to get that quality so if you want to pay $1000 what quality will you get. It is really all the sales pitch followed by actually doing a good job!
If they talk you down to $3000 guess what you are over your bottom quote. See how that works. :)
I hope this helps buddy.
 
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