Help me decide what to charge for low-budget music videos??

Ferret Lady

Ferret Lady

Well-known member
Hi there. I've just started a music video production company called Get Famous Productions.

My idea for this company is to target local bands (i'm in vancouver, bc) who can't afford an expensive music video, but could really benefit from a video for their websites, myspace, youtube, facebook, etc. I think I could do really well because there's more bands out there that don't have money than those who do. So it's really important that I keep my rates lower than all the rest.

At the same time, I need to make money. I was hoping you guys could help me come up with with some reasonable rates. I just got my website up so it's important that I make this decision fast.

The most common thing I think we'll be doing is filming live concerts at clubs downtown, and then syncing the footage to a recorded studio track. I need one rate for how much to film them, and another rate per video I edit.

We usually will be doing a 3 camera shoot; we have a canon xha1, dvx100 and hvx200. i figure the value of these cameras alone (if you think of renting them) is around $600. then there's the labour. I have to pay the two camera guys, but i'm one of the three. most shows are 45 minutes, but we get there at least an hour early to get ready. sometimes we're there 2 hours ahead of time so we can get our **** together before the club starts letting in people. so let's say 3 hours on average. i guess it's fair to pay my guys $50 an hour, (i think?), so if i pay them $150 each, that's $300... so now we're at $900.. then there's tapes, wear and tear of the camera, etc..oh and also a sound engineer to record live sound in case they do anything acoustic/solo or need the crowd noise etc.. not sure what to pay my sound guy.. could use help with that too.. maybe $100??? so i was THINKING it would be good to charge $1000 for fliming the event.

the band then has the option of me just handing over all the footage, or getting me to also edit the videos. if i edit videos, i'd like to have a per video rate. i think on average, if the band isnt too picky, i could edit a music video in about 20 hours. if i charged $20 an hour, that would be $400 per video. but $20 is extremely low.. but i'm also new in the business. so i dunno about this one, its tough to decide. if i charged like $600 per video i'd be getting $30 an hour which is more fair to me i think.

so. i dunno. what do you think about $1000 for filming, and $600 per video I edit?

oh, and yes, i did call around to other companies in my area to see what they would charge. their prices range from $3,000-$10,000..

here's my website

http://www.getfamousproductions.com

thanks for your help guys,

Alison
 
I think poor bands are going to want more than video of their live performances for $1600.

Bands with no money don't have $1600 to throw around and they're going to think that they can get their drummer's little brother who owns an HV20 to shoot them playing for free. And they might be right.

If you really want to make music videos, start off shooting a couple for free. Then you'll have something to show people. No offense, but based on this post, it doesn't sound like you're a working professional so I'm not sure how you've decided that $50/hour is a reasonable price to charge for your work. Do you make $50 an hour at your current job? Do you even make $20? The drummer's brother might have as much experience as you do and he'll shoot the shows for free. You can find well done music videos on Vimeo that are much more than live performance shoots and were done for the bands for free.

Also, these "expensive music videos" that the bands can't afford are not three camera setups shooting them play live so what you're offering isn't really a low-cost replacement for a high cost item. You're talking about shooting a show live. When I played in bands, there were people who did that for free, showed us on their public access music video shows and gave us a copy for tape cost. We would have never dropped $1600 for one song.
 
thanks for your two cents, Texanite. Just to clarify, i never claimed to be a working professional. in fact, i even said i was 'new in the business'.. i'm not trying to hide that fact.

yes i do make $20 an hour at my day job in a call centre. i don't really want to charge the same rate as i do for that for my editing skillz.

but i don't want to reply any further to your post, as i found it to be quite negative towards me. i get that you think $1600 is too much - I'm not hearing what a reasonable rate would be. and if you think my videos are as good as what the drummer's brother could do for free with one camera, you're wrong. how on earth could a one camera video be as good as a three camera one? my guys have been in the business for over 22 years.. why doesnt that count? there could be no real edits/cuts different angles etc..

bah.. i dont want to argue with you.. i was just looking for advice on what to charge.. hopefully somebody else chimes in.
 
scratchpatchfilms said:
bah.. i dont want to argue with you.. i was just looking for advice on what to charge.. hopefully somebody else chimes in.
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You asked the following question:
so. i dunno. what do you think about $1000 for filming, and $600 per video I edit?
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And I answered it. You should feel free to charge that much. You may even get clients, I'm just telling you why I think it's too much for a poor band to pay for a simple performance video. I'm sorry you don't like the answer or the reasons why I think it's too much, but you are the one that asked.

If you don't want honest answers, then don't ask the question. I stand by everything that I wrote.
 
well I want to share my experince regarding music videos, I have done two and have been in the biz for about a year, the first was probono then I went to work and studied and studied practice and practice before I attempted my second music video which turned out great, I charged a total of 4 grand to shoot it and edit,just for my services, it was a two day shoot, what I charge is what I feel my time is worth and people that do music videos for a living never charge by the hour, as far as I know
if I charged by the hour it would of been much more, I put about 80 hours of work into that video at $80 dollars the hour overhere that would of turned out to about $6400 so it all depends on the artist, their budget and the type of music video and regarding the 1600 for a live recording, I have done some live band recordings for 200 bucks and some for 3 grand it all depends on the band or artist, the bands are not stupid, some dont give a crap about quality but some know what a steadicam is, so what I am saying is that sometimes I shoot with a single hvx and sometimes we have 3 cranes going 1 steadicam and 1 hvx on a tripod, its all about the client just my experiences poured out on html :)
 
I am sorry I happen to think Texanite couldn't be more wrong. Perhaps some people just have extremely low standards, but $1,600 is CHEAP for a performance only video. My company wouldn't even do a video for under $4,500, and if you paid anything less than $6,000 you're very likely going to get performance only. Sure, we might be able to dress up the location nicely and afford some production design, but you think you're getting a story for less than $6,000? Hell no.

My equipment alone is worth $1,000/day to rent out. My post production equipment is going to cost you another $100/day for my editor to use, who is going to want $250 to $300/day. Your video is going to take us days to edit properly, color correct, etc. That's minimum. We've spent a week on getting our rough cut of the video only to have the band request further changes.

If you can shoot high quality performance only videos for $1,600, that's great. If bands don't have that much money, screw 'em. Let them shoot their own videos like Texanite said, only their quality isn't going to match yours if you're a pro at all.

For us, we spent $700 on food on the last video. I can't afford to make a great music video for anyone if they don't have $5,000.

Sure, you can make a video for $500, but who gets paid for that? Nobody. It's not even worth it. A true professional wouldn't do work like that. I don't care about bands who have so little money think they $500 is "a lot" of money. It isn't. You can't do anything with $500. Anyone I hire is going to want $200/day, and I want $300/day minimum for my time (12 hour days), which is only $25/hr so that's pretty reasonable considering I'm a working professional, and the absolute minimum I'd go with my equipment is probably $500, usually will only do that if I have more than a week's worth of shooting days, though. Otherwise $700-800 is still very cheap for about $80,000 in production equipment.

We tell our clients if you want a video for $5,000, fine, but it'll be performance only. And we don't film with 2-3 guys either. The last video had about 18 crew members, the one before only 8-9, which is doable, but that means no makeup artist, no 1st A.D., I don't in general do that kind of work because the lower budget the video the more work I have to do, that means the more I have to be paid. I can't work on your video for two to four weeks of my life and make $500 profit, haha, if I did that I wouldn't be a professional.

That's one reason I've given up on unsigned bands except as a hobby -- no money. They are just too cheap, they aren't real clients at all 99% of the time. We started out thinking people were reasonable, but really they were not, so we ended up moving on to corporate work where corporations are reasonable, as are record labels.

I can make a killer music video for a band for $15,000 or so, and that's extremely cheap in relation to what big labels are spending, I can compete with that quality for much cheaper, but I can't give away my services and get people to be my slaves to work on their video just because they're too cheap to afford to put money into their dreams. Also, $5,000 or so is not expensive for a music video. If a band of 5 people cannot afford to each cough up $1,000 on a good, professional music video, they do NOT deserve to make it as musicians. There are way too many wannabes, get some money, get serious about your career, then go for it. I've put $100,000 into my dream of being a serious filmmaker, a band can certainly put some money into their dreams as well. If not, I don't take them seriously, nobody else will either, and they won't get a good video.

There are guys doing music videos for bands for $200 on craigslist. And all I have to say about that is you get what you pay for.
 
JonathanLB said:
I am sorry I happen to think Texanite couldn't be more wrong. Perhaps some people just have extremely low standards, but $1,600 is CHEAP for a performance only video. My company wouldn't even do a video for under $4,500, and if you paid anything less than $6,000 you're very likely going to get performance only. Sure, we might be able to dress up the location nicely and afford some production design, but you think you're getting a story for less than $6,000? Hell no.
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I don't think you understand what the OP is doing. They're basically taking three cameras to a bar and shooting a show. I'm pretty sure there's no catering, there's no makeup person, and they're not finding locations to shoot in or using an Art Director or PD, they're going to a bar and videotaping a band playing. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not something that I personally think is worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

I think you're talking apples and oranges. Take a look at the sample footage on their website and then come back and tell me if that's what a JonathanLB $6,000 or even $4,500 music video looks like. If that's what you think a $4,500 production looks like, then I'll accept the fact that you think I'm completely wrong.
 
okayyyyyyyy... well Jonathan, thanks for that insight into the world of music videos! i hope to one day reach the level you are currently at! but i have to agree with Texanite here, what you're talking about is WAY above the scope of what i'm talking about. i think you know that and are just giving an example of your personal experience however, and I appreciate that. $700 for food alone? heh. i didn't even eat at my last gig, until after, when we stopped at Wendy's for a jr. bacon cheeseburger. :)

and aalleexx, thanks for that info as well. i see now that there are MANY variables when deciding what to charge.. and i'm still at somewhat of a loss.

i was thinking of making it like this: $1000 to cover a 3 camera crew filming a live or studio performance, assuming it's no more than 3 hours, PLUS one edited video of the song of their choice. this way, for $1000 they are getting basically an all inclusive package deal. if they end up wanting more than one video from the footage, I could charge like $400-$500 for each additional video that I edit.

my goal is to help local bands who currently have NOTHING to put on their website, myspace, youtube, etc except crappy cell phone videos or amatuer crap with no editing whatsoever. I think Texanite thinks my work sucks but the funny thing is Texanite, that band I filmed on my website actually did pay me to do that, and they had seen some of my previous work which I had done for free. they contacted me and asked how much I charged. that was actually my first paying gig! i charged $500 for filming, and $100 for each video. right now i'm working on their second video. I really enjoy doing this kinda stuff and needed something to put up on my website so i don't regret charging so little.. but after paying my other two camera guys, i didnt end up with much money for myself.

what i dream about happening for my company, is that due to low rates, i get a minimum of 2-3 gigs a month. that alone would match what i'm making at my current job in a call centre, and boy, would i ever love to be able to quit that job.

i really think there's a market for what i want to do. i've been spreading the word, and everyone i talk to thinks its a great idea. i hope it all works out..

thanks for your advice guys.
 
FWIW, I never said your work sucks and I hadn't even seen any of it until tonight. When I made my first post, I didn't even know that you had ever shot any of these music videos at all.

You misread things I wrote like "they're going to think that they can get their drummer's little brother who owns an HV20 to shoot them playing for free." to mean that I had watched your footage and thought it sucked. That wasn't the point at all, the point was that a poor, unsigned band is going to think that somebody shooting their live shows is something that their brother can do. I'm not saying they're right and I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just telling you what some poor unsigned bands are going to think when you say "Hey, for $1000 I'll come videotape you play a gig, and then if you want to see the footage, it'll cost you $600 a song". These bands are hoping to make $5 a shirt that's being sold by their girlfriend. $1600+ is a chunk of change.

Additionally, you shouldn't immediately discount the drummer's little brother. I've seen some good stuff shot by teenagers with an HV20 and a 35mm adapter. They'll take the musician out to various locations, shoot a ton of footage, have a story and do it all for free. If my little brother could do that, I don't see why I'd pay somebody else $1600 to provide less.

The two biggest issues I see with your $1600+ plan is that your target clients are poor musicians and what you're offering isn't that far beyond the realm of what everybody with a video camera thinks they can do themselves. Offering things that people DON'T think they can do themselves (like locations, wardrobe, makeup, catering, pyrotechnics, elephants, helicopter shots or whatever) is what people will eagerly pay for because they know they can't do it themselves.

Back in the day, people used to pay other people to pump their gas at the station for them. Most people aren't willing to pay for that service anymore and NONE of the poor working musicians I know would.

Frankly, I think your $500 +$100/song pricetag is more reasonable than $1000 +$600/song.
 
First off I want to say you have a good idea and it could probably work once you get good at it.

So to get this straight, you are shooting "Live Videos" not to be confused with "music videos" made popular by MTV in the 80s as being songs over little movies that may or may not include live performance footage, sometimes completely staged (no pun intended).

Based on the video on your site, and the US dollar (its in terms I know), you should find some college students who know what they are doing and pay them 15 bucks an hour to run two of your cameras (especially the one in the back the doesn't really move and run a media feed to the one in the back (negating your need fo a sound guy, or 2 as you say on your site) and estimate the time you may put into it yourself times 20/hr. and start from there. You can always raise your price and add more guys to the crew as you get better and prove yourself and start making a name for yourself.

I have been in bands for a long time, and I work with bands and am friends with bands. I even ran a venue for two years, and guess what I am doing? You got it, I am in the video production field. You think the video industry is in a rough place right now? The music industry is WORSE. Local bands DONT HAVE MONEY, as a matter of fact national bands dont have money either. I just made a documentary about two bands, one is on Octone Records touring nationally, playing with huge bands, hanging on Jason Mraz's yacht, and the other working a day job and playing shows on weekends in Minneapolis and guess who is debt free AND making more money? And they still can't afford a "Music Video," nor do they feel one is necessary. Anyways I am ranting.

To get back to my point. Make $600 work, and do 2 shows a weekend for a while, and EARN your spot in the music industry. Also it might not be a bad idea to get a couple of pro bono "music videos" under your belt and start doing those as well, it might help you diversify a little. Thats my 2 cents. Good Luck.
 
cool, thanks Xtopher.

just to clarify, i'm not limiting myself to videos of live performances. that's just all i've done. so far the bands i've shot have been happy with that, but i certainly want to do more than just that. (songs over little movies, as you say)

as for paying college kids to run my cameras, unfortunately i only own one of them so that's not really possible. i need my other two camera guys partly because they actually own a dvx100 and hvx200. and also because they are good at what they do.

and about the two live sound engineers.. yes, i list we have two as part of our crew on my site.. however i'd only use one at a time.. i've had bad luck with trying to record the sound to the stationary camera.. even on the one time that the best location happened to be next to the sound board... it just hasnt worked out.. i find much better results with having a guy with a laptop and mbox there recording and not having to worry about that part since that's not my forte anyways (altho i did go to school for audio post production, but that was 7 years ago and i've almost forgotten everything i learned.. ha.. )

i still believe there's a market for what i want to do. i find this thread has turned a bit discouraging, but i'm not going to let it get me down. i know you are all just being realistic and have far more experience in the music and video industry than myself. i respect that, and all of your opinions.

oh, and Texanite? let's go for a drink! :)
 
Just being the devils advocate, I think we have all been torn to shreds on this site at least once...
 
Texanite said:
I don't think you understand what the OP is doing. They're basically taking three cameras to a bar and shooting a show. I'm pretty sure there's no catering, there's no makeup person, and they're not finding locations to shoot in or using an Art Director or PD, they're going to a bar and videotaping a band playing. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not something that I personally think is worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

I think you're talking apples and oranges. Take a look at the sample footage on their website and then come back and tell me if that's what a JonathanLB $6,000 or even $4,500 music video looks like. If that's what you think a $4,500 production looks like, then I'll accept the fact that you think I'm completely wrong.
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Ok you make a good point. I'm just saying a performance-only video from me is going to be a little bit more than just setting up my two cameras and shooting a band. There's going to be production design, that's a given, and there's going to be hair and makeup, that's a given. And it will have a professional DP overseeing the video, with two cameras rolling, etc. We'll have jib shots, dolly shots, some sort of fancy lighting, etc. Even at the minimum that's what I'd give a band. I'm just saying that to create a story in general takes a few nice locations, that we have to pay for usually, and that we need a permit to film in, etc. It all adds up fast.

To me, a performance-only video could be pretty killer stuff too, but it just means the client isn't paying enough to hire actors, extras, additional locations, my time coming up with an even more difficult concept, etc.

The state of the music industry is pretty sorry, and it's TRUE that most bands really don't have any money. I will caution anyone starting out in film that music videos are really not where to start if you want to go right for the money. That being said, I started doing music videos to gain some experience, build my reel, and just have some fun. I had that luxury. But now I'm doing corporate work for money because I can at least get paid fairly for my time. Sometimes even doing record label stuff (a few directors I know do this work from time to time) won't pay very well. I've heard of record label videos lower budget than the last indie video I shot, I mean not even in the 5 figures.
 
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I was in your situation earlier this year when I baught my HVX. I tried getting bands to be interested in having a "cheap" music video produced for them, and a lot of the time they didn't get back to me... so then I bit the bullet and said I'd do the video at expense costs only ($200). That included my petrol costs (I had to travel a bit for these videos) and hiring a digi-dolly. The videos turned out fairly well, and has built a bit of buzz with some bands in my area... You can check my stuff out at www.nyvproductions.com - But although the the videos caused a bit of buzz... the bands still don't have much money! I'm doing a video this weekend for less than the last video I shot.. mainly because I've decided that music video production is more of a hobby than a way to make money (unless you are REALLY good at what you do... which I wouldn't consider myself being). Lucky for me I just got a job offer for being a camera op/editor for a news station up north... so I can afford to do cheap videos. But if your looking for music videos to pay the bills, then you might find it a bit hard to get bands to pay you what your worth.
 
Zeakio said:
I was in your situation earlier this year when I baught my HVX. I tried getting bands to be interested in having a "cheap" music video produced for them, and a lot of the time they didn't get back to me... so then I bit the bullet and said I'd do the video at expense costs only ($200).
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I just watched the Battle for Solace video. It looks good and if that cost the band $200 or less, they really got a heck of a deal.

Location plays a big role in this as well. There are some cities where there are NO signed bands, where there are NO bands making money playing music and therefore really don't have the cash. There are other cities where there are bands who have some money to play with or, even better, record companies who will pay for a video. It's all supply and demand and there's always more competition in a city with more opportunities, but if you do thinkgs well, you can get the gig.

The Battle for Solace guys might take this as an insult or even deny it, but there's a real Iron Maiden sound to their guitar riffs. I love it but it's funny hearing that with the cookie monster vocals :cheesy:
 
Their video cost $500 to do.. which I felt was still reasonable. I called in a few favours (lighting kits and studio space was free through a mate at uni).. but had to pay actors, and I paid a mate to do productions stills.. and then I had to pay for some stock footage (the scratches) and in the end I profited maybe $200... which I'm fine with. As I said above, I have to treat it more of a hobby now... it can't pay the bills!
 
$500 is a heck of a deal for a music video. I could probably make a music video for as little as $1,500 and have some profit, if I just got one camera guy and we both made it with just that, but that is also really tough because the band has to be cooperative and have a free location. For us, our last location cost $2,250, for instance, our permit was $700, food was $715 I think, transportation another $300 (U-Haul and fuel for the grip truck that we hired, plus fuel for the U-Haul), etc. Then again we were doing a record label quality video, granted they'd be shooting on film or maybe the Sony F950 or something, the difference in quality for any normal output between the F950 and the HVX200 is not that significant. I think the quality of our footage turned out very high, when you see it on DVD especially, looks gorgeous. Now on Blu-ray I have no doubt you'd notice the differences a bit more but who watches music videos on Blu-ray? Most people are seeing this on MySpace or YouTube.

I agree that music video production is more of a hobby. That's how I'm treating it at this point until maybe I am able to secure my first record label video. I know that day will come one day, I mean if you keep plugging away and you live in Los Angeles, you will get chances. Not every record label video is a money-making proposition either, though. You can do a record label video and literally make $500/week for your time, especially if you really care about the final product, which I do. I'd rather make $500/week on a project and have it turn out great than $1,000/week and have it be crap. I just won't put my name on crap.

This last music video I did has been worthwhile for me so far in a lot of ways, not only building confidence in my work's quality, but also giving me additional professional contacts, a great piece for my reel, and learning quite a bit along the way too. Today "Winded," the last music video, was accepted to the Action on Film International Film Festival as a contender for Best Music Video. In festival submissions so far it is 3 for 4 with one Honorable Mention win (The Accolade) and this second nomination now. So for me this has been a great experience, but of course so far music videos haven't been about making money for me, just gaining experience and hoping in the future that I can make money directing music videos (along with other directing work), which would be pretty awesome.
 
That's great to hear JonathanLB, I'm sure you will pick up a label to do videos for soon enough!

I think the best advice we can really give to scratchpatchfilms is to not have a "set" price for your videos... because every video will be different and require either more time from you, or even equipment. Just talk to the bands and sus out what their budget is and then go from there. If there budget is under $1000 (which for the market you are aiming at, I would presume it could be anywhere between $0-$500 mainly...) then be honest with them and say what their budget will cover... it could only be a performance video where you shoot them playing 5-10 times and then cut together. You might want to save some of the more "special" stuff for bands that have more cash to spend... eg: overcranking, narrative, lighting equipment (instead of just natural light) or even hiring a digi-dolly or jib.

As time goes on, you might find bands that you really like, but don't have much cash, and you'll have to decide whether you will suck it up and do the video to expand your portfolio (which is a good thing, bands won't pay you more than $1000 of their hard earned money if they don't have any examples to back up the production costs) or pass on it. I'm sucking it up for my next music video shoot... they said they had around a $400 budget when we first started talking, but it's gone down now to $300 (but they are coming to my town to shoot the video, and I dont need to hire a digi-dolly for the shoot or lights... they are building a make-shift dolly and we are thinking of using car lights for lighting or even just work lights from home depot... yes I know car lights sound very ghetto and won't work... but I'm sure we will be able to pull something off... and as the saying goes, you get what you pay for, so with a $300 budget you can't expect MTV quality [even though that really should be the aim] plus the location is a vacant car lot so it MIGHT just work!). But i've decided to do the video because I really like the band and want to help them out. Hopefully they appreciate it all in the end... and if they don't I guess I won't have much incentive to do videos like these anymore!

I hope we are being helpful overall! It's good to get a few different production level prospectives... mine being at the very low end, and Jonathan's being on a more higher end.
 
i wouldn't try to gain profit from any of your first gigs. Just give them a 200-300 dollar rate and use that money for last minute runs and budget enough lighting / art direction / costume for 2 days (maybe a grand for that?)


The most important thing that you can do is try to tell a few funky stories when directing these things. All band members that i have worked with... want to be movie stars...they are used to entertaining a crowd during down time.
 
Yeah your first few efforts really need to show off a certain style and quality to help you get those next projects and move up.
 
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