How Much to Charge to Edit a Feature?

dust'n the callipygous

Well-known member
I'm currently the DP on a no-budget feature here in South Carolina. We've been shooting on an xha1, and I'll end up with around 15 hours worth of footage. I'll probably end up doing all of the editing, CC, foley, and DVD authoring. The cast and crew are currently working off deferred payments, and taking those into consideration, the total budget will be around $30,000 (excluding editing). I'll be using Sony Vegas, and am including software and hard drives in the final price. It's the first time I've done something on this scale. How much should I charge to do this?

Also, the actors want reels of their scenes put together. Some of them may need to be done before the movie is completed. Any pricing suggestions for this would be great too.
 
the national average for an edit suiote per hour is $200 and you are looking at approx 60 hours of post.
that woud be a 12k billing here.
as for the actor reels... again the ave is $200/hour. You'll be coming in under that.
I'd say if yuo made the reel for 200, that would be a win/win in this case.
 
Thanks. Figuring up rates for things I've never done is always tough. How should I figure for the actors' reels if they want them completed before the movie is out of post?
 
$200/hr?! LOL, are you kidding me? I have a better editing suite than probably any editor around, or at least darn near it, and I charge my clients $100/day tops, $75 on discount, for use of $5,000 in software and $10,000 or so in hardware. That's more than fair for me to get my money back on the investment with regular use and make some profit hopefully before all is said and done, but to charge $200/hour for an editing suite is a joke. They're not that expensive. That's like charging $300/hour for use of the RED One camera.

I'd pay an editor $200-250 a day for editing any project that's low budget like this. Then factor in your tool costs and harddrives, etc., you could get to more.
 
I said the national average. Many suites are well over a tousand an hour. Many are 20 bucks an hour.
The national average for video post production is 200 bucks an hour.
I'm 150 cuz I work at home.
 
Also, you're going to be able to charge a lot less if your equipment is only worth $15,000 as opposed to if you have a more professional $100,000 suite. Some people need more than what 15k has to offer. So it's relative to what you need.
 
Im 200 an hour at the office for standard fare corporate work. Since its low budget I wouldnt feel too odd about cutting them some slack and if you are at home you can probably argue a lower rate as your overheads are somewhat lower. So I dont think 5000 is too low. I think 5-7000 is fair. Whatever you do dont undersell yourself. 150-200 a pop per actor real sounds about right to me assuming each get a DVD or two of their reel. Since you are on deferred payment as the DP I'd go for 7000 myself since you most likely wont be seeing any money as a DP.
 
My computation comes out way different. How long is the finished movie supposed to run? Most are 90 minutes for a full-length feature. I use one hour per finished minute as a gross yardstick. We charge $125 here in Northern Calif. (maybe I'm underpriced as I read above!). Accordingly, that figures to about $11,250 for the movie...And believe me, It ALWAYs takes longer than you might think!
 
Also, you're going to be able to charge a lot less if your equipment is only worth $15,000 as opposed to if you have a more professional $100,000 suite. Some people need more than what 15k has to offer. So it's relative to what you need.

Riiiight. Well you can't get any more professional than what I have for the workflow we use OR intend to use. I shoot with the HVX200 now and hope to move to the RED for a feature within a year (the feature would be later, the RED would be sooner). What are you going to get that costs more than this? Actually it's about $14,000 in hardware with my monitors included, $5,000 software, but this is THE top of the line editing system for Final Cut Pro. And don't even start with Avid this or Avid that, I'm sorry spending more money doesn't make for a better editing system when you're talking about that. You can rent a RED One body for $500/day, or a comparatively not-so-great F950 for $1,100 per day. You tell me which is better. You have one that's 8 years old and shoots 1080p, is clunky, and relies on multiple sensors, or you have 4K, a brand new camera, with much better and richer colors, not to mention better performance in more conditions. But one camera is 5 times more expensive, or is it 10, I can't remember, than the other. Same with Avid. Sure, you can spend $70,000 on an Avid setup. It won't be any better than my setup, though.

First, you can't get better than an 8-core 3.2 Ghz Mac Pro. It's the best computer on the market, PC or Mac, and the fastest. Second, 10 gigs of RAM, you can get better but there's no use for that for video editing (many would say 10 is excessive, 8 is plenty). Third, this computer has basically the best card you can buy, AJA Kona 3, and the best graphics card you can get for Mac short of the ridiculously expensive gaming video card (this is the GeForce 8800). Next, we have an 8-hard drive 2 TB external RAID. You can get an 8 TB version, but that isn't going to be faster editing or better editing, just more space, which is unnecessary for any projects we do. I have the space on numerous other externals if I need to dump old projects there.

This setup has a color-accurate, pro 17" Panasonic HD/SD reference monitor, plus two other monitors. So, no, you really can't get a better editing suite, even for $100,000. I guess you could get multiple computers and use Final Cut Server and maybe distributed processing, but that's not one editing suite. This is it, the top of the line. If you want to spend $100,000, be my guest, just shows you know less about editing than I do even and I'm not an editor primarily.

I don't like to get into Avid discussions because I hate that company with a passion. If you're not going to use a Mac, at least use an editing solution like CS3 from a company that cares about its product line and updates regularly. Avid disgusts me and makes crappy systems for old-timers who prefer to take forever to edit because their system blows. Your choice should be between CS3 and Final Cut Pro, and we use both depending on what is needed (Photoshop and After Effects are always useful, for instance).

What I always think is funny is to see people are actually paying this. You can go rent a similar type of editing suite to mine from many places for $300, $400 a week, no problem. So for you to bill your clients even $100/hour, that means what, your time is worth about $80/hr plus $20 for equipment? Wow, that's pretty awesome. I don't know any editors making $80/hr personally, nor would I pay that unless maybe I was doing Transformers 2, then you get a union editor who demands a huge sum of money. Not to put down the craft of editing, because it's extremely important, but I've seen lots of very good editors who are happy to make $200/day for 10 hour days because work is hard to find in this industry. Maybe not if you live somewhere besides L.A., I am not sure, but I can tell you the last time I posted to find an editor I got 175 responses from Craigslist and these were all very experienced people who were willing to work within my budget. So if you really find clients who will pay you $200/hr, that's amazing, there are more people out there who have no idea what editors are worth apparently.

It reminds me of a corporate client I just worked with. I took over Web operations for their sites because the firm that was handling it was charging them $500 for every change, so last week they wanted FOUR text changes to the same .shtml file, they were numbers, like 2,800 should have been changed to 2,675, for instance, and they wanted $500. It took me 9 minutes to make those changes, 4-5 of which were finding the login information for the Website because I didn't have it saved to Transmit. Now I'm going to be paid a monthly retainer to make simple changes like that, but they had no idea whether $500 was reasonable or not. They suspected it was a rip off, but from my perspective I was shocked and disgusted anyone would try to take advantage of another company that badly. Everyone has this amazing idea like their time is worth so much money. The only people who seriously should be making that kind of money are businessmen, people who own apartment complexes, commercial real estate, companies that make a profit just by existing. Web work is not worth $125/hr, or $75/hr, or even $50/hr most of the time. I can find professionals who are happy to work for $20-35 per hour because it's just not that hard of a skill. There are 17-year-olds who are amazing Web designers, who put together BETTER sites than I've seen from some firms charging literally 20 times as much money. But you have to know where to look.

I'm sorry but it's supply and demand. Every time someone says you can't find a great grip for $150/day, well, you have no idea what you're talking about then. Every time I post on craigslist I find 100 people eager to work and get some experience, make some cash, and I can always find someone very good at what they do, with at least 5 years of industry experience. It may be sad in a way that it's such an oversatured market, but that's reality. There's no need to pay editors or Web developers insane amounts of money when what they do isn't that rare of a skill. If there were very few people who understood how to edit a commercial or a music video, it'd be worth a lot more money. But the fact is, everyone has access to these tools from when they are young now. I started doing basic editing when I was 17, and my tools sucked, I didn't get Final Cut until later, but that was even easier, and now you can pick up pro editing software for very reasonable prices. It's nice and great and all that editors think they're worth $1,000/day, grips think they deserve $500/day, etc., but I've achieved a high level of success in my work, made my clients happy, gotten into film festivals, etc. by hiring great professionals for reasonable rates. I never pay people pathetic amounts, but I'm not going to pay someone $500/day because they can setup some lights. Not when people work in corporate America doing tough jobs making $200/day. I'm not sure what it is about the entertainment industry and anything at all technical where people think they're worth $1,000/day, but heck if an editor is worth that much and I'm the director overseeing the entire project, boy, I must REALLY be underpaid! I'm happy at this point making $300, $400/day, it's work and it's fun.

Also I'm really skeptical of what I hear on Internet forums, because I know dozens and dozens of professionals here in L.A. who work full-time in the industry and most of them are pretty stoked for $300/day, they consider that a great gig. Plenty of others are happy enough to get an assistant editing job for two weeks for $150/day because at least it's work for two weeks, where they know they'll pay their bills. There is way too much talent here to be paying these people obscene amounts of money. As I said, supply and demand, in this case a massive supply of talent, new talent coming in every year, and not that much work to go around for everyone. My last editor, to get experience and because he had nothing lined up for the time, took a two-week assistant editing job for $500. It was all he could find. So the reality I see is a lot different than the fabricated reality I here people boasting about online.
 
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It gets expensive because the work can be so inconsistent. Unions are good for people working in the film industry because it's too easy to get screwed when you have a different employer every week or two. Grips and editors would never be able to catch a decent nights sleep if they went from one low paying job to the next where they worked 18 hour days just because a director wants things done quickly. Imagine an employee at a fast food joint switching restaurants every few days. And imagine every new boss asking them to "just for today" work an extra 10 hours for no pay. Did I mention that they have to build the kitchen from scratch and break it down every day?

My biggest gripe when I did freelance graphic design work was people saying " I'm a graphic designer too!" Then they hand me a shi*ty perforated business card puked out of their printer that clearly has not in any way, shape, or form been graphically designed. There are tons of people with all this magical software, and a good lot of them haven't purchased it. Don't hire someone to build your house based on the fact that they have a hammer in their garage. You could get lucky finding somebody with professional skills that works cheap, but they're usually a needle in a haystack. Especially with Craigslist. The issue isn't with someone having the fancy equipment or knowing how it works- you should be paying somebody for their abilities in using the equipment. The people with the abilities will charge accordingly, and they'll have the resumes and references to back it up.

Peace,
S-
 
Well you can't get any more professional than what I have for the workflow we use OR intend to use.it's about $14,000 in hardware with my monitors included, $5,000 software, but this is THE top of the line editing system for Final Cut Pro.
No mention of support gear? Huh.
A Tektronics scope will set you back more than $14K. But of course you probably think the scopes in FCP are just as accurate.
A high quality eCinema HD display with the color accuracy to color correct & grade will set you back more than $14K. But of course the HD displays you bought at Costco are just as accurate in your mind.
I could go on, but it's a pointless exercise.

I'm happy at this point making $300, $400/day, it's work and it's fun.
This is just sad. I've never heard of a director getting paid that low - I almost feel sorry for you. But you've made the bed that you sleep in. Until you understand and place a value on the people you work with you will under value yourself.

Are things really this bad in LA that the rates are this low or are you perfectly content to pay high school kids to work on your projects? If the market is in fact over saturated and I happened to live in LA I would either get out of the industry or move. The rates you've posted are barely a living wage with the cost of living out there. Apparently the future is not so bright for those on the West coast.
 
Whenever I have some time to kill, I love reading JonathanLB's posts. They're hilarious. He should change his board name to king-of-the-bottom-feeders.
 
milksac, I have two bays that sound nearly identical to JonathanLB's -- 8-core mac, aja kona 3 etc. i can tell you he is underselling himself. unless he's into doing charity work, i'd up those rates. the producer/editors (aka 'preditors") we hire at Sabi Creative Agency (my company) are making on average around $600/day. in addition we charge bay rental at $275/day.

I'm not sure I could get away with these prices in any other city.
 
I knew things were competitive out there I just didn't think it had degenerated to the point that Jonathan described. It's good to know that those who have honed their craft can make a decent living. On the Red forums Jonathan once described editors as stupid button pushers - this goes a long way to make sense of his poverty level wages. Preditors are the polar opposite of the simple minded editors that he described. They don't stop after every edit and wait for the next instruction. They run with it, provide creative direction and through their knowledge and experience they raise the production level of the finished piece. IMO, they are worth every penny and yes they can command these rates outside of LA & NY.
 
$200/hr?! LOL, are you kidding me? I have a better editing suite than probably any editor around, or at least darn near it, and I charge my clients $100/day tops, $75 on discount, for use of $5,000 in software and $10,000 or so in hardware. That's more than fair for me to get my money back on the investment with regular use and make some profit hopefully before all is said and done, but to charge $200/hour for an editing suite is a joke. They're not that expensive. That's like charging $300/hour for use of the RED One camera.

I'd pay an editor $200-250 a day for editing any project that's low budget like this. Then factor in your tool costs and harddrives, etc., you could get to more.

Well as someone who works in the industry in a major market, that is the going rate. You don't have to LIKE it. You may not be able to GET it, but thats what it is.

Around here you don't pay for the hardware, you pay for the TALENT.

If a $200/day edit suite is all your clients need, then more power to you. My clients require more.
 
Jonathan, your posts are often interesting, but would you mind using a few less words? I simply couldn't get myself to slog through this one...

Riiiight. Well you can't get any more professional than what I have for the workflow we use OR intend to use. I shoot with the HVX200 now and hope to move to the RED for a feature within a year (the feature would be later, the RED would be sooner). What are you going to get that costs more than this? Actually it's about $14,000 in hardware with my monitors included, $5,000 software, but this is THE top of the line editing system for Final Cut Pro. And don't even start with Avid this or Avid that, I'm sorry spending more money doesn't make for a better editing system when you're talking about that. You can rent a RED One body for $500/day, or a comparatively not-so-great F950 for $1,100 per day. You tell me which is better. You have one that's 8 years old and shoots 1080p, is clunky, and relies on multiple sensors, or you have 4K, a brand new camera, with much better and richer colors, not to mention better performance in more conditions. But one camera is 5 times more expensive, or is it 10, I can't remember, than the other. Same with Avid. Sure, you can spend $70,000 on an Avid setup. It won't be any better than my setup, though.

First, you can't get better than an 8-core 3.2 Ghz Mac Pro. It's the best computer on the market, PC or Mac, and the fastest. Second, 10 gigs of RAM, you can get better but there's no use for that for video editing (many would say 10 is excessive, 8 is plenty). Third, this computer has basically the best card you can buy, AJA Kona 3, and the best graphics card you can get for Mac short of the ridiculously expensive gaming video card (this is the GeForce 8800). Next, we have an 8-hard drive 2 TB external RAID. You can get an 8 TB version, but that isn't going to be faster editing or better editing, just more space, which is unnecessary for any projects we do. I have the space on numerous other externals if I need to dump old projects there.

This setup has a color-accurate, pro 17" Panasonic HD/SD reference monitor, plus two other monitors. So, no, you really can't get a better editing suite, even for $100,000. I guess you could get multiple computers and use Final Cut Server and maybe distributed processing, but that's not one editing suite. This is it, the top of the line. If you want to spend $100,000, be my guest, just shows you know less about editing than I do even and I'm not an editor primarily.

I don't like to get into Avid discussions because I hate that company with a passion. If you're not going to use a Mac, at least use an editing solution like CS3 from a company that cares about its product line and updates regularly. Avid disgusts me and makes crappy systems for old-timers who prefer to take forever to edit because their system blows. Your choice should be between CS3 and Final Cut Pro, and we use both depending on what is needed (Photoshop and After Effects are always useful, for instance).

What I always think is funny is to see people are actually paying this. You can go rent a similar type of editing suite to mine from many places for $300, $400 a week, no problem. So for you to bill your clients even $100/hour, that means what, your time is worth about $80/hr plus $20 for equipment? Wow, that's pretty awesome. I don't know any editors making $80/hr personally, nor would I pay that unless maybe I was doing Transformers 2, then you get a union editor who demands a huge sum of money. Not to put down the craft of editing, because it's extremely important, but I've seen lots of very good editors who are happy to make $200/day for 10 hour days because work is hard to find in this industry. Maybe not if you live somewhere besides L.A., I am not sure, but I can tell you the last time I posted to find an editor I got 175 responses from Craigslist and these were all very experienced people who were willing to work within my budget. So if you really find clients who will pay you $200/hr, that's amazing, there are more people out there who have no idea what editors are worth apparently.

It reminds me of a corporate client I just worked with. I took over Web operations for their sites because the firm that was handling it was charging them $500 for every change, so last week they wanted FOUR text changes to the same .shtml file, they were numbers, like 2,800 should have been changed to 2,675, for instance, and they wanted $500. It took me 9 minutes to make those changes, 4-5 of which were finding the login information for the Website because I didn't have it saved to Transmit. Now I'm going to be paid a monthly retainer to make simple changes like that, but they had no idea whether $500 was reasonable or not. They suspected it was a rip off, but from my perspective I was shocked and disgusted anyone would try to take advantage of another company that badly. Everyone has this amazing idea like their time is worth so much money. The only people who seriously should be making that kind of money are businessmen, people who own apartment complexes, commercial real estate, companies that make a profit just by existing. Web work is not worth $125/hr, or $75/hr, or even $50/hr most of the time. I can find professionals who are happy to work for $20-35 per hour because it's just not that hard of a skill. There are 17-year-olds who are amazing Web designers, who put together BETTER sites than I've seen from some firms charging literally 20 times as much money. But you have to know where to look.

I'm sorry but it's supply and demand. Every time someone says you can't find a great grip for $150/day, well, you have no idea what you're talking about then. Every time I post on craigslist I find 100 people eager to work and get some experience, make some cash, and I can always find someone very good at what they do, with at least 5 years of industry experience. It may be sad in a way that it's such an oversatured market, but that's reality. There's no need to pay editors or Web developers insane amounts of money when what they do isn't that rare of a skill. If there were very few people who understood how to edit a commercial or a music video, it'd be worth a lot more money. But the fact is, everyone has access to these tools from when they are young now. I started doing basic editing when I was 17, and my tools sucked, I didn't get Final Cut until later, but that was even easier, and now you can pick up pro editing software for very reasonable prices. It's nice and great and all that editors think they're worth $1,000/day, grips think they deserve $500/day, etc., but I've achieved a high level of success in my work, made my clients happy, gotten into film festivals, etc. by hiring great professionals for reasonable rates. I never pay people pathetic amounts, but I'm not going to pay someone $500/day because they can setup some lights. Not when people work in corporate America doing tough jobs making $200/day. I'm not sure what it is about the entertainment industry and anything at all technical where people think they're worth $1,000/day, but heck if an editor is worth that much and I'm the director overseeing the entire project, boy, I must REALLY be underpaid! I'm happy at this point making $300, $400/day, it's work and it's fun.

Also I'm really skeptical of what I hear on Internet forums, because I know dozens and dozens of professionals here in L.A. who work full-time in the industry and most of them are pretty stoked for $300/day, they consider that a great gig. Plenty of others are happy enough to get an assistant editing job for two weeks for $150/day because at least it's work for two weeks, where they know they'll pay their bills. There is way too much talent here to be paying these people obscene amounts of money. As I said, supply and demand, in this case a massive supply of talent, new talent coming in every year, and not that much work to go around for everyone. My last editor, to get experience and because he had nothing lined up for the time, took a two-week assistant editing job for $500. It was all he could find. So the reality I see is a lot different than the fabricated reality I here people boasting about online.
 
Well as someone who works in the industry in a major market, that is the going rate. You don't have to LIKE it. You may not be able to GET it, but thats what it is.

Around here you don't pay for the hardware, you pay for the TALENT.

If a $200/day edit suite is all your clients need, then more power to you. My clients require more.

Your clients don't require more than I have. Your editing suite definitely isn't as good as mine is, anyway. One, you use Avid, which I hate and I think is a crappy program. Or two, you use Final Cut or Adobe, in which case I run the best machine money can buy for those programs. I don't want to go over stats again, 3.2 Ghz 8-core, 10 gigs RAM, 2 TB external RAID system, three monitors, AJA Kona 3, blah blah etc. Heck I can even print DVDs on my Primera Bravo II and print covers on my Epson 3800. You don't get any better than this. And you can find great editing talent in L.A. for $250/day EASILY, heck there are starving editors around who are quite talented, I know one or two myself, lol, who are in no position to argue for $150/day even. You guys must live in Afghanistan or something.

This is reality. People don't charge $1,000/day for freakin' editing, it isn't rocket science. My last editor knows Flash, Premiere, Avid, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, After Effects, and basically every other program known to man and knows what he's doing in editing, he is still struggling to find freelance projects to pay the bills. It's NOT some really rare, valuable skill. It's EDITING!
 
No mention of support gear? Huh.
A Tektronics scope will set you back more than $14K. But of course you probably think the scopes in FCP are just as accurate.
A high quality eCinema HD display with the color accuracy to color correct & grade will set you back more than $14K. But of course the HD displays you bought at Costco are just as accurate in your mind.
I could go on, but it's a pointless exercise.


This is just sad. I've never heard of a director getting paid that low - I almost feel sorry for you. But you've made the bed that you sleep in. Until you understand and place a value on the people you work with you will under value yourself.

Are things really this bad in LA that the rates are this low or are you perfectly content to pay high school kids to work on your projects? If the market is in fact over saturated and I happened to live in LA I would either get out of the industry or move. The rates you've posted are barely a living wage with the cost of living out there. Apparently the future is not so bright for those on the West coast.

Ok, first, I HAVE a color accurate monitor and it's not $14,000! You can get a pro color SD/HD reference monitor from Panasonic for $2,500, which is the 17" variety, or about $3,500 for 24". That is a great monitor and has no problems coloring anything. If you want to spend $14,000 for a freakin' monitor that does nothing more than mine, great, you be my guest. You really would have to be an idiot, though, considering NOBODY IN THE WORLD watches TV or movies on a color-accurate monitor anyway! If the work I make looks fantastic on my pro reference monitor, it looks fantastic on any HDTV too. End of story.

As for L.A., you are crazy if you think a starting director with less than ten years of experience is going to make more than $300-400 a day most of the time. Most of the working directors I know actually edit their own music videos because the pay is so low that if they didn't edit, they wouldn't make any money at all. They are directing more for fun, editing for the cash. It's extremely difficult to find clients in this market, because of course there are a million other people doing exactly the same thing.

MOST people in the U.S. don't make above $200/day, that's what you people don't seem to understand, it's like I'm talking to residents of Zimbabwe or something. The average wage is actually in the $100s, so when you say that $300-400/day sucks and is terribly low and not enough to live on, I have to think you're possibly retarded. Do you realize if you worked 20 days a month at $300/day that's already $6,000/month? That's well above what most people make. Now you may say, well you don't work every day, blah blah. True, but when I do work I bring my equipment with me and charge a daily rate of at least $500, up to $1,000, so I'm never going to make just that $300 anyway. I couldn't care less if my time is only paid $300/day if my equipment is paid what I consider fairly, which is anywhere from 2-4% of its value per day (or 9% per week, 27% per month, etc., standard).

The market must be amazing where you are, but thank god I don't live there because building my reel would cost me $150,000 paying these prices you suggest. I had a great working director shoot B camera on my last music video for less than $200. Why? Because he wanted the work and he wanted to have some fun! It's a fun industry, everyone wants to do it, which is exactly why it's so tough to make money in it. Everyone knows this. It's like I'm talking to idiots or something who have this Golden Vision of Hollywood where everyone makes $750/day minimum and lives in Beverly Hills palaces. That ain't reality. I know dozens and dozens of filmmakers down here and nobody is doing that well yet. They're all struggling for the next job.

If you think everyone demands so much pay, how did I put together a crew of almost 18 people for an indie music video with everyone making about $150-200/day (except PAs, they got $100) and get extremely professional people? One thing is fair to say, which is that none of you would make a good producer. You would immediately realize there's no way you can pay everyone $600/day or whatever and still make your project and your profit. I want to know where this money tree is that grows on every client's lawn where they pay you massive amounts to do work that isn't very difficult. I love it how everyone here thinks that film industry work is really rocket science, so you should be paid like nuclear engineers or something. It's really not that hard! Especially if you only do one thing, like you edit, oh wow, that's amazing, none of us have ever studied editing. Oh wait yeah we have since we were 4 watching TV. Everyone has a sense for what feels right and what doesn't when editing, if they've ever watched TV or movies, and learning the tools couldn't be more of a cake walk. You get a computer, buy a few books, take a few classes maybe, and you figure it out pretty fast. Young people know this stuff without having to do that much work at it, so to think the guy who busts his ass at your local fast food restaurant is worth $8/hour but you're worth $80/hour, well that's just ridiculous.
 
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