**Health seminar pricing** HELP!

dantewaters

dantewaters

Well-known member
I have a seminar event coming up in October. Went to see the client today (someone I've been working with for months). Bottom line he told me I needed to do inventory on all the pieces of equipment he has so that we can be on top of things in time for the event. So I came up with the pricing for this entire event let me know what should be adjusted and how far from the mark I am.

Setup will be -

2 - 3 HVX's

Using p2 cards

2 Camera operators

Setting up lights

Making sure sound is together as well

I will also coordinate the event (while taking a few stills)

Cost breakdown -

1st camera man Desmond $250

2nd camera man Benael (in training) - $150

Inventory & itemized list / check list / shopping / - for the day
$400

DP / Setup / event coordinating - for the day
$600

Editing / DVD authoring /
$800

Miscellaneous
$200 gas / lens rental

TOTAL -

$2400
 
Seems a little low to me... Maybe your Editing and DVD Authoring can be increased. Also, $400 for the use of 3 HVX's and lights and audio is very cheap!

Bottom line, I think you could charge more.


J
 
If you're renting the gear, "someone" will have to validate, certify and test the gear all works together. It would be a shame to find a cable is missing or a piece of gear doesn't properly interface correctly (say a mic level impedence problem or faulty ungrounded cable, missing diffusion gel or no C47s, etc.) Also, will your setup charges be sufficient for takedown time, return/inventory/check-in?

Generally, depending on the length of the shoot, your price estimate for the camera operators seems low to me.

Yet the most glaring undercharge is the editing charges! $800 for editing and DVD authoring or a multiple camera shoot? That seems less than half of what you should be charging, even if you do not plan to do much editing for a short two hour shoot with 2 cameras. Depending on the nature of the video, your multi-camara edit could be five to ten times the real-time hours of the video shoot. How many hours of shooting do you plan and what is your billable hourly rate for editing?

I assume you're existing business infrastructure covers other factors for General/Admin, billing, insurance, and other overheads.

Good luck, Michael
 
imageonepictures said:
Hey,

I was wondering what the going rate for this kind or work is?
Click to expand...

Hi Chris,

In broad strokes, it's generally safe to quote hourly (or daily) rates with routinely available rentals and an additional 10 - 15% producer's fee.

Where that gets hickey is what happens next.

Do you have to handle sales of DVDs? More importantly, whose work is it? Is it your work or theirs? Is it an edited product or straight to DVD print?

That matters a lot in how final pricing will be handled. Ownership itself gets funky.

While it would be awfully hard for shooter to claim ownership of the content during a seminar, the edited version will have the producer's stamp on it. So, sort of claiming a bit of ownership is indeed a part of the problem.

Negotiating this after shooting is plain crappy. Unless you're in an area where a lot of shooting goes on, most folks think that you shoot it for them, it belongs to them. Dissuading them afterwards is likely going to be tough.

Sometimes, a day rate, cost of equipment, and a rate per each media (royality) works out well for compensation. Sometimes, you just have to say a bottom line.

Good luck!

Mike
 
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