How Much to Charge to Edit Promotional DVD?

R

Ryanwar7

Well-known member
Hello everyone,

I have searched a bit in the forums and there are quite a few threads about how much to charge customers, so I am sorry for this one. I just feel that I am in a sort of unique position and couldn't seem to get a point on answer for me, so I figured I would ask anyway.

Here is the story...

My family owns a lodge in Alaska in which I spent all of last summer both being a deckhand and filming clients- both on the boat and bringing their fish back into town. As part of the agreement my dad and I went 33%/66% respectively on the camera (hvx200a), I would work and film all summer, and then I would end up editing the promotional video.

I have already been paid for both the work and the filming I did in the summer and now I need to know what to charge for the editing I just got done with. So here are the details..

- I did all of the work using Final Cut Studio 2
- I have filmed some in the past (mainly with a GL2, and now quite a lot with the HVX), but my editing was limited. I understood the main idea, but I had never really gone through a whole project and certainly hadn't been paid for one before.
- The project ended up being roughly 26 minutes broken up into 7 "chapters" if you will.
- All of the editing from simply renaming all of the files and organizing them, to completing the DVD took my approximately 90-100 hours of work. This also included shooting some interview shots and capturing the audio for the videos.
- Half of the video was put to music while the other half was put to a voice over with soft music in the background.

Like most of you who do this often, I really put my heart into this project. Rather than simply trying to bust a video out, I took quite some time to formulate what I wanted the video to say and how I wanted it to say it exactly.

So herein lies my problem. Being my first major project, some time was spent figuring certain problems out. Whether it was figuring out how to pan and zoom on photos, or how to correctly burn an SD DVD coming from HD footage. Because of this it is hard for me to charge an hourly rate- professionals don't need to charge extra hours to figure things out. So my question remains, how much do I charge?

If you would like me to post some footage of the final product I would be more than happy to if that would help. Honestly, any advice would help. My dad is a very reasonable man, and I respect him a lot, so I don't want to stiff him, but I also don't want to cheat myself either.

Thank you in advance,
Ryan
 
it's your DAD? well just ask him for 100 hours x $whatever rate you want.

if he says no, then you can bargain. heh. that's what i'd do! but i find clients dont argue when you provide them with breakdowns of the hours spent.. since its your dad, you can admit to him that it might take pros less hours, but it took you 100. and lets say your time is worth like, $25 an hour. there's $2500.

oh i know. talk to your mom, ask her what his budget is, and then make up a price slightly above that...

good luck!
 
Heh, I guess I neglected to mention the fact that it is my step-dad. :)

Thanks a ton for your input. From what I had been looking at everyone had been saying like $50+/hour, but I just can't justify that. $25 sounds a bit more in the ballpark.

I guess I was also wondering maybe how long it would take someone a bit more established to make a 30 minute promotional video. I figure that way I can take that time and then figure out how much it should have cost him elsewhere.

Any input on how much you might charge for a 30 minute DVD taking it from hours of raw footage to final product?
 
I do a lot of work where it's my first time doing something.
It's exciting and frustrating and fun, but I do have one rule:

Don't charge people for the time you spent learning how to do something.

So at the end of the day, if I spent 6 hours trying to figure out an effect,
and only an hour to actually do the effect, then I figure I went to school
for 6 hours and I write one hour on my timesheet. You DID write down
your hours, yes?
 
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Awesome, thanks everyone again for their help.

So I guess a slightly reworded question would be, how long would it take you to edit 3 months worth of footage into a 30 minute dvd broken up into chapters?

The dvd doesn't have any great motion effects or anything, was slightly color corrected, and had enough thought put into it to figure out a story line and put the audio together.

Again, this includes everything from getting the raw .mxf footage all the way to having the DVD in hand.

Cheers again,
Ryan
 
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grinner, i cant wait till i feel comfortable charging $150 an hour! you must be raking it in!

Ryanwar, I am somewhat of a newbie myself so that's why I said $25 per hour. Despite not being the most skilled or seasoned editor, i do consider myself good at what I do, and I wouldnt want to make LESS than $25. as I build my portfolio and become more in demand, you can bet your ass I will up it to $50 an hour, and then $100, and so on.

I don't know how long it would take to edit 3 months worth of footage cuz i don't know how many hours of footage you have there. i wouldnt be surprised it that was a good 3-4 weeks of full time editing tho.. (40 hours a week, in a normal persons world.. ) just capturing all the footage and narrowing it down to the clips you want to keep was probably the most time consuming...

i dunno. i dunno. heh. go with what was said by the other guy.. dont charge for the time it took you how to learn to do something, just the time it took to put what you had learned into motion.
 
ps: aren't step dads usually MORE generous, cuz they want to bond with you?

that's how they are in the movies, anyways.... heh.
 
oh ya, can i come stay in your lodge? i loved that movie Into The Wild. i just dont wanna die in an abandoned bus.
 
scratchpatchfilms- thanks for all your input. And if you would like to come up to the lodge feel free. The lodge is called the Highliner Lodge (highlinerlodge.com) and we don't have any abandoned busses, so you should be good.

I was thinking somewhere between $1500 to $2800 for everything, I just wasn't sure exactly where in there and wanted to make sure that others would charge around the same for a 30 minute promo DVD.

Thanks again for everyone's help. Any and all input is greatly appreciated.
 
Would it be easier if I were to throw one of the sections onto Vimeo or Youtube so everyone can get a feel of what sort of quality the end result was?

I know that my main question is a touchy one, I really just don't want either me or my step dad to get screwed in the process.
 
man, i need to get a passport so i can fly to alaska..

well anyways, i'm sure your video is good. that's only part of how to choose the price. its your first effort so i'd go low. are you wanting to charge him more than $2500? ask him for 3 grand then. ask him for whatever you want man! many people do these things for free just to get something on their portfolio so if its your first video ever, consider yourself lucky that you can even decide what its worth.

also, that being said, you didnt tell him before the project started what you'd charge, so now it's like you're kinda holding the product hostage and thinking of a ransom. hey that's a good movie idea.. wait, don't steal that!

like i said, break it down to hours spent working on it, and what your time is worth too. keep in mind that 1) this is your stepdad and 2) this could bring you more business in the future that you charge way more and decide on a price. dont stress about it too much cuz there's no set formula or guidelines anybody here can give you. be fair to yourself and your step dad and it'll be a nice little bonus you can put towards your next effort and move on.

word?
 
scratchpatchfilms said:
grinner, i cant wait till i feel comfortable charging $150 an hour! you must be raking it in!
Click to expand...

If that rate is for editing, I'm sure it includes the equipment rental as well as his personal rate.

Here in Dallas, the going rate for non linear video editing is about $150/hr. That rate includes about $90 - $100/hr for the editing equipment and the rest is the editor's rate.
 
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