article on rates

Thanks, Oppressor! I come from a still photography background, and I have been trying to get a feel for the pay scale in the video industry. This article was helpful. But I do have a question I posted on another thread, sorry to be redundant. Back in the 80's I hired a cinematographer to work on a 16mm educational film. He was a very good cinematographer, but not a *name* by any means. His rate at that time was $1,000/day just to walk on the set with his light meter. No camera, no grip -- that was all additional. Fast forward to today, and the article you linked to. According to the author, a current (modest) day rate for a camera operator is $300/day! That seems incredibly low, assuming you have any overhead at all. Have rates fallen that much, or am I missing something? Who's actually making money on a production? Maybe it's not the camera operator?

This article was a good first step, but I'd love to see even more of a breakdown in the production fees so I can get a feel for the overall scope of how these kind of budgets work.

Thanks again.

Tom
 
Tom Henderson said:
His rate at that time was $1,000/day just to walk on the set with his light meter. No camera, no grip -- that was all additional. Fast forward to today, and the article you linked to. According to the author, a current (modest) day rate for a camera operator is $300/day!
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Film rates are MUCH different from video rates. NABET scale for an LD is the same scale as an ENG camera operator (somewhere around $38/hour). IATSE rates for DPs and film camera operators are much higher. I know that when I hire an electrician or grip when I have to light bigger set-ups, I pay them MINIMUM $450/day. Gaffers, I have to pay a MINIMUM of $800/day. That's WAY more than an NBC camera operator rate! Film DPs I think make something like $1500-$2500/day. Film operators make ____? You film guys--fill me in here.
 
I'm curious about the difference in rates betwen video and film shooters. As a still photographer, it seems similar to what we went through during the transition from film to digital capture. A lot of people thought that a digital shoot should be cheaper than a film shoot. Within the still industry we kind of came to the conclusion that the "savings" of not having to shoot actual film is more than offset by the postproduction time, as well as the quick obsolescence of cameras and computer systems. The result in our industry is that rates have pretty much stayed the same whether the shoot is done on film or digital capture.

I wonder why this is not true in the video/film world? Is video perceived as the poor stepchild of film? Or do the more talented people really gravitate, as soon as possible, to film? That is -- are film shooters really more talented than video shooters (and therefore able to command higher rates)?
 
film is more expensive all around. the film is more expensive than tape. You have to process film which costs money. Film cameras are very expensive and there is alot of knowledge needed to operate them correctly. Usually big projects that are shooting on film have big budgets that they can pay people more. Mini DV projects generally have smaller budgets thus able to pay less. Alot of people can pick up a video camera and figure out at least how to operate the basics pretty quickly. Most people cannot operate a film camera though or even know where to start, myself included.
Sadly, miniDV camera operators dont make alot of money usually for most stuff. It varies of course, but $300 sounds about right.. depends on how long the day is though. Right now I charge $25 an hour. Its low compared to alot of people but I am trying to get work and I aint doing much right now.
 
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