Behind the Scenes docos going rate?

sbaileymediaman

sbaileymediaman

Active member
Hi guys,


I have recently started a video production business and one of the areas that I am interested in pursuing is creating 'making of' docos for feature films in Australia (currently do corporate/web videos) as a springboard to a directing role.

Am just wondering what is a reasonable price for a 1 hour making of doco consisting of 5 days filming and around 50 hours post.

Firstly for an independent feature and also for a big budget film (e.g. pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter level).

Can't seem to find any info on the internet but am sure that there must be a few out there who know what is pretty standard.

Thanks in advance,:)
 
this is what i do for a living. the studio's budgets for dvd/blu-ray bonus features range from under $15k for library titles (like a re-release of the Longest Day, stuff like that) and low budget movies to $750K for a tentpole title like Transformers or Pirates of the Caribbean.

how do you get those jobs? it's who you know.
 
Are you serious? 750k for a 'making of' doco? I thought the money would be okay but thats pretty damn good!

When you say 750K what would that involve. I mean, how many 'making of' crew, how much time, how much content etc. What would justify that kind of fee?
 
well, in the case of an "A" studio title you are talking about bonus features that are feature length -- 90-120 minutes worth. it's not one "making of". it's shooting 150 hours of footage on set, pitching, scripting and cutting multiple pieces, PIP on blu-ray, webisodes for online, audio commentary. that money would pay for the daily rates of a producer, camera op, sound guy and gear rental (usually an F-900 package) for each day they are on set. it would pay for airplane tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals. it would go toward paying a team of editors, asst editors and producers to cut two hours worth of content over the course of 6 to 8 weeks. it would go to having motion graphics built in after effects, all of the content professionally color graded, a 5.1 mix, QC'd (quality control), and delivered. as well as overhead on everything from fedex to messenger services. daily rates for editors, producers and shooters range from $350/day on the very low end to $1200/day on the high end.
 
What Zak is tactfully trying to say is that out of that $750k, you make $1.98 profit ;-) Sad, but true. The studios expect the money to be on the screen and on tentpole projects, the travel eats most of the budget and the sheer amount of days you need to be on set finishes off what is left. The biggest budget bonus feature I have produced was about $500k budget and it honestly wasn't enough and we lost money on it when all was said and done. Big budget does not equal big profit. What is nice is when you do a string of projects for a client, sometimes they will give you a bunch of small easy ones that you can make some profit on, but it seems like the expectations on the ones with budgets over about $150k are really high so you end up spending it all and wishing you had more.

I am in the same business and honestly, that business is dwindling down really quickly. As DVD sales are plummeting, most of the studios have cut their in-house Home Entertainment staff to the bone and the amount of bonus material being commissioned has dropped way, way down. A lot of us are wondering when and if DVD Bonus material will be deliverable via on-line, iTunes, etc. easily, then this business may have a resurgence but as of now, it is dying a slow death.

Also, we are discussing DVD Bonus Material. There is also EPK, HBO First Look, etc. type of stuf that continues along its way but those budgets are cut way down too these days and most of the EPK houses have a lock on it, very little room for new competitors unless you know the filmmaker and they demand you. Certain producers in the industry have made their names simply because they are buds with a high profile filmmaker. But it limits your options if your filmmaker is taking a hiatus.

Dan
 
You'll just mutiply your day or hourly rate to find this number. Of course you always try to get what you can out of it but seldom will you get more than what you put into it. Based on your hours prediction, I'd say 20k is a realistic ballpark to pitch in.
 
Thanks everyone, it's good to be aware of all that info, If I were to do a 'making of' doco, at this stage it would be for a 'lower' budget film and for a director that I already know.

I'm hoping to do a bit of this work (along with the 'bread & butter' corporate and web videos) and use it as a springboard to directing my first feature as I have a really emotion packed completed treatment that would be a brilliant film but I obviously need to work with some producers and do a lot of networking with influential players in the industry before I would be considered to direct it or any other reasonable budget feature.
 
I've done a few EPKs for films with budgets from $8 million dollars to $60 million dollars and the budget for EPk haven't been that different. If your not working on a action film and all they want is all the interviews with cast and crew which you can shoot over 3 days and then another 2 days shooting for B-Roll. For that you can charge around 20K. That's the standard EPK package.

It will take you around four days to edit the interviews and choose the B-Roll for the EPK and then depending on how quick an editor you are another 3/4 days to cut a good rough cut to show your client. Then hopefully two more days for tweaks, graphics and a sound/color mix.

On each project we've made a good profit. To be honest your not going to be offered a directing gig from doing EPKs. Short films and low budget features are the only way to go.
 
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Agreed. Doing EPK, BTS and DVD bonus puts you exactly one step above wedding videographer (no offense intended to the many great wedding videographers who do killer work) as far as how you are perceived in Hollwyood. Even the top DVD guys are pretty much stuck doing only bonus material (and then EPK is its own separate little sub-genre), that is why I am drifting away from it. I have yet to see a Laurent Bouzereau directed feature or TV series.

To be honest, the directors, producers and crews just put up with having EPK and DVD on set because they have to in order to market the project. You don't usually get a lot of credibility as being recognized as knowing what you are doing because most of the people doing bonus material are hacks. How much really GREAT bonus material is there out there? A little bit from guys like Zak and the half dozen others who know what they are doing. But I run across so much truly bad bonus material, I rarely watch it unless i know the producer who did it. Most of it is crap.

As far as EPK, it is not easy work but a robot could do most of it, it is so mind numbingly repetitive and none of the studios want anything innovative, they specifically request "the same thing" that everyone else has always done, shot in the same way. The PR and marketing departments at the studios get really nervous if you do anything different on EPK than what is always done. Been there, done that. But as far as a viable business? EPK is now much stonger than DVD bonus, DVD is going down the tubes. EPK is still pretty strong although budgets are much lower than two years ago.

Dan
 
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