DP quick Q's.

C

cineasta_dom

Active member
Just a quick question here. What do DP's usually charge. There's this guy that I have a feeling is pulling my leg.

Thnks in advance.
 
nine ninety nine.












Depends on experience, who you know, and if your any good and can actually get people to pay what your worth.
 
Are you the DP or the person that hired one?
The whole range is probably $500 -$5000 a day without equipment not counting the desperate jobs people do for the quick cash.
 
Slice said:
I would imagine it depends on who the D.P. is.
Click to expand...

...and how long the project is, and when it is, and what the schedule is like, and what format it's on, and who else is working on it, and how badly the DP needs the work, and what kind of experience he/she has...

etc. etc.

Asking how much a DP charges is sort of like asking how much a car costs.
It all depends.

I'm pretty sure no matter who you are that you'll always be able to count on being able to spend anything from 'less than you thought' to 'more than you have.'
 
Thnks guys. The dude had given me some weird numbers when I asked. He said he charged 8,000 a week! (I was the one wanting to inquire) I found that number VERY HIGH because it did not seem to me that he had a lot of experience.

Anyway.

It's only if things go well and we can actually get an 'ok' budget that we'll go that route.

but :) I guess we can allways hire one of you guys then! to *help us* w/ our HVX200 or CineAlta needs.

Thnks for the responses everyone.
 
true ^^^

i worked with robert smigel in nyc once (great dp) and he was charging the director $1k a day

**edit and i'm not talking about robert smigel the tv guy, i'm talking about the dp...ha**
 
He said he had some SD cam's (dvx100, xl2's etc) he could use, but no HD cams - which is what i'm hoping to shoot with. So I guess we would have had to rent (or buy) the HVX and/or (if budget permits) the CineAlta (rent) -- [one and a half month shoot]. I was just somewhat curious so we exchanged some emails. Because nothing is SET ... yet.


But, yeah... I guess we're gonna have to just wait to see what happens with the moneysss and such. If there's no money it's gonna be ME! the director "DPeeing" :)
 
:) there's plenty... dougspice,

I just wanted to know what sort of prices they use. But like everyone said on the thread, it all depends

=)
 
well, i have experience and i think my work is decent for what i've done. since i'm still in school i usually charge $200 a day. this next summer i'm shooting a boxing feature and i asked for $4000 for the whole movie. i originally asked $2000, but i am going to edit it too, so i asked for another $2000.

i'm looking for more experience, and i think $200 a day is fair.
 
This is a wide open question. I get $1750 a day dry (no gear) but I did an indie feature last summer for 12k . I will NEVER do it again. Too long & too cheap. 9 weeks !!!! But Lions Gate likes it.

But Justin will do it for $200 a day, so you get all kinds of guys for all kinds of $$$.

Like the work and the person, then Hundle !!!

If you don't shoot, don't shoot. Find a Shooter. It's not as easy as it looks...

Steve
 
Yeah, Steve and Justin are perfect examples - both sides of the rainbow. So I guess it all boils down to budget. If you have the money, Mr. Steve is the man (because of course, the executive producer wouldn't want somebody with out experience). If you dont have the money... [ok, maybe a little money] you can go with someone who is 'starting out' like Mr. Justin [who needs to build up his work and wont charge you too much].

Thanks everyone for your comments.

P.S. the website is important Justin - even if you're starting out.
 
It also depends on what you want to do with the project. If its just a short to do a short to get experience then you could go with a cheap solution for both to gain.
If you are doing a documentary type thing and plan to try to get it on the air, its better to spend on someone with exerience because they probably wont take it if it looks like crap unless you have something thats a once in a lifetime ever caught on tape kind of thing. Also documentary shooters need to know how to pay attention to whats happening and get the best shot at a moments notice and capture the moment. I tried a couple and it just wasnt for me.
If you are shooting something for film fests then I would say spend as much as you can on someone decent because you dont want to go through all that hard work creating a script, getting actors and crew to have it all fall apart with bad footage.
 
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