Help Please - Request for proposal

N

N635DC

Well-known member
Hey,

As many of you many already know, I am mainly a wedding videographer and live event professional. So I get a phone call and an e-mail today regarding a possible commercial project. I haven't had to do much responding or quoting commercial entities on production work. Can anyone here help me along with picking this RFP apart and submitting a production budget? I am not sure what the going rate is on complete commercial productions and whether non profits are billed differently. If you have any idea's or have a rough number you might charge, please post or pm me if you like.


Thanks to anyone that can contribute! I need to get this back to them by Friday.


P.S. I know this probably inst the place for it but was unable to find a business management category.





[FONT=&quot]Request for Proposal[/FONT]​




[FONT=&quot]April 9, 2010[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Project:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] 7-minute Promotional Video[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Topic:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] A prevention education department project in Berks county[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Background Information:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is a week-long summer day camp in its fourth year. The camp addresses social justice issues as the roots of violence in our society. Approximately 35 Berks County youth between the ages of 13 and 17 attend camp each year. The program is presented by a diverse Facilitation Team comprised of xxxxxxxxxxx staff and volunteers from the community. The xxxxxxxxxxxxxx curriculum, developed by xxxxxxxxxx is the foundation for xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In its first year, funding for the camp was initiated by the xxxxxxxxxxxx of Berks County. In subsequent years, funding has been secured through a variety of methods, from grants to sponsorships and smaller donations from the community at large. Each year’s funding strategies become more challenging.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The goal for this video is to help promote the camp to various agencies, groups, companies and individuals to help secure more regular funding on an annual basis, and recruit participants and facilitators.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Methodology:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Recording camp activities, interviewing campers and facilitators during the week of the camp, xxxxxx 24 – 30. Suggest a limited number of hours at the camp on days three (sexism day) and day five (classism, ally and re-entry day, along with goodbyes). xxxxxxxxxxxxx and volunteers will be available to record VO’s. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Location:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Berks County[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Please provide an estimate of producing (recording and editing) a seven-minute video to help our objective of reaching out to the community to promote the camp, recruit participants and secure funding.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]RFP Due Date:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] April 16, 2010, or A.S.A.P.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Reply to: [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/FONT]
 
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How much do you charge for a day of shooting a wedding? Charge them that per day plus stay away from a flat rate for editing. Charge per hour. Allow them to change the edit once and then bill after that.
 
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The pricing is really up to you. The simplest way to do it would be to, as jrmiller said, figure your day rate or if you prefer, your hourly rate, and then add up all the costs. Sounds like an expensive project if they're going to be paying for your accomdations, food and travel as well.

If it's any help to you, I did a very similar project to this last fall, and while I wasn't paid for it (it's a charity video for my reel, first major project) so can't advise you on cost, I can help answer any logistical or workflow questions related to using the HMC-150 on a long-form documentary. I found very little advise online for organizing and pulling large amounts (25+ hours) of AVCHD footage in Premiere and ended up creating a system involving Windows Explorer, Microsoft Access, and Excel to pretty easily streamline the workflow into Premiere. So let me know if you'd like more information.

Good luck on the project :)
 
TigerFX said:
The pricing is really up to you. The simplest way to do it would be to, as jrmiller said, figure your day rate or if you prefer, your hourly rate, and then add up all the costs. Sounds like an expensive project if they're going to be paying for your accomdations, food and travel as well.

If it's any help to you, I did a very similar project to this last fall, and while I wasn't paid for it (it's a charity video for my reel, first major project) so can't advise you on cost, I can help answer any logistical or workflow questions related to using the HMC-150 on a long-form documentary. I found very little advise online for organizing and pulling large amounts (25+ hours) of AVCHD footage in Premiere and ended up creating a system involving Windows Explorer, Microsoft Access, and Excel to pretty easily streamline the workflow into Premiere. So let me know if you'd like more information.

Good luck on the project :)
Click to expand...

Thx everyone for your responses,

I'll take any advise you are willing to give up, this is a great op for me to try something new.
 
Agreed with all this. Also, as TigerFX says, the sheer amount of AVCHD raw files you will need to store and track is going to probably necessitate another hard drive just for the project, and if you back it up (G) then two. I'm in the midst of a similar 10 minute project, and am wishing I had a camera that shot .MOV files (!). Just kidding. I've also added a blue ray player to my arsenal, and back up all the AVCHD to it and store it offsite, just in case.

As to price, I searched the internet and found a site that has downloads of production quote formats, to make sure I caught all the issues and didn't miss something important. In the end, my bid came in at around 10k for my current project, I was unwilling to go any lower. But I have a ton of shooting to do over a multitude of weeks.

By the way TigerFX, what did you do differently to track footage than I'm doing by logging during F&T in FCP? I am able to store all the data on the logging and export it out, so I don't understand why you created both Access and Excel to track stuff.
 
8string said:
By the way TigerFX, what did you do differently to track footage than I'm doing by logging during F&T in FCP? I am able to store all the data on the logging and export it out, so I don't understand why you created both Access and Excel to track stuff.
Click to expand...

I use this too (L&T data), but occasionally having something in Excel or other worksheets allows you to massage the data in different ways - not always needed - but when it is it's worth doing. Different tools for different tasks.
 
8string said:
Agreed with all this. Also, as TigerFX says, the sheer amount of AVCHD raw files you will need to store and track is going to probably necessitate another hard drive just for the project, and if you back it up (G) then two. I'm in the midst of a similar 10 minute project, and am wishing I had a camera that shot .MOV files (!). Just kidding. I've also added a blue ray player to my arsenal, and back up all the AVCHD to it and store it offsite, just in case.

As to price, I searched the internet and found a site that has downloads of production quote formats, to make sure I caught all the issues and didn't miss something important. In the end, my bid came in at around 10k for my current project, I was unwilling to go any lower. But I have a ton of shooting to do over a multitude of weeks.

By the way TigerFX, what did you do differently to track footage than I'm doing by logging during F&T in FCP? I am able to store all the data on the logging and export it out, so I don't understand why you created both Access and Excel to track stuff.
Click to expand...


What site is this you are referring to?
 
8string said:
By the way TigerFX, what did you do differently to track footage than I'm doing by logging during F&T in FCP? I am able to store all the data on the logging and export it out, so I don't understand why you created both Access and Excel to track stuff.
Click to expand...

Well it was just a matter of scale. I had about 25 hours of footage which was close to an hour for my rough cut (I cut it down to 15 minutes for the web). A lot of this footage was interviews (47 people), all of whom talked about different subjects at different points. So when it was time for me to edit all the people, say, who talked about the staff at the camp, I needed a way to quickly pull up every good shot of a camper talking about the staff.

The way I did this was to log all the interviews in Windows Media Player and a custom Access database, where I'd listen to an interview, and jot down the timecode areas for when they started a new subject and ended it, and I'd give it a 1/5 rating of how good it was. I'd skip sections I knew I wouldn't use, so for any given person I might write down 5-8 'sections' for possible use.



When it was time to edit, say, my staff section, I'd filter Access to only show clips related to that section. Then I'd sort the results by the ranking so the best were at the top. Then I'd drop the corresponding clip into Premiere (card dump/folder number, then clip number) and jump to the right timecode. If I like it, I set in's and out's, and drop it on the timeline (or a bin).

This all sounds a little complicated but really after the logging was done it was lightning quick. I could find any clip in Access then have in on my timeline in about 10 seconds, which for me worked better than trying to use Adobe's speech to text (which takes ages, btw) or have thousands of clips in bins. It was just easier to control everything this way.

Let me know if you have any more questions. I'm actually quite proud of my little system - it worked really nicely for me and I spent a good amout of time trying in vein to find someone documenting a real-world meta data workflow in Premiere (Panasonic's tools like the P2CMS aren't much help). Every example I could find showed just a few clips being imported, all conveniently located on the desktop. I'm amazed there are still no tutorials for how to manage large amounts of video footage.
 
TigerFX - I just watched the video you made and it's great! I aspire to be able to make something of such high a quality - the sound, the vision, the way it is all brought together, the context of each of the speakers - Absolutely great.

Your idea of using MS Access is a good idea. Can you help me in setting up a database - maybe post a skeleton database with the details removed? I am looking at making a video and filming a collection of interviews for a family history project for my family. If you could help with ideas on how to catelogue it, as you have done, it would be greatly appreciated.

Also did you have assistance in filming? I am wondering how to managed to film the interviews but have them look off camera? Did you set up the camera and let it run while you moved to the side?

Once again... it a great video.
 
Access database attached

Access database attached

(sorry to hijack your topic, N635DC)

Thanks davdav. No assistance - I handled everything from travel logistics, all aspects of production, and all the post-production. It's nice to know I can do it alone, but there were definitely times I wanted a hand (like running camera/headphones, holding a bounce board).

To get them to look off-camera I framed everything, hit record, then sat 5-10 feet away and conducted the interview. For the most part this worked out, there were 3-5 instances where lighting/audio changed significantly or the battery died -- in a few cases I failed to account for them looking away and as soon as I sat down the framing got awkward... but in the end none of these were tragic. I learned from them fairly quickly, and would stand up to check on things every 5-10 minutes, etc.

I did draft some campers to help either running the camera or running the interview, but this was only for a handful of shots and it was tricky to bring them up to speed on everything in 5 minutes.

I've just packaged up my Access database for you. Feel free to redistribute, use commercially, blah blah etc:

» Access 2007 database (533kb)

And in case you're wondering, all that I actually used Excel for was to keep track of who I interviewed and which card they were on. Columns for name, card/clip, age, duration, and rows for each person.

Thanks again :)
 
Thanks TigerFX. You have inspired me yet again. That I can attempt to do these type of projects without all the assistance. THANKS!!

Also I'll get a copy of Access 2007 (I have an older version and it won't open this file) to have a look at this database.

Regards
 
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