Help with Quote

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pyrohtml

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I have a client that is wanting me to package an interactive CD for him. Basically this will be shot over 2, 6 hour days inside of a denim processing mill as a promotional tool. From that point he wishes the footage to be edited down to a 30-60 second promotion with some possible animation created as an intro to the promotion. This will then be turned into a flash executable file and placed on a CD for production.

My question is, what would you charge for the three separate pieces of this promotion. My client wants a separate quote for each aspect.

1. The 2 days of shooting in the mill
2. The editing of that footage to a promotion (with possible animated intro).
3. The creation of an interactive CD with the finished promotion on it.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
For corporate work, I try to quote an hourly rate, but give them a detailed estimate of hours (high and low). Don't forget about things like preproduction planning, scripting, extra equipment like lighting you may have to rent, animation separate from editing, voice over talent, music fees, etc... If I explain it properly and tell them I how I develop teh hi./lo range, they usually like this (so far).
 
What we do is determine what will be needed for equipment and then we can determine what to charge for a day rate. Usually our labor rates are the same, so it's just figuring out equipment needs. If there is scriptwriting involved you can elect to charge a flat rate for that, which is more attractive to the client, but make sure you have stipulations for the review process or you'll end up doing lots of rewrites for free. I agree with the previous posters that the hourly rate is the way to go with post production. We use a formula that allows us to get an estimate for the client, but we do not want to be locked into that in case the work is more involved than originally planned for. It's merely there to give the client an idea of what to expect to pay.

Make sure you clearly lay out payment terms, etc. on your quote and have the client sign off on it. You don't want to get in a situation where the client can say you never told them what the payment terms were. We got into this recently in a deal that was a lot more informal than we normally do, a handshake deal if you will, and we ended up bumping heads over payment terms. Now, no matter who we are dealing with, the terms are always spelled out, so there's no mystery later on.

Steve
 
Thanks for all the feekback guys. I gave them what I thought to be a very fair quote today and I believe they are going to go for it. My situation is always a little difficult because I'm contracted through an ad firm to the clients so communication is typically through the ad firm. Once again thanks for the help it definitly aided me in building my quote.

-Mike
 
Steve,
You said you use a formula. Would you mind sharing it, or at least the concepts involved so that we can develop our own? I've been looking at this same issue. I know there is writing software and storyboarding software. Does anyone make a software package, or anything of the sort, for costing a production?
 
Our formula takes into consideration things like capturing time, degree of difficulty of the project, hourly rates, equipment rentals etc. It's an Excel type document and unfortunately I am not at liberty to release it because I didn't create it. But it does help us get a ballpark figure pretty quickly.

Steve
 
How do you determine the degree of difficulty for a project? Do you quantify it based on a set of criteria or just judge it based on experience?
 
Degree of difficulty is determined by whether it's a straight forward edit with very few effects/graphics and then then with each stage of dfficulty there is a different qualifier placed on it. The highest level would be something along the lines of a feature film. In order to have an estimated time of completion you have to know the scope of the project. Otherwise you'll find you are guessing and that could lead to your client expectations being skewed. Even with this process that we use, there are going to be times when your estimates are a little off because the project changes scope or there are change orders which affect the final billing. But it gives everyone a good idea at what to expect as opposed to telling the client that you'll be charging them $100/hr and think the editing will take between 2-6 weeks. Then the client has no idea whether they will expect to pay $4000 or $25,000. But if you estimate based on experience and some qualifiers that the job will take 1 week and cost $4000 and it ends up being $4800 due to some curve balls thrown in there, the client can deal with that because they had the ballpark figure to begin with.

Hopefully this helps.

Steve
 
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