hourly rates by experience

C Walker

C Walker

Well-known member
Hey everyone, I have a question!

I've been shooting video and making short, simple promos for small clients since college. I worked for a TV station making, short, simple productions for small clients (local retail stores, RV sales, PSAs, churches, etc). I have 6 months experience from the TV station, that's right a WHOLE 6 months!

Sarcasm aside, for someone whole is basically a novice at this, trying to attract small to medium clients, what should price be? Is there some kind of standard? I shoot with a DVX, edit in Final Cut Pro.

Thanks for any help!
 
I'm in Nashville, which should be a similar market to yours (rates vary widely
around the country). I'm an older guy but just now seriously getting into video
as a business, did it as a hobby for years.

After about a year of struggling I'm now commanding $400-600 a day including
equipment. So something like $50-$70 an hour. Some volume companies looking
for shot and edited web ads pay more like $40 - but it's easy and low pressure.

So if you are just starting out, shoot for $40 an hour and hopefully, once you
prove yourself, gradually increase to the prevalant rate in your area.
 
Wow, lol. I think it's too tough here in L.A. or something, I can't get $40/hr for my time anyway. With $75,000+ in equipment, I can sometimes get $1,000/day for the equipment and my time, but even that's not easy. Grrr...
 
That's not bad

That's not bad

That's not too bad, though. I mean let's say that's $300 for your equipment, $300 for your time, it's not fantastic but it's solid enough I guess.

The thing about Los Angeles is it's really a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I can build my reel much better and much cheaper than anyone else, in any other city of the U.S., because I have access to the most talented, and the largest number of talented people anywhere. And I can find them to work for $100-300 a day, no problem, just catch them in between bigger projects and you can find guys who have done amazing work that humbles what you're doing, like they've shot features and you're just asking them to shoot a short or a music video. Or they've gripped on major blockbusters and they're gripping on your music video. Also you can find ridiculous deals on equipment, I'm amazed when I see someone with a really solid grip truck, like all kinds of stuff and lighting galore, and they will work for $500/day. I just don't get it. I'm thinking, uhh, ok your truck and your equipment should definitely be worth $500/day alone, because it's too much of a hassle to go out and rent all that crap, rent the truck, etc. Easily worth $500. And your time has to be worth $200-300/day even if you're just a decent grip. But, hey, I'm not complaining, it means you can put together really pro level projects on low budgets.

At the same time, though, it means there's tons of competition for clients because everyone can do this work, haha. In other cities, companies have no idea who to turn to, so they have to find the few local production companies that exist, and odds are most of them don't do very good work. I've seen a lot of local TV ads in other markets watching DirecTV and Dish over the years, and even in markets like Boston there are terrible local ads you would never see on Los Angeles cable. No chance.
 
Is it uncouth to volunteer to work for another production company? Just production assistant work, moving lights, gripping, or whatever. To learn different tricks and network...
 
mainstreetprod said:
I'm in Nashville, which should be a similar market to yours (rates vary widely
around the country). I'm an older guy but just now seriously getting into video
as a business, did it as a hobby for years.

After about a year of struggling I'm now commanding $400-600 a day including
equipment. So something like $50-$70 an hour. Some volume companies looking
for shot and edited web ads pay more like $40 - but it's easy and low pressure.

So if you are just starting out, shoot for $40 an hour and hopefully, once you
prove yourself, gradually increase to the prevalant rate in your area.
Click to expand...


I responded! :)
 
hehe

hehe

There are weird California laws (not sure about other states) about unpaid interns, or volunteers, and basically companies can get in big trouble if they have you do what would normally be paid work and don't pay you. That applies even to students. Student interns have to be doing work that normally wouldn't be done by a paid employee, which is kind of weird (like what kind of work would that entail exactly?), and it's very clear it has to be for the benefit of the student and not for the benefit of the company. I find it odd mainly because why would I, as an employer, want to have a student intern if I can't put them to work doing stuff that saves me money? They are going to learn too, but come on, I don't think it's very helpful to the company or gives them much incentive at all to have students helping out. So that's the other issue, you have to be a student receiving credit at a legitimate institution, have the paperwork, etc.

That doesn't really apply if you are able to sign a document or something indicating that you are just volunteering and that you have no expectation to be paid, blah blah, etc. Otherwise the company can be sued for back payment. I read about what a weird issue it all is, and it sounds like in some ways they make it tough to be a volunteer even if you want to be. But I think there's some way around it with the right paperwork.
 
JonathanLB said:
There are weird California laws (not sure about other states) about unpaid interns, or volunteers, and basically companies can get in big trouble if they have you do what would normally be paid work and don't pay you. That applies even to students. Student interns have to be doing work that normally wouldn't be done by a paid employee, which is kind of weird (like what kind of work would that entail exactly?), and it's very clear it has to be for the benefit of the student and not for the benefit of the company. I find it odd mainly because why would I, as an employer, want to have a student intern if I can't put them to work doing stuff that saves me money? They are going to learn too, but come on, I don't think it's very helpful to the company or gives them much incentive at all to have students helping out. So that's the other issue, you have to be a student receiving credit at a legitimate institution, have the paperwork, etc.

That doesn't really apply if you are able to sign a document or something indicating that you are just volunteering and that you have no expectation to be paid, blah blah, etc. Otherwise the company can be sued for back payment. I read about what a weird issue it all is, and it sounds like in some ways they make it tough to be a volunteer even if you want to be. But I think there's some way around it with the right paperwork.
Click to expand...

That is very strange. I thought that was the purpose of interns/students. I did an unpaid internship as part of my degree. This production company came to our school once, a few years ago and said it was fine if we wanted to come down and do stuff like help setup, take down, move around stuff, etc. However, I'm not a student anymore...
 
Yeah being a student definitely makes it way easier.

It's funny because even though I have a lot of my own stuff to do, I'd volunteer in the right position to help out a UPM, for instance, and learn more about producing that would help my own company. But I wouldn't want to be paid. Because if I was paid it'd probably be like $100-150 a day, and I have no use for that. I find it insulting, haha, so I'd rather help on my own time and do it to learn.
 
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