How do I calculate the time involved in the logging/editing phase?

T

tomperson

Active member
So, I've been recently offered to direct and edit a music documentary. It will feature a band playing in several different locations across my country. They want three versions out of it:

- A trailer/promo
- A 90 minutes DVD
- A 30 minutes WEB/TV version

There will be two or three cameras on location, candid footage (verité style) of the tour, and separate audio tracks for the musicians and ambient sound. How would you calculate how much to charge for something like this? This will be my first "feature" length doc, and my first with so many cameras, so I don't know where to start...But I'm sure this will be a hell of a lot of work...just the logging will be hours and hours...and more hours...

So, how do I calculate the time involved in the logging/editing phase?

PS: Sorry for the crosspost, i didn't really know if the correct place for this was documentary or business forum...
 
you just add up how much time you think it should take, add the 50% it will take and multiply that by your hourly rate.
There is no way to know how much footage you will have, man. Your talking multiple cameras on multiple evenings. Count on days of logging.
For a project like this, I'd put aside a week for post-production. You'll makew the longform first and then cut the web version out of that. You'll do the trailer last, using the best of the best.
You are best off sticking to a flat rate for the entire project on this. KNowong no real production company would touch this for less than 20k, I'd hit em with something not far below that. Be sure you work out details for duplication/replication. The last thing you want is to lose money on fullfillment.
 
That's my problem! Guesstimating how much time it will take to do this!

Lets suppose we have 3 cameras for shooting the gigs and one for candid footage. We have 5 separate audio channels in the gigs. Let's suppose that I end up with something like 36 hours footage, and 2 hours worth of audio for every audio channel.

So, I have at least 36 hours of watching the footage. ??? more hours of logging/transcriptions. ??? more hours of editing. ??? more hours of sound mixing/fixing/etc. ??? more hours of editing the trailer and web versions. ??? more hours of authoring. ??? more hours of who-knows-what ???.

I need a bit of help figuring out the ???

And what about duplication/replication? What do you mean by losing money on fullfillment?
 
nobody can work this out for you as we all work at different speeds. Again, round up and gracitate to a flat rate. You will eat some hours but gain the experience needed to quistimate int he future. This is a key part of what you will be doing for a living. You can do a great job on a production but if you come out upside down over and over, siccess is not part of the future. Throw out a bid, take a little on ther chin and post your learnings. Growth is what you are investing in here.
 
if you're doing a tour...36 hours might be cutting it short. you will most likely never stop rolling. because as soon as you do you'll miss something.

i would give them a flat rate that will pay for your work, your travel, your expenses and your crew.

you are going to spend at least a week cutting this baby.
 
thematthewbone said:
you are going to spend at least a week cutting this baby.
Click to expand...

Hey if you can cut a 90 minute docu/feature in a week I may need to hire you.

How long is the tour?
Knowing that will give you an easy way to work out the production aspect of the budget. (Other crew, equipment etc)
Then from that you can estimate how much footage you will shoot. Lets say the tour is a week and you have 3 cameras rolling for 4 days and 1 camera for the other 3. Let's say you average 4 hours of footage per camera per day, then you have 60 hours of footage to sift through in post. Allow at least 2-3 hours for logging and capturing each hour of footage so that is 3-5 weeks of logging and capturing. As you log and capture you will have a pretty good idea of what clips you will want to use in the edit. If you can average 5 minutes of editorial a day you will be doing REALLY good. So allow 3-4 weeks to get you to a 90 minute cut. Then allow another 1-2 weeks of going back and re-editing after you have shown a few people your work (the band included).
Then allow at least 4 weeks for post production sound editing and mixing
Allow another 1-2 weeks to cut down the 30 minute version and trailer. However I would be inclined to cut the trailer after the log and capture phase. At least you then have something to show.
So assuming the tour is only 1 week you are now about 18-20 weeks into this with post production.
How much are you willing to work for per week?
How many other people will you have to hire for the production?
How much equipment will you need to rent?
How much profit do you want to make?
Add all these factors up and then add 10-15% contingency on top and you will have a reasonably accurate figure.
My estimate based on these figures would be at least $75,000
 
I agree EXACTLY with everything that has already been stated, but I'm assuming that the band probably isn't going to be able to fork out that type of dough. I would suggest giving them that $60,000-$75,000 figure, and see how they react. There are cettain times, with bigger projects like this, where it can be a good idea to show the band just how much post production is actually involved. The general public never thinks about how long the editing process takes. They only think about the filming side of the event. Once they see how many hours, or months in your case, are involved, maybe they might start scaling back what they want from you.

Now, this presents yet another challenge in my opinion. If you are willing to sacrafice a bit of cash, in order to produce something above and beyond what the band expects, you will usually win in the end due to their elation of the final product and their referrals. If you go back to your roots of the business, we all did really cheap/ free gigs solely to gain more business and build a portfolio. In my opinion, it's the same concept when you start moving into new genres of film. Since you've never done a music project of this scale, it might be ok to put in some extra work without the extra cash. Hopefully you will get MUCH higher paying jobs once people are able to see that you can handle such a project. Obviously make sure you won't take too much of a hit; there's always bills to be paid, but be willing to give up some dough in order to be allowed such a huge business opportunity. Essentially apply this Zig Zigler quote to your business: "You can have everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people to get what they want!" Anyways, enough ranting for now. Good luck with it all, and keep us updated.
 
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