How much do you charge for editing?

Amuse-WS

Amuse-WS

Carbonite Member
Early apologies, I've done a search, and maybe I'm searching with the wrong terminology, but couldn't come up with results.

I'm wondering how much you editors are charging per hour? I was asked to edit a 2 minute short film, and the client wants a really detailed coloring, exposure/brightness fixes for ever frame in the 2 minutes. With meticulous attention to detail like this, how much would you "project" as far as price?

The scenes are quite complex for a short 2 minute film - a lot of cuts, location changes, day > night, etc.

Any advice?
 
When charging an hourly rate, it does not matter how long the resulting program will be, it's more about how long it takes you to get there. Also hourly rates tend to get producers to decisions earlier than later...

That being said, getting hourly rates for many job types doesn't really happen anymore and are more project based. How many hours it takes you to get there is up to you, and a bad estimate will have you working less than minimum wage.

Depending on the number of source hours you have to wade through, the complexity of the finished program, and your abilities, you will have to estimate how long this will take you. Let's assume 40 hours. Now work back from that to be confortable with, you and the client. I have friends who edit national TV spots which end up being 30 seconds long on which they spend 40-80 hours with all the revisions and sign offs.

Michael
 
Hi AMUSE,
Clients generally want to know what its going to cost, not how much an editor charges per hour or day. In my business, I usually think in terms of dayrate and I rarely charge half or quarter days (unless the project takes multiple days, ie: 1.5 or 2.75 days to edit). As Michael stated above, I usually end up giving a project rate, based on an estimation using my dayrate (seven hundred and fifty dollars). I also include a clause in my agreements that the edit includes 1 set of minor revisions. If the client requires multiple or major revisions we renegotiate our project rate accordingly.

I find the worst part about editing is watching all of the footage for the first time. I make decisions right away about what I am using and what stays in the bin otherwise, I waste too much time watching footage and finding clips again and again.

As for Color correction, audio sweetening and effects, it is probably better that you lock picture with the client before getting into the minutia of those details. That way, you aren't replacing fully color corrected clips with new raw footage.

Also, if a director is good, they will supply you with an edit decision list. This makes your life a lot easier and their creativity a lot more obvious. Its a terrible thing when you can't see inside their head. An EDL will also allow you to charge a little more conservatively, helping the client's bottom line.


Jason
 
AwakenedFilms said:
.
Also, if a director is good, they will supply you with an edit decision list. This makes your life a lot easier and their creativity a lot more obvious. Its a terrible thing when you can't see inside their head. An EDL will also allow you to charge a little more conservatively, helping the client's bottom line.


Jason
Click to expand...

HOLY SH*T! you have had directors give you an EDL..... wow, you are big time. Most the directors I have worked with are usually surprised they shot the stuff we review! :shocked:

I am exaggerating, but you know what I mean.

I have only been able to charge an hourly rate on very few projects, and while they ended up being very lucrative, those were projects that were "Highly Supervised" by the client and were not the best working experience. Those situations took longer to do because of having to explain so much of the process to the client, all of the way through the project. Of course, I was being paid for the time, but I didn't care to work that way.

Most of the editing work I have done has been flat rate, project based billing. MichaelP is right, you have to be very careful with your estimate or you could end up working for less than minimum wage. If you are doing a two minute short film (Fictional Narrative?), with extensive CC I would expect AT LEAST 40 hours to complete. I am in a very modestly sized market, so my hourly rate is $65.00, so for a 40 hour project, I would not accept less than $2600.00, and that is CHEAP!.

However, I would let the client know that your estimate is conditional. There is so much that can come up in post that makes a project drag out, and end up costing you money. I would let the client know that you will have to have a final project cost estimate, ONLY after you have loaded their footage into your system and had a chance to review the footage with the client (the final decision maker), and have done a short test of their footage completed to their delivery requirements.

Until you have their footage into your system and have reviewed, you will not have any idea what quality the footage is. Filmmaking is a complex endeavor. There is so much that can go wrong. Until you see what they are asking you to cut, you really can not adequately evaluate how long it is going to take you to cut it. If you get in there and there are hours and hours of sh*tty footage, then they need to know that right away and you need to renegotiate your rate. Trust me on this! I have been stuck a couple of times correcting BS technical issues on projects that ended up taking forever to deal with, and for which was not in my rate estimate. I would have been better flipping burgers for the time it took me. One one project, shot on DV, they fast forwarded between each take a few seconds to, "Give Space for editing", which caused havoc with loading into FCP and on another project the audio sample rate was off and ended up being a pain in the a** to fix. Then there is sh**ty acting, shaky camera moves, focus issues, inaudible dialogue, underexposed footage, overexposed footage, boom mics in the frame, mis-slated takes, takes with no slates, take after take of FUed gun effects, take after take of FUed special effects, and on and on.....You get the drift.
 
I'd love to get in here and ask a few questions as well, if that's ok.

I am just beginning my own production company with an emphasis on political events as well as sports documentaries and recruiting DVD's. I am right now struggling to come up with a practical business plan as to how much I am going to charge hourly or even per project.

Most of my political projects will involve an hour or two of filming, transcribing the recordings, and then just chopping up the event into relative segments. Shouldn't be too time consuming other than the transcribing.

At this point I am thinking that I will charge $50 an hour for filming and $30 an hour for editing. I anticipate a typical project to take me between 5 and 10 hours to edit.

What do you guys think? Should I just negotiate based on a per project basis or should I try to stick to an hourly rate based on what I am doing?

Thanks in advance.
 
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