HPX170 shooter/editor - what to charge?

S

srdan

Member
Hello. Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I did a search but found results scattered across forums. COuldn't find one on the HPX170.

Anyway, I'm a pretty experienced shooter from doing my own work on the side. Short films/music videos/some live events for friends/family etc.

But now I am getting some requests from small businesses and I'm not sure how to start pricing.

I'm a one man crew. Shoot 1080p. No add-ons to the cam besides high quality mic. I have a few studio lights I use as well.

I also edit on FCP.

The type of requests I'm now getting are:
- shooting/editing live events (approx 2 hours per event)
- shooting/editing short films for schools/corporate (approx eight hour day of shooting - couple days of editing)


I know this is a broad question, but any pointers would be excellent help for me. Sorry for broken english. Thank you.
 
set your shooting rates by half day/ full day.

hd rates in T dot should be like 550-700/half, 900-1150/full or something along those lines. Charge by the day for editing, 400-700 is a good start for a day of editing, probably on the lower side if your new to the business side of things. It's up to you to figure out how long your going to need to edit a project, and also budget for revisions and put a cap on it, say 5 hours of revisions included and make em pay after that.

Or the other rule of thumb is 1000/minute of edited content. If they can't pay what you ask, don't waste your time.
 
Paunch gave a pretty good start with his half day and full day rates.

Charge what you're worth, try to be cheaper than someone about the same level as you are in your area, but don't undercut yourself too much. If you're doing the "whole package" then you should be sure to charge for the whole package. You can also think of your gear and yourself as separate items. Establish a day rate for yourself, a rental rate for your camera, a rate for your light kit, and so on. So if you charge 500/day as your personal take, 300/day for camera and p2 cards, 50/day for lights, and 50/day for sound you'd be looking at 900/day as your base price for the shoot day. Half day think 2/3 of what your day rate is (it's cheaper to buy in bulk).

When I'm budgeting a commercial I look at how much my costs are (talent, crew, etc). Assess your costs and make a decision.
 
Those camera rental rates are pretty high, check with local rental houses in your area and see what they charge for a gear package similar to yours. In Kansas City the HPX packages rent for about 225/day with cards. Until you have a nice corporate reel put together that is more than side projects (a reel showing what you can produce on a 1,000/day budget) I think you might have a hard time selling yourself over your competitors with lengthy reels at similar rates.
 
In NYC the HPX rate is much higher. Average rental house seems to be around $350/day. Cards are extra. and they are expensive. In NYC 32GB P2 card is around $64/day. These are just rate card prices.
 
wow you guys are getting ripped off on the hpx rates. I rent it to anywhere in the 48 states (Including NYC) for 200/day 300/week including P2, tripod & shipping. (just started renting the HPX, been renting the HVX for a while)

That being said, When I started out tapping professionally I estimated how many hours it would take and multiplied that by a fair hourly rate. Paunch mentioned 1000/min. I tape 90 min events with dual cam (need a second operator) and edit it to dvd for no wheres near 9000. Now if they wanted it on blue ray I would have to charge more because the disks cost more. A lot of pricing depends on the complexity of the shoot. Taping lectures, theater, Dance recitals etc. will probably take less time to edit then a wedding or a short film. When guessing shoot time, don't forget how long it will take to set up and take down. Also if you do rent equipment make sure you factor that in as mentioned above.
 
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