investing in Arris?

[RyanT]

Erik, so basically you r saying that someone is giving you $750/day and you tell them "no"? I have hard time believing it.

The people that give you 750 bucks and ask for the world are also the sort of people who will try and work you for 14 hours and then tell you call is at 6am tomorrow morning. Some jobs just aren't worth the money, and I really believe that.

If you invest in any lights though, please don't spend your money on arri's. Look into used mole's. So much cheaper and just as good of quality.

 

[emretufekci]

For the rest of us, we must ply our trade competing for paying shows. And the competition that will last is made up of other professional tradespeople with leases, stacks of equipment threatening to obsolesce at every moment and better knowledge for how to tie it all together.

No matter what stage of your career you are sooner or later everyone will have to accept Erik's advice as a business fact. The only way you will survive long term in this business as an individual company with private clients is to grow and increase your income.

There will always be people who will do it cheaper and you simply cant compete with them. At the same time those people cannot compete with us either!!! They do not have the resources, experience, knowledge or the relationships we do......different markets, different budgets. The sooner you (anyone) can pull yourself out of that market the better.

Yes, when you are young and staring out it seems a little hard to turn down jobs but just remember what Erik said and apply it as often and soon as you can.

 

[Erik Olson]

Erik, so basically you r saying that someone is giving you $750/day and you tell them "no"? I have hard time believing it.

I regularly go out for $550 a day. That's the going rate for an operator without camera in unscripted television. The camera and lighting and audio package don't work for that rate. It is an a la carte menu. That said, I'm handy with a spreadsheet and calculator and perfectly willing to put it all into a nice round number if I think the client will find it easier to digest that way.

This argument about mechanics, plumbers and other tradespeople not billing for their work through detailed line items is just plain wrong. Wrong. Have you ever had a transmission rebuilt or a complete split heat pump / air conditioning system installed? I have, and the invoices are staggering to look at. Each major component is broken out and separated - every time - from the labor.

Yeah, you want one number? Look in the lower right corner. There it is.

I'm really speaking to the type of clients who bring the entire industry down. I'm talking about the people who will work for free to satisfy their lust to learn. Learn on a college film project. Learn by shooting a PSA for a local charity with no real money. Educate yourself working on a DVXUser short film with contemporaries in your area. Don't devalue our trade by making the new standard $500 a day with 1080p camera and lighting kit. Because I'm going to hear about it when that "special client" calls me six months later looking for the same rate.

What happened to the guy who gave them that rate last year? My dwindling money is on him being out of business for unsustainable business practices and general ignorance for how the industry works.

Can someone shoot and deliver a wedding for $500? Sure. But not for long.

 

[Erik Olson]

Wondering if its a good or bad idea to buy a nice set of Arris. They will last a life time under the right care but I dont know if it would help me market myself as a DP or not. Usually the Gaffer supplies the lights but in the micro budget indie world most producers look for a DP with the whole set up. What are your thoughts?

As I wrote my last post, I wondered if I'd derailed this thread. Looking at this, I don't think so. It's an important conversation to have.

In short, I absolutely think you should source some lights. Used Moles or Bardwell & McAllisters or new Arri, Strand or Altman Pro Series are solid choices.

Getting back to my personal opinion and in answer to your original post - don't ever give that valuable stuff away for free to get a job. There are already industry-standard practices (that were, at one time, not the standard) that make it difficult to operate a business in the black.

• 3-Day Weeks - Not always the standard. When I got in the business in the early 90s, the week rate was 4 day weeks. But someone decided they could be more competitive.
• 30% Producer Discounts - These have gone up to the point where people ask for discounts on labor now. Never discount labor. You can negotiate whatever rate you want. There are standards. Industry-savvy clients will usually come right out and tell you what the rate is. Whatever you do - don't take a $600 day rate and "take off" 20%. Sometimes, they'll ask you to discount because you're "local". That word alone might well mean that you're already forfeiting a per-diem, mileage and other benefits. Working for a set, lower rate is a lot different than offering a discount, which is erosive to established best-practices. Purely psychological? Perhaps, but introducing the concept of discounted labor will damage our industry to a catastrophic level.

If I seem emotional or especially emphatic about this topic, it's because I'm coming from a highly experienced collective bargaining background (from non-union, union and corporate perspectives). I've seen worker's rights continue to erode at the hands of powerful corporate interests. TV and cable networks now effectively force writers and other show staffers to work for literally nothing to create interstitial materials for the web. While the company books are basically closed to the union auditors, everyone is told that the content "doesn't make money", and the discussion is closed. No money. So why should we negotiate for residuals? We simply won't. Just take your money from the home video agreement (worthless) we forged back in the 20th century.

Those fights - even with the full force of the trade unions behind you - are tough enough to challenge.

To collectively lose our capacity to turn an honest living within our (already competitive) chosen trade because kids with increasingly powerful tools are willing to give it all away for a credit is maddening. And we shouldn't let it happen.

 

[ggrantly]

Erik,

Your comment about my auto repair example is spot on, they don't charge for tools to repair a car. They charge for labor and parts. Parts are the items the customer leaves the shop with.

You might have missed it in my fine print, I do include for using all my equipment, it is built into my day rate which includes not just the equipment, but depreciation, insurance, time for administration etc. Those are the real costs of doing business. Every time I go out, I am paying for my investment whether I use all my equipment or not. You have to do that. How are you going to pay for equipment using a pared down day rate plus equipment charges if a piece of gear only rents a few times per year. Large investment + small ROI = bad.

My only point is: Don't confuse your customer with too many choices or places to haggle on a quote. It isn't that they are stupid, they just don't much care or need to know about the minutia, so why offer up the potential for controversy. In the big picture (no pun intended) most clients don't care how I get the job done. All they care about is the final result. Did they receive reasonable value for the money? Was the job on time and on budget? Caveat: I deal mostly in the corporate world.

Quote: "To collectively lose our capacity to turn an honest living within our (already competitive) chosen trade because kids with increasingly powerful tools are willing to give it all away for a credit is maddening. And we shouldn't let it happen"

I find the above quote interesting. How do you intend to stop that? I am a "Johnny Come Lately" that was able to enter this business with the "new more powerful tools" which became less expensive in the digital revolution. Unlike the ripped pants kids you mention, I am a established business guy in my mid 50s with my own passion. Those kids you mention don't worry me much, I had the same thing happen in other industries. Hiphopyouth don't have enough credibility. Can they get a bond? Can they finance a project? Get insurance? Deal with a suit and tie presentation? Some will succeed and become real competition, most won't. They don't and can't play in my circles until they gain the business skills that took me many years to learn. They will get tired of eating top ramen for dinner and raise their rates. At that point, they will be competing with me on equal terms and there is nothing I can do about it except be better.


Grant

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Erik, we live in times where everybody (and i mean EVERYBODY) has access to cheap tools that create HD images and have great color rendition, but that means that everybody also gets to shoot with it AND see that their video still looks like crap despite all those pixels. That's where the appreciation of value of labor can potentially come back.

Both you, ma and everybody else should make their personal choice how little is too little to work or. Maybe $550 is too little (as a matter of fact it is my defacto - don't-go-any-lower-then-this rate too - with no gear)? You made the choice to tell your low budget clients $550 + extra for gear. I made a choice to tell my low budget clients $750 = me plus gear. Is everyone getting such sweet treatments - definitely not.

 

[Erik Olson]

I could write (read: rant) on this subject for days. But I'm not going to. I think we concur that the OP should buy some quality new or used lighting and be sure to charge for their use whenever possible?

 

[emretufekci]

I could write (read: rant) on this subject for days. But I'm not going to. I think we concur that the OP should buy some quality new or used lighting and be sure to charge for their use whenever possible?

I think the moral of the thread is that whether we like it or not EVERYBODY in this business is in a symbiotic relationship. We only hurt ourselves when we compromise.