Just got my first free lance gig (music video) what do I charge?

triplej96

triplej96

Veteran
I just got my first free lance gig...I graduated college few months ago and work as manager of video production for a small company that produces "how to" training videos. On to the gig this band wants me to do their music video basically everything shoot, direct, edit... Their an up and coming band and just finished their first cd. Just curious on how much to charge them for everything. They will most likely help out on audio mixing. How much do most low budget music videos cost to make? Obviously they came to me because it would be cheaper than a production house and they liked my artistic abilities in a previous music video I made.



Thanks
 
Personally I wouldn't charge much under $1000 and most small to medium companies charge more, say $2000 -$3000. Figure out the time you will have invested and see how much an hour you will be making if you charge x dollars, then determine if you are happy with that amount.
 
When you say audio mixing do you mean this will be a live concert recording? That is a completely different project then a traditional music video.

You might come up with cheaper rate for them to use for promotional purposes (on their website) but retain the ownership and broadcast rights so if they take off and want to use that video on MTV you can get paid a more reasonable amount.

Congratulations and good luck
 
Can you really do that? Charge someone per how they are going to use the video? I figured just charge them one fee and they can do whatever with it. MTV isnt going to pay the artist or the director for playing their video.
 
DVX100Shooter said:
Can you really do that? Charge someone per how they are going to use the video? I figured just charge them one fee and they can do whatever with it. MTV isnt going to pay the artist or the director for playing their video.
Click to expand...
I think the idea is that you charge them one rate for use on their own website and on Youtube or Myspace or whatever, with the understanding that you have not licensed the rights to them to broadcast it on television or sell it on Itunes or something... then, if and when they start getting airplay for it, presumably they have a little more money, and they (the band) come back and buy out the rest of the rights for an additional fee.

It's sort of a win-win. You get a gig and some experience and they get a cheap price, and if they start doing well, you get more money, under the theory that your video probably helped them to be successful.
 
just curious - how does one get hired without giving a price to a client?
was there any discussion about $$ ?
 
DVX100Shooter said:
Can you really do that? Charge someone per how they are going to use the video? I figured just charge them one fee and they can do whatever with it. MTV isnt going to pay the artist or the director for playing their video.
Click to expand...

Yes you can do that. Photographer do it all the time. if you go to a photographer and say I want to take some headshot photos they are going to generally charge you a lower price because the photos are for self promotional use and they aren't going to give you the copyrights without charging their full price. Now lets that you are a company and you come to the same photographer and want to take the exact same picture but instead of it being used for self promotion of an artist you want to use it in an ad campaign. The photographer is going to charge a much higher rate then before even though it's the same picture.
 
donatello said:
just curious - how does one get hired without giving a price to a client?
was there any discussion about $$ ?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the replys everyone. They just really wanted to me to make and I'm guessing they assume I will charge them a fair price.
 
well i mean, if you wanna make somthing nice at least 5K. Renting cranes, Lights, crew, locations, props, editing time, mastering time (compressing).........

And still you will need t get really creative to push that budget far.
 
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