My rant: Am I being underpaid or am I in the right here?

[Andrius Simutis]

...Roughly 10hours of shooting (split on 2 days) and 5hours of editing. So, they offered me 450$ for all that, which comes down to getting paid 30$/h for 15hours of job. Under the average price in the industry, but if I can get more contracts with them, that's something I can live with.
I see it as some paid-experience contracts that I'll add to my portfolio, and money to get new gear.

When you go to the mechanic to get your car fixed there's a posted labor charge that's anywhere from $75 to $150/hour. That doesn't mean that the mechanic who is actually doing the work on your car is taking home $150 for that hour, but that posted rate is what it costs to pay the mechanic, the rent, the costs for tools, training, certifications, insurance, taxes, administration, and a little bit of profit in there.
Don't kid yourself that you're making $30 per hour on this job. Count up how much time you spent learning to do this, the cost of your camera and computer, taxes due, and all those other real costs and you're maybe making $3 per hour, not $30.

 

[drapeama]

When you go to the mechanic [...]
Don't kid yourself that you're making $30 per hour on this job. [...]
you're maybe making $3 per hour, not $30.

1) That's for sure. The price the client pays for a service covers multiple aspects.
2) The point was that I'll get that amount of money, which is ok for me, but still under the average in the industry...by far. I'm not doing this as work, it's a hobby to start with (short films) and now I'm getting offered contracts, which leads to make some money. I won't spit on it, but still, I have to choose to either lower my price, or not getting any "extra" money.
3) Most probably. There's a couple thousand dollars of investment in equipment, software and invaluable amount of time in learning all that! What people don't really seem to think about, is not only that they're paying for the equipment, but for the skills and experience. For some people, it can't be associated to a value. It's like, it comes with it in a package deal. Frustrating.