Name the price!

V

Voytech

Well-known member
So I made this weekly webisode series (24 episodes). All aspects of it were done by me. From script to most camera work (except when I'm on screen) to editing. I know this is far from being really good. I do think though, that it serves its purpose, which is educating people and subconsciously promoting the brand (marble dot com). So my question is:

How much is this worth? If you were to shoot these 24 episodes, at the same quality level, how much would you charge?
 
Hi Voytech,

Congratulations on completing you series. To A certain point it is hard to put a dollar sign on productions without knowing all the overheads. But let me give you my opinion on how much I would charge is a client walked into my office and said I want you produce this exact video.

My best guess would be$1100 per episode. (Research, Travel, Crew,Equipment, Editing, Vo...etc)

Other elements I am not aware of might add to the cost but anything under that we probably could not turn a profit.

A series of 24 might reduce the price and the final total might be 20-25% less.

Hope this helps.
 
Although I don't think it's very flashy, high sophistication work, I mean it looks on the relatively easy side to do, $1,100? Wow, I wouldn't even get out of bed for that. I don't think so.

When you're looking at the overall work that would still go into it, I don't see how you could go less than $2,000 to $2,500 per episode. It depends how much meeting time and how much research you had to do, obviously, I mean if all you had to do was show up by yourself and film some basic work then edit it, well yeah sure, maybe $1,000 to $1,500 would be alright, no biggie. But if it's any more than that, it has to cost more money.

People just don't seem to factor in the expenses of production or they do things so far off the pro path that they have no clue. If I want to shoot a virtual tour video for a company and integrate it into their Website, which is still only a 3-minute video, and the Website integration let's say costs me $300 to get someone to do a simple version of that, even assuming we did just the one guy and a tripod video (ugg, ick), it's still going to have to cost $2,000 to $2,500. Just because the work is not that time consuming doesn't change the fact that I have to pay $8,000 a year in insurance, have $80,000 of equipment, own an actual company with overhead, etc. But then again that's why I leave the simple small work to the videographers for the most part -- they can do a nice job for a nice price. I can't really compete with that price-wise.

I don't want to badmouth that type of work. It's great, because it allows a ton of people to have videos who otherwise would not be able to afford them. Furthermore, LOL, with this economy I may be the one-man-band guy two years from now!!

I just am saying don't sell yourself too short. People often look at it like this from afar, "Well hmm, ok yeah, you got this video, let's see that's pretty simple looking yeah I bet he shot that in 2-3 hours. Really easy editing, bet that took 2 hours. He owns a camera and a computer, hmm, so I guess let's see if you charged $500 that'd be good!" They seem not to realize it probably takes 8 hours to film something simple even still because especially if there's just one person, it's more complicated getting it right by yourself. Then editing, nothing takes a few hours. Ever. It takes hours just to change a name from Erik Smith to Eric Smith. If I make that change, I have to open up the Final Cut file, change the Motion file that is probably used for the scrolling credit, then depending on where this was used re-export the full quality QT file, re-compress the QT file for the Web, sometimes make a Flash version as well, re-compress for DVD often, then re-upload several files to the server if this file was already live, etc. It's a long process. All for a change that took like 2 minutes to make.

None of that is even taking into account that productions don't exist in a bubble. You don't login to your e-mail, find all of the project details out of the blue, and go do it. You have a long back and forth with the client, about their specific needs, about costs, about how you can do this on the budget they give you, etc. It usually takes far longer to go over all of that than to do the project itself. After that, you think you're done, until the client goes back and forth with further changes, etc.

I don't think $1,100 goes very far. I guess it just depends what you're willing to work with. If you have an SUV and you can put your equipment in there, head down the road 10 miles, do the project, come back, that's awesome. But if you need to bring a lot of equipment you may rent a U-Haul that runs you $150 even for a day, with mileage, to a place let's say 30 miles away not 10.

You know the value of your work the best, though, based on how much equipment you own and how much work you had to put into it. I just know personally how much it takes to make anything good. I'm imagining that you'd want $250/day at least for shooting and for editing, and assuming that was two days total that'd still be $500 minimum. But if you own your own equipment, I rent my HVX200 (quite successfully I might add!) with three batteries, two P2 cards, and a tripod, for $200/day. I would bill my computer and editing gear at $150/day minimum. So that'd add $350 to the $500. There's $850. Add in for your own car even another $100 travel expenses, you're nearing $1,000. That doesn't include insurance either. There's your $1,100. That includes 0 time for pre-production, research, further edits, anything.

Bottom line: $2,000+ per episode, I don't care how you did it, no way should it be valued at less than that.
 
Hi Jonathan,

I cant really disagree with your pricing. To be very honest and no disrespect to Voytech, I was trying to base it on a non-pro level work.

For the quality of the product I would probably send out one of our junior staff and have him work the project. With very little supervision they should be able to roll it out. It is good work for a one man job with little or no overhead.

I was also considering volume as well, if this was the only project in the door...then no, we would be loosing money. But if this was a side project while we were running our higher budget productions and was taken care of by an intern autonomously, then its not "too" bad.

Your pricing structure makes perfect sense, with all the costs and overhead added, your numbers are the most accurate. But again I try to look at this as a hobbyist/semi-pro trying to make some money on the side. There is such a market and you would agree that we can never beat people out on price, just quality.

Again I mean no disrespect to Voytechs work, I think he has put together a very informative piece (I was planning of re-doing my countertops now I know what I need to do) and it will be valid for a very long time. Keep up the good work and I think I will end up watching all 24 episodes.

Cheers,

PS: As Jonathan said "don't sell yourself too short". Best advice.
 
Thank you both for your insights. Very much appreciated. I can tell you from experience that usually the time structure went something like this:

2-3 hours research/script/planning time
30m prep (cameras, sound, etc)
from 2 to 3h of actual shooting time
then 30m for breakdown
and post could take from 6-12h depending on the complexity of the episode.

Also, if it matters, I'm also the on camera talent.

Thanks again gents!
 
I had guessed you were on camera talent as well. If I may recommend you might want to consider a few simple trick to amp up your production value+prices.

Maybe you can incorporate an inexpensive jib when filming on location like the marble yard or houses/samples. You can still be a one man operation and pull it off.

Try using pre-built graphics systems like digital juice can add a lot of flash to your productions very cheaply.

I saw you used a few gradient filters to cover your skies, also look into cheap color grading software like red giant looks. It has wonderfull presets.

And finally always consider that you and your production will always get better and bigger. If you put a cap on your production prices early on you will find you can no longer sustain a larger production because your overhead is too much. Normally you end up shedding your first clients and move onto bigger fish.

Hope this helps,
 
Here's the thing. I created this thread to find out the true value of the work I did. Thing is, I'm employed by this company. I wanted to verify whether my efforts are compensated accordingly.

They're not.

Thanks again!
 
If you are staff you can expect to be paid less due to the costs of the employer.

-Insurance
-Workers Comp
-Equipment
-Office...etc

A freelance shooter might make $600-$1200 a day, A staff person might get paid $25-$50 an hour for the same job but he has no equipment to buy/maintain/upgrade. He also does not have to go job hunting everyday or pay his own health insurance....etc
 
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