New job!

[Niels Neeskens]

Dear friends,

I got a problem and going nuts here. I have the opportunity to do a fairly big job for a upcoming new company. I am a new (6 months from start) one-man company and do things with help from friends with things that are out of my league (like animations). I do the post-productions, actual shooting (I do camera with my HVX), editing in FCP and DVD Studio Pro. I have done some jobs for companies and they were so satisfied that bigger jobs are coming now. I could do things for less money because my opinion was that I have to make name and I am doing things alone.
Now with mouth-to-mouth communications I can take a job to do 10 DVD productions for products, which will be around 45 minutes each. They are presentations of the fitness products and will be given away with the products. They want to do it low budget off course (I wrote them to give me the max budget for it), but I have to give them a price indication. What is a normal price for jobs like this for a starting company? The thought of getting some good money for a big job like this appeals to me, but is it to much? What are the experiences of you guys with these kind of productions? Any help would be so great!

Thanks in advance
Cheers Niels

 

[milksac]

How much should I charge?
No one can answer that for you with any sort of accuracy. There are far too many variables involved in setting the appropriate rate to expect a valid answer.
What's the market rate in your area?
How much overhead does your company have?
Does the job require you to carry production insurance?
etc, etc, etc.

Break it down into smaller units to come up with a reasonable figure. How many days will you spend doing 1 DVD production(45min) ? What's your day rate? How many gaffers, grips, animators will you need to finish 1 video? Music rights (if needed)? Actors?
All outside expenses + (days worked x your day rate) + 15% = cost of production

If you gouge them they will tell you to piss off. If you underbid the job you're screwed. This is a fulltime job - 10 programs at 45min each. If you go too low you're stuck with a very long term low paying gig. If you calculate everything correctly you should come up with a number that is fair to both parties. Stand firm on the bid, if they insist that the budget needs to be lower then tell the client that you'll need to make some cuts in the production such as animations (your out of pocket expense). It's this give and take process that allows for arriving at a happy middle ground on the budget.

 

[Shiloh Arts]

Break it down into smaller units to come up with a reasonable figure. How many days will you spend doing 1 DVD production(45min) ? What's your day rate? How many gaffers, grips, animators will you need to finish 1 video? Music rights (if needed)? Actors?
All outside expenses + (days worked x your day rate) + 15% = cost of production

Hey Milksac,

Sounds like you know what the gig is!

I had a similar quesiton, only mine is regarding setting production time where labor hours is the activity base. For example, how many hours of production does it take (streaming video production) for 1 page of script?

Any idea as to what formula and things I should be considering? I'm really not tring to get the cost per $, but cost in relation to hours of production per script.

I know I can take the total amount of scripts created and divide it by the total amout of money already spent on equipment, salary etc (basicaly overhead). Should I already have a predertermined overhead rate, then adjust it accordingly? Is this a good calc? I assume that there may already be budgeting tools specificaly in the area of video production?

Thanks for any input you can bring.

:happy:

 

[milksac]

"...how many hours of production does it take (streaming video production) for 1 page of script?"

Streaming video? Are you producing videos that will later be streamed or are you doing live streaming. Either way it's still a matter of breaking it all down or order to see the big picture - what it will cost you to create the finished product.


"I know I can take the total amount of scripts created and divide it by the total amout of money..."

Whoa!!! Slow down there cowboy. Yes, budgeting is a matter of formulas...BUT, as with many mathmatecal formulas ther are variables involved. Properly calculating the variables is the difference between a profitable company and a company holding on by a thread. If the scripts are fairly consistant then you could get away with breaking down one script and using that as a baseline for a per show/script cost. But if one of the scripts calls for a ton of stock footage, 3D animation, heavy compositing, custom music track, etc. ... then your budgeting formula goes in the trash quickly.


"..divide it by the total amout of money already spent on equipment"

Hardware is generally amortized over a five year period. Meaning it's unreasonable to expect the client to absord the entire cost of your hardware purchases. It's your responsibilty to get a return on your investment. What type of camera do you have and what would you charge a client for using the camera for one day? How much have you invested in a NLE? How much do you need to charge per hour for editorial to recoup the cost of the hardware? Did you purchase any special hardware to handle the streaming media? What will it cost over time to pay off the streaming hardware?

"I assume that there may already be budgeting tools specificaly in the area of video production?"

Yeah, google it. Most of the producers I work with create their own budget templates using Excel, it's not difficult. Just more math - DP's day rate X number of days, etc. Note - if you create your own template be sure to double and triple check that the spreadsheet is calculating properly. I once worked with a producer that had a flawed spreadsheet and the money always came up short.

good luck

 

[Shiloh Arts]

"...how many hours of production does it take (streaming video production) for 1 page of script?"

Streaming video? Are you producing videos that will later be streamed or are you doing live streaming. ...

Yes ...the videos will be streamed later and not live. So you can imagine the post work that has to go into this. Not only do you have video editors, but also a Flash programmer and web hosting etc.

"I know I can take the total amount of scripts created and divide it by the total amout of money..."

Whoa!!! Slow down there cowboy. Yes, budgeting is a matter of formulas...BUT, as with many mathmatecal formulas ther are variables involved. Properly ...

LOL!:thumbsup: That's soo funny!

I've studied managerial accounting so I'm tring to look of ways to best go about appling the infomation to reflect as accurate as possible, but accounting is really not my gig...so you can imagine that I'm a bit cautious. :undecided

"..divide it by the total amout of money already spent on equipment"

Hardware is generally amortized over a five year period. Meaning it's unreasonable to expect the client to absord the entire cost of your hardware purchases. It's your responsibilty to get a return on your investment...

You're right. I understand that equipment depreciates in value...but isn't hardware also fixed cost . So, in some sense it would be appropriate to apply some euipment as part of the predetermined overhead rate.

"I assume that there may already be budgeting tools specificaly in the area of video production?"


Yeah, google it. Most of the producers I work with create their own budget templates using Excel, it's not difficult. Just more math - DP's day rate X number of days, etc. Note - if you create your own template be sure to double and triple check that the spreadsheet is calculating properly. I once worked with a producer that had a flawed spreadsheet and the money always came up short.

good luck

What do you most like using? Excel, EP Budgeting etc? Thanks for all your help.