rate question - Media Manager/P2 loader

T

tumbleweed

Well-known member
What is a realistic day rate for a media manager or P2 loader. This is to dump P2 cards in the field to a laptop and backup drives. A range is all I'm looking for. This will be a professional shoot with very small crew. Thanks for any feedback and info.
 
Years ago it was $350-$400/day. That was back when media management was a lot more necessary than it is now ... back when we were shooting on a couple of 4GB cards, whereas today with a couple of 64's we don't have to wrangle at all, so ...

If you're negotiating for your own day rate, the selling point is -- everything they're spending, everything they're shooting, it all comes down to the footage on the cards. Do they really want to cheap out on the person who's handling their footage?
 
Thanks for your input Barry. This is not for my own rate. I'll be the one shooting. But it would be a huge help to have someone else dedicated to dumping cards if we can pull it off. I wanted to ask for the going rate - so we can budget accordingly. I was guessing it was $250 - $400 range. If anyone else out there has some experience in this area, let me know what you consider a typical dayrate. Also, do you bring your own set up? I figure I'd most likely be supplying that.
 
Anybody else have experience as a media manager (or hiring one) and want to let me know what rates they are paying or getting paid? Thanks.
 
No advice save that your delivery during the deal should come off like a Sopranos character:

Your, uh, footage is real valuable, yeah? You'd sure want a *professional* guy handlin' that, wouldn't you? Be a shame is something were to *happen* to it...
 
In 2008 I was hired for a reality TV show to be the media wrangler. It was lower budget, but the company took care of us.

I got $250/day and a $25 per diem. They also asked me to PA as well, but I informed them that the process would suffer if they added on that duty. So I didn't PA, just wrangle and organize.


Are you shooting in NJ or NYC?
 
Thekeygun - Thanks for sharing the rate info. I hope to have shoots in NYC and NJ as well. Right now it looks like upcoming shoots are traveling. I agree that the media wrangler is a very important job and needs to be dedicated to that task.
 
Jim Brennan said:
I typically work at $300 a day, plus 50 bucks a day for my laptop.
Click to expand...

At the rate listed I was using their equipment. They had me offload the raw data, as well as convert the data into quicktimes for final cut.



As Barry was saying, there isn't much of a need for a data wrangler if you have enough p2 cards. If I get hired to wrangle, i'm doing other AC duties. And MAYBE offloading two or three cards.

If you can, I would suggest getting someone who can bring their own equipment and p2 cards to the table. I always bring mine at no extra cost.
 
I do Data wrangling on Red shoots. I move and back up all the data to multiple drives, with checksums. My laptop and software, their HDDs. I do a bit of AC and grip work as well, but my primary job is to take care of the footage.

But I would charge the same for P2 workflow.
 
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