Suggested Rate

I

Ianb123

Active member
I am shooting an interview tomorrow for a woman that is trying to sell a curriculum idea to the los angeles unified school district. The problem is, she asked me to come up with a fair rate of payment. I have no idea how much to charge her for this service. I'll give you some more information and it would be appreciated if you could help me. I will be using aa canon xh-a1, professional light kit and microphone. The interview will be around 15 minutes before being edited down to 6 plus i will be filming a conference that she is doing at the local school library (probably 30 minutes.) So that is two separate days. I really have no idea how much i should charge, and your help would be much appreciated.

Thank You,
ian
 
Maybe ask her opinion first. If she offers you something low, try to negotiate. If you have a good resume and experience, definitely negotiate for something higher.
 
Nate- I am just curious what the daily rate includes. In the case of Ian's situation. Would you charge $250 for the interview, $250 for the conference, and then $250 a day for editing?

Ian- I was taught that the reply to "What do you charge?" is "What is your budget and what do you want to do with it?". That hasn't really worked in most cases so I needed to have a $ amount in mind. I factor in a daily rate as Nate did but that is for my time. If you own your equipment then you deserve a return on those investments so factor that in to each project. Do you plan to give the video a nice look with some backgrounds, text, lower thirds, music, and graphics? Factor that in to your editing time. Ask a lot of questions before agreeing to a number and be clear what you plan to deliver. I think I remember reading somewhere on this forum that a proper rate for equipment is 10% of its cost. After the tenth time the income is profit. So here is what you might do for a starting number.
Your time as (DP, Sound, & Camera Op) = $200
Camera, Mic, Extras (Tripod, mic stand, tapes, cables)= $250
5 hours Editing Time & 1 copy on DVD= $200

Now you have a starting point. Depending on the client those rates may be per day or total for the project. She might say, sounds good. She might choke and ask you to repeat the number. You can negotiate from there but make sure you have a fair price for your time, your equipment, and your contribution.

Cole
 
Good luck getting 10%, that's way too high. Pro rental companies ask for 5% and that's way too high, too, which is why I bought everything and never rent unless it's something I can't afford to buy. A fair rate is about 3% of the equipment's value. I can understand 4-5% for something like a P2 card, maybe a camera, or perhaps a laptop on set, but then again I think 2% is fair for lighting and other equipment that rarely if ever needs replacement. A porta-jib, for instance, doesn't break. You don't have to charge that much for equipment like that. If you can get it, great, but if not 2% even is acceptable.

In general I go with exactly 3% of the total equipment value, so if I bring $10,000 in equipment to a shoot I'd like $300 for it. That's as much as I'm realistically going to get, because I have like $80,000 in equipment, nobody is going to pay me more than $1,200 for bringing half of that to a shoot for instance. It COULD happen but I can't just ignore all work where I'm getting paid let's say $850 for that equipment.

I would say it depends on the scope of what you're doing but anywhere from $500 to $1,000 sounds fair. I'm guessing, based on my experience, she'll try to act like it's really easy and it should only cost her $300, so you might have trouble getting much more than $500 to $600, who knows.
 
Cole said:
Nate- I am just curious what the daily rate includes. In the case of Ian's situation. Would you charge $250 for the interview, $250 for the conference, and then $250 a day for editing?
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I'm very basic. $250 a day includes camera and on board mic. You need anything else like someone to boom ect, you pay extra. But that $250 can go up or down based on the situation. People usually bring their own lights or have lighting. If I have to get a lighting person then they have to pay for that person. Editing varies too. I would charge $250 a day. Depending on who I'm working for again it can go up or down. If I end up getting a big Hollywood gig I'll charge by the hour. Do some research and you'll be shocked at what some editors get per hour. Your average person can't pay that.

Also how involved I am in the project is also important. I charged someone $150 a day to shoot and $50 for my gaffer which all went to him and $100 for editing because it was a short project and they had acted for me for free and helped in other ways so I gave them a very good deal and a free day of editing. $300 is far cry from the the $1000 I would've made in all. You have to keep favors in mind, because you may need people like that again, especially when you know they're willing to help out. Plus keep the economy in mind.

There's a lot of competition. I told my friend I simply didn't have enough to get someone to shoot one their equipment. I told my friend what I was paying and they said. "Put the ad up, you'll be surprised." I got people with everything from HVX200 set ups to a guy with a Red who wanted to shoot my upcoming project. He was in LA and willing to come out simply because he wanted to shoot a film and it was paying steady. As good as it sounded I really don't have a set up for Red and we had already hired someone who was ready and willing and had everything we wanted plus believed in the script. It's always good to have someone who loves your project and WANTS to work on it. And the people who were responding weren't college kids trying to get a break, these were real pros who knew what they were doing and putting out broadcast quality work.

The first thing I ever really shot on my own I charged a flat $250 a day for camera and mic. No boom. No editing. I made about $750 one week and $250 every weekend for about four or five weeks. Everyone else was charging $450 and I was anxious to prove myself. It was good money. And as bad as I thought my first film was the trailer is what sold him on my work. Plus I was teaching at another school so I got to get all my software at a discount. Now that I'm teaching again I want to get the FCP Studio but I'd need a new computer to run it. :)

-Nate
 
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Yeah, 3% sounds more like it. It was a while ago when I read it or had to think about it so it was my best guess off the top of my head. I was really just making the point to charge for your investments as well as your time. And it is all just a starting point for when you are asked the "how much" and they don't want to give you a budget up front. It's up to you how much you lower the price and still feel it was worth it. I am all for being fair but there is a breaking point. I have taken jobs below what I thought was fair and regretted it after.

Cole
 
I think the trick is being precise about what you offer and make a contract. I offer video services only (including one shotgun mic attached to the hot shoe) unless they say they'll pay for something else.

-Nate
 
Cole said:
Yeah, 3% sounds more like it. It was a while ago when I read it or had to think about it so it was my best guess off the top of my head. I was really just making the point to charge for your investments as well as your time. And it is all just a starting point for when you are asked the "how much" and they don't want to give you a budget up front. It's up to you how much you lower the price and still feel it was worth it. I am all for being fair but there is a breaking point. I have taken jobs below what I thought was fair and regretted it after.

Cole
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Yeah, I feel that too. I mean, I did some little thing on Friday night where it was more or less a favor to a friend, but there was really lousy pay involved, and it just made me angry. It made me think never again, I don't do that kind of crap. It was like $150 for 3 hours, but it turned into 5 hours, with no mention of whether we'd be paid more, and I brought some lights, HVX200, tripod, and boom mic, and I had to hold the boom mic during a lot of interviews, even though I really wasn't being paid as an employee just for my equipment, and my friend in the business was doing the shooting. So I just thought, here I am in a classy Prada shirt at this event, and I'm holding a freakin' boom mic in front of these important people, feeling like a tool, this is NOT what I came here to do, not me. I'd rather quit and do another job, I came here to be a filmmaker not a boom mic holder. So that pissed me off and I regretted saying yes to the project.
 
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