Under $500

F

firehawk

Veteran
Wedding preparation, ceremony and reception videography wanted
4-6 hours coverage
Full DVD and raw footage
Videography budget: Under $500
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:30 Commercial wanted
Script conception, storyboard creation, video filming and editing
Videography budget: under $500
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Music video wanted for talented local artist
Under $500


Most of the inquiries I receive fall along those lines. How about you?
 
You get inquiries? I'm the first guy you find (once you get past the many wedding videographers) when you Google my city and "videographer", but I never get inquiries. Re: the $500 price tag, thats actually better than you typically find on Craigslist these days. It's gotten to the point where the :30 commercial for $500 doesn't look that bad. I shoot several projects a week for a middleman that services Yelp at $200 each. You can find thread after thread saying videographers are crazy to shoot these for that kind of money. Yet the middleman has gotten the process streamlined and I've gotten better at it over 5 years, to the point I can shoot one in an hour and edit and upload it in another hour. They are of course shot quickly in available lighting, and there is no script conception or storyboarding because the interview of the business owner provides the "skeleton" of the project. I enjoy shooting these and could care less if people think I'm underpaid. It's the new reality of the business.
 
I do get these inquiries occasionally. There are several problem with me doing stuff super cheap. . .one is that as a freelancer, on any given day you have to assume if you book anything it will be the ONLY thing. So even a one hour shoot might keep you from taking a higher paying job (let's say they're both at 10am), unless you're willing to dump the cheapo job when a better offer comes up. The other is that aside from the smaller end clients, I work in the "real" freelance industry (pro crews on commercials, live events, corporate, whatever), and when you see how much you can make and for sometimes less work, it makes these gigs seem that much worse. Makes it hard to justify.
 
Although this seems like cheap work, it was nothing compared to what I have seen on Elance, or UpWork as they are now called. Editing competition from around the world from countries I can't even spell!
 
Those aren't inquiries for individuals, they're for crews. Both the wedding and music video require at least two cameras, unless the music video has a simpler concept. Depending on the commercial, you need someone for each of those tasks. This is the democratization of video production. Any one of these type of projects I'd rather hire help to make the process run smoother but the inquirers aren't concerned about that, I guess.
 
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