What to charge for an editing job?

F

filmgen

Member
I recently was asked to cut together a retirement video for a staffing company. I got the job through a relative of a friend who had seen a video I threw together from stuff I shot of my friend's surprise party (basically video greetings from partygoers, drunken footage with freeze-frame text commentary, and a still slide show at the end with his favorite song, all cut on Premiere 6).

This staffing company has four branches in the country. Each branch put together video messages and my job is to cut together the clips into one video, ending with a still photo slideshow with music.

My friend's relative and I never discussed a rate but I'm supposed to be meeting with their West Coast office this week to take a look at the footage they've shot so far.

Can anyone offer any advice as to what I should charge? Let's say one price. I'd cut the video and give it to them on a hard drive or DV tape. I also mentioned the possibility of doing a very basic DVD copy on Final Cut Pro for the retiree.

Ever since I made that party video, people have been asking me if I can do something for a birthday or a wedding. These video clip/slide shows must have a market out there.
 
Re: What to charge for an editing job?

Yes there is a market for it. I would say you need to estimate how many hours you think it would take to edit. Your target length of the finished product and the format you will give it to them.

My question is, why would you give it to them on a hard drive? I understand a mini-dv tape of the finished product and a dvd for the retiree. I would do several DVDs and give it to the company.

If it takes you a week to put it together, then I would feel you would need a fair weekly wage for doing it. Whatever you generally make in a week, plus your expenses should be the rate. If you feel you deserve more for the project, then by all means set a rate a little higher. A fair weekly wage depends on the area you live in as different parts of the country pay rates vary so it is hard to say definitely what is fair. But I would say at least $300 up $600, depending on how long it takes you.
 
Re: What to charge for an editing job?

I mention the hard drive because they've apparently got a bunch of their footage on a hard drive already. Though I have no idea what format it's in. I believe they'll be screening the video at a party using one of those office video projectors. I have no idea, I get further details Friday.

Thanks for the info and advice bodaphoto. I started to look around the web for similar services and I was amazed at how many videographers offered "commemorative birthday videos" or "video biographies". Rates were anywhere from $125 for simple 10 minute slideshows with music to $1000s for documentary style video portraits of your grandparents.
 
Re: What to charge for an editing job?

last week I finally finish a documentary about visual arts and kindergarden students. The footage was shot in miniDV homevideo style in 17- 1 hour tapes. but most of the footage was already on a external hard drive captured in avid, I had no problem bringing the files onto FCP4 and it work fine since it was a Mac/ pc hard drive.

On the other hand, the editing was a @#% with all tha shaky footage.
I whish I'd charge them more.
 
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