Editing pricing?

MatRich

MatRich

Active member
So I met this guy who wants me to edit a videoclip for him. The videoclip is for web and to show to universall studios. He has about 30 gigs of video including b roll and he wants to know how much I would charge.

I calculated that I would need about 22 hours of work to make this edit.

I need your help to know how I should aproach this situation or if I should ditch the project.

Industry standards tell me I should charge 25$ an hour plus 33% as an equipment fee. this amounts to: 22x25= 550 550x1.33= 731

I find this high for what he wants to do so when he asks me for a rough estimate I say about from 300 to 500 and that I need to see the footage. He reacts and says that its way too high and that I need to come with a better offer since he will be giving me more work.

300$ amounts to 13$ an hour and no equipment fee. this is very low for editing and he wants me to go lower.

Am I right to think this is too low? should I lower my fee a bit or stand my ground?

 
You should stand your ground, people are so cheap these days about this sort of thing. He needs to chill his pill and realize that not every person with a computer can edit the way you edit for the price he's paying.
 
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. He'll be giving you more work? You mean more work that he can try to pay you unfairly for?
 
Do you have a resume to give him to show him you're worth $25 dollars an hour for 22 hours? because if you don't, you gotta go with what the client will pay, because without proof of your worth, he might as well pay you 100 bucks for it.
 
Yah i have proof that im worth at least 20 dollars an hour. Which is more than what he is willing. He even expressed how good my stuff was. Theres no way im worth 4 dollars an hour. ( 100 dollars)
 
Well lay it on him then, if you think you're worth a certain amount, show it. Tell him to go fuck off somewhere because anyone will charge WAY more than 500 bucks.
 
this. make sure you communicate the amount of work it will take you, that should help to put it in perspective.
 
Ive worked jobs getting about anywhere from 10-30 dollars an hour, filming and or editing, it all depends on the situation and the client.
 
I honestly wouldn't go lower than $300 and even that is low. It also depends on if you think its worth it yourself. I've taken jobs that should've been worth more just because i knew it'd be easy and could make some extra cash, but I definitely would tell him you're worth more.
 
going low is de-valueing the profession. It's unethical. Stand your ground, make him pay you what you are worth.
 
Is this guy purely a client? Or did you know him somehow before, or did he get referred to you from a friend? People thing that if they "know" someone they automatically get to pay less.

If this is the case, tell him you cant give him the deal he wants and he wont be able to find a better price anywhere.
 
stick with 2-300, and do a banger job so that you can use this as a portfolio piece. Showing potential clients a video of teenagers drinking at a halloween party is a surefire way to get them to not want to pay you much.
 
not if its the same type of clientel. the video is in the same style as what he wants to do. that video was apropriate for him and its what got him pumped to work with me. I didnt shoot any of his footage and a lot of it is pretty weak. I dont even see this going into my portfolio.
 
Well, you hadn't mentioned that, sorry.

sounds like a troubling situation. Decide on a price and tell him what it is, explain that you can't use any of the work you do for anything else, and that if he's not willing to pay you what you're worth it's not worth your time. It's really about all you can do with people like this.

If he thinks he's going to submit this to some major film studio, then he should know what shit costs. Unfortunately, if the footage isn't even good enough to be worthy of your portfolio, it isn't Universal worthy, which means he also WON'T be bringing you more work.

A LOT of people will try to get you to work cheap saying "if you let me rape you on the price, there's more in it for you in the future". Which is bullshit, because then you've set the precedent of letting them bend you over. And, it's likely that someone who doesn't respect what you do to begin with is not going to be a very enjoyable person to work for later.

If people call to a plumber, they don't say "fix my sink for me for 10 bucks today, I'm certainly going to be paying you a grand a pop everytime I need you to pull the hair out of the pipes in my shower from now on".
 
yah, I know what you mean. thanks that helped a lot. Im going to stand my ground at 300 since I need money but not that badly. it just isnt worth my time to go lower. thanks for the help
 
Also most people who don't want to pay the real price will want so many changes and recuts that it will end up taking twice as long as you calculated and being even less profitable. Also, I have no idea all the details of the project, but if the guy needs, sound work, graphics, dvds, web encoding, ect. I would say it is more like a $1000+ job.
 
UPDATE!!!

so I call the guy back after looking at his horrible footage for three hours to transfer, convert and class.

I tell him that there is a lot of footage and that the quality of this footage is not great. I tell him Im looking at 30 hours of work. I tell him that the industry standard is to charge about 25$ an hour plus 33% for equipment charge. This price is about 1000$. I go on to tell him that since its my first time working with him and since I dont have THAT much expirience ( I do have multiple videoclips made) I will only charge 300$ for the work.

He freaks out on me saying hes got tonnes of contacts and that I should stop worrying about money and just get my name out there through this video. I tell him that his footage isnt of high enough quality to get my name out there and so I need to charge at least a little bit to compensate for my time. I repeat that I am offering 10$ an hour which is way under the industry norm. He flips out about how there isnt an industry and that people make these videos on their own and get tonnes of hits so he shouldnt have to charge me. He even goes to saying that my stuff is mediocre at best, when his footage is fucking grainy and has the framing of a two year old.

at one point he even flipped out and called me crazy for charging him time for converting and sorting his videoclips. if he doesnt want to pay for that then why the fuck didnt he class his videos.

he is the classic type of idiot who will lowball the industry with promises of better deals and contracts. he sais he knows the buisness and has good contacts but he doesnt even know the basics of what people charge.
 
Here is what i have noticed. I have started shooting weddings and local stuff for stores and whatnot. The more you charge typically weeds out the shitty shoots. So the things you do film and do work on are nicer places and allow you to make a higher quality product. Which in turn allows for you to charge even more. But for every wedding or gig i do get i get three that say its to expensive but i dont want to film and edit somthing im not intrested in and spend 50 hor more on it and make no money. So fuck it il go do things i want to do insted.
 
this sounds like a shitty client. no one should work freelance filming/editing for less than 10 bucks an hour... that's devaluing the entire industry. When I started, I did start quite low-- 10-15 bucks an hour for edit and film. It sucks, but it gets better. You can raise the price on future projects too. Try to think of it like this-- if you can show them a system of editing/ style of editing that is going to be unique and attractive to their company/whatever, you become quite valuable.

I've been going up a couple bucks with my one client every project- they never object because we've worked well together.

Oh, and though you may not want to use this for demo reel, it's never a bad idea to have a client reel as well. Just a smash together of all the stuff you've done that maybe doesn't show your best editing/filming skills, but can attest to your networking skills and the level of clientele you've managed to tie down.

lastly, if this is b roll that's being edited to go to universal as a demo or whatever, you should be charging WAY more. I'd charge out the wazoo, mainly because it's not my footage and the end usage is steep. many professionals charge more to edit their own footage as an attempt to coax a client into hiring them for filming next time.

oh and lastly lastly- you have good stuff. you should be getting 300 at least, but don't expect much higher when you're just starting. I shot a commercial as one of my first projects, you don't wanna know how much I made on that... (aka not a lot for all those broken meters)
 
THIS. Don't ever set a "total" price, charge hourly with a retainer upfront. There will be changes.

I looked at your clips, honestly $20/hr is ok for freelance stuff but you wouldn't get a full time job cutting for that much. and the plus 33%, I don't know any editors that charge 33% to use their computers. If you try to charge it to a savy producer they will just say okay come use my computer then you have them watching over your shoulder the whole time.(which might make you more money in the end if it takes longer with constant critiques.) If you want to make extra $$$ sell the intellectual property rights(project files) for 100% extra, for $20/hr you should only be providing exports.

The guy, like most is full of shit. He should be able to cut it himself on Imovie. The fact that he isn't means he's too dumb or too lazy, we already know he's too cheap. And unless universal studios requested it they won't even look at his video for fear or being sued down the line for stealing the idea(a get rich quick scheme a lot of struggling writers and producers take go for). I read the update but if I were you I'd still try to get some of the guys money. Get a deposit up front cut it fast and shitty and make him pay for fixes. He might threaten to take you to court but a guy that's too lazy to cut his own stuff isn't gonna have the resources or drive to actually go through with it.
 
I don't know of any pros that change an "equipment fee". That gets included with the total hourly rate.

However, that said, your real rate is $33. If you can get that, I would say that's justified. Just looking at the one video, I wouldn't go lower than $20 unless you really want the project, it meant you'd get a lot more work, it's for a friend, it's an interesting project, you're going to learn something or make some new connections and you have nothing else better to do. If some of those were true, I would consider $10. Anyone should recognize that they are getting an amazing price at that rate.

Sounds like the guy wants something for nothing. $4/hr is a joke. For pros, transferring/logging footage is an hourly rate. My experience is that people that don't want to pay for work don't respect you now and won't respect you in the future.
 
Quit while you're ahead and don't deal with people like that.. I edit photos for a wedding photographer and charge $400 every 700 photos and it takes me roughly 12 hours to edit those photos to what I like them at and the photographer thinks is great.. Now with video editing I know it's a lot more of a pita so stick with your price of what industry suggests or a little under. If his video reals aren't going to be of good quality and the guy is giving you a hard time just tell him you do not want to do the video editing. I'm sure there are other filmers who wouldn't mind to pay your asking price if they get a up to par video.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top