£££/$$$?-Musical theatre performance edit pricing

[Scott Sheriff]

Matt,
Could be a little low. A lot depends on how good the shots are, and how much has to be done to cover any mistakes. Lot of variables here.
I don’t know what your system, or experience is, but you need to look at how long this will take, how quick they expect it turned around, and charge accordingly.

You might get better responses in the Business and Marketing forum
https://forums.creativecow.net/businessmarketing

Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

[Matt Barone]

Thanks for your reply, Scott. I’ve reposted the post in the appropriate forum.
I won’t be dong much to the footage. Very little colour correction and then for the edit it’s just about choosing the more appropriate footage.
But good to know that others might charge more.
When you write an estimate, do you tend to itemize where the money goes, or do you just provide one figure?

Thanks

Mattia

[Scott Sheriff]

Matt,
Bunch of different ways to do this, but here is one.
For a bid/estimate I would give a list of what they are getting, and what you are receiving for resources.
Be very specific. Figure out how many hrs of viewing/logging, editing, mixing, CC, credits and font compose you are willing to give for the overall price, towards the final cut, and delivered product and by when. And also state what you expect from them, like footage already on a HD, log notes or whatever.
Get at least one third down before you start. Get another third when you are at the rough cut, and get the rest when you are delivering the finished piece.
Keep track of your hours, and if a problem on the clients end, like missing footage, or a typo in the credit sheet runs you over budget, that’s their fault, make sure its in the contract. If mistakes on your end run you over, you eat the extra time yourself. If all goes well, and you get done is less time, but they are happy, your money ahead.
The more specific you are, the better off you will be. You don’t want to be recutting the thing tree times for free, because the client isn’t paying for his indecision. Be specific about who has the final say, changes in content or material, who owns the EDL, timeframes, everything.
I think if you do some reading in the biz forum, there are some great ideas, and some horror stories to learn from there.
S

Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

[Gary Milligan]

I think one major aspect you may have overlooked is the audio. Depending on where the cameras were placed, if audio was recorded using only the camera mics the finished edit may look good but sound less than professional, no matter how much time you spend trying to “fix it in post”. If the sound source was a good feed from a board that would certainly help.

Gary

This is me – this is what I do – https://web.mac.com/garymmw