Billing for Render Time

[Kyler Boudreau]

Hey everyone….interesting post. Question for anyone available on this still:

I’m only charging a client $45 an hour for video editing. They gave me some horrible conference footage recently that was low lit. I had to use a grain removal tool in FCP (that they approved) and the render time for that and Color ended up at 170 hours.

I ran the jobs on my only Mac Pro – it is brand new, a six core Westmere using internal disk and more RAM than FCP will ever use. I have a PC laptop that I was able to do some other work on, but the MAC basically crunched for over a week straight.

Is it unfair to charge $20 an hour for the rendering? That is slightly less than half my rate. I think I deserve compensation for the equipment and time and office utils, but I want the bill to be ethical.

THANKS!

_______________________
kyler boudreau
http://www.theatereleven.com
ph.310.425.2231

[David Roth weiss]

[kyler boudreau] “Is it unfair to charge $20 an hour for the rendering?”

Hell no!!!

I guarantee you Kyler, there wasn’t a single guy working on Avatar who took an unpaid break while the render farm was cranking away on his shots.

Heck, I ought to bill your clients myself just for turning you on to Neat Video Noise Reduction, cuz it saved their bacon. 🙂

[kyler boudreau] “I think I deserve compensation for the equipment and time and office utils”

Heck yeah!!! When your clients start buying your Macs for you it might be time to revise your billing policy, but until then you can’t give them free lunch.

[kyler boudreau] “I want the bill to be ethical.”

You’re not even close to unethical… What you think is unethical is probably what you really should be charging.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

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