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Do FCPX freelance editors charge for your “Edit Suite”
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[Tim Wilson] “Yet another part of the economy that boomers torched before millenials arrived. You’re welcome. LOL”
But, all you left us was a barren field, Mr. Wilson…
Yes, but it’s YOUR barren field.
😉
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This is pretty easy to figure out.
A day rate is what someone will pay you. If they won’t pay that much, you negotiate. It is of course dependent on job, location, and market.
I find, depending on the job, it’s best to charge post hourly as this draws a (sometimes arbitrary) line in the sand for clients. After that many hours, or thereabouts, the job is either complete, needs to wrap up, or we need to start taking about overages. Most people, in general, can quantify the value of this, even if they don’t understand how buying productions services works. Sometimes, clients don’t understand how much work goes in to certain jobs, and the hourly figures help them to understand when a limit has been reached. As far as gear, as Oliver says, it’s mostly about location. If they are coming in to your studio all the time, your hourly change should reflect your time, your gear, and your expenses (food/electric/rent/consumables/etc).
When you’re on site at a gig and you bring your gear, you should charge a fee, even if it’s a laptop. Remeber, it’s not only the laptop, but it’s all of the software/plugins, and the expertise to know how to get the job done if something goes wrong, hard drives, peripherals, and insurance. All of that costs you something, so therefore it’s also worth something. If a client doesn’t understand the value, then they should try and rent a system from a third party. Of course, they’ll balk, so you may want to simply raise your hourly rate to make sure your costs are covered.
And then, of course, clients want package deals. They have a certain amount of dollars for an agreed amount of work on a job. At that point, you have to decide if it’s worth it. At the end of the job, will you be happy with that amount?
In your example, if you combine your equipment and editor rates, you’ll get an hourly rate. Assuming a 10 hour day:
$120/hr and $450/day = $165/hr
A rate of $550/day gives you $175 an hour.
There is no easy answer, and depending on the types of jobs you do (or people you’re looking for) they are all different and require different numbers. It’s a jungle out there.
It is true the cost of ownership is lower than ever, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth $0.
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Seems a bit on the high side to me. But like has been said every genre and locale is different. But at that hourly rate for an NLE suite, seems like you could buy a new suite every week. When the computer is 3k, the raid is 3k, the monitor is about 3k, and software is negligible cost at all. Rent is your biggest cost.
In the 90s, when an edit suite cost closer to $50,000-100,000, our facility was getting $150hr Max and I was on staff so that included the editor. The big facilities were getting $300-400hr but they had digibeta instead of betasp.
In my market, Atlanta, I’ve seen freelance rates rise while the cost of the suite drop.
I don’t know what gear you have but if it’s so awesome that the gear is 120/hr, it seems like you should have editors that are getting higher rates in the $75/hr range instead of the $50/hr range. For example if you’re running a resolve full priced color correction console suite I’d expect the specialist running that to earn over $100/hr.
Currently, my suite is in the basement of my house so it’s a write-off. I sorta work it into the rate. I used to charge a lesser rate for working at someone else’s facility, but I found that put me in competition with myself. So I just have one rate now. Heck, nowadays I feel I should charge more to sit in traffic and have to deal with someone else’s equipment.
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[Bret Williams] “Heck, nowadays I feel I should charge more to sit in traffic and have to deal with someone else’s equipment.”
You jest but I know some people that do that if they have to drive from one end of LA to the other to get to the gig. Granted, they don’t straight up voice it that way but they will quote a bit lower rate if the gig is conveniently located and ask for a bit higher rate if it is a pain to get to.
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[Tim Wilson] “I have no idea how some of you kids are pulling this off…”
Usually with an apartment shared with two others.
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this was such a great thread. You can see the “future” in this thread –
“all my employees have iPhone 8’s that can shoot in 4K – Apple is putting all this beautiful footage on TV and the web, shot with iPhones – why the HECK do we need to hire YOU, when we can just get our staff to shoot it. And my secretary makes great looking videos with iMovie, and we post it on iCloud (or our YouTube Channel or Vimeo) – and our clients love it. So WHY should we pay you even 1 penny ? “.Just wait – that day is coming. We are in the printing business, and unless you are a hi end printer, you are out of business. There is always a hi end market – and the only way to survive is going after that piece of the business. Remember, not that long ago, a corporate “happy face” convention video was a van load of equipment. Today it’s a guy with his laptop and his Canon camera. And he is worried that the parking rate at the convention hotel is going to cut into his “profit” too much.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
A few things to factor in…
If you’re talking about a location gig, in many cases the prodcuers have the option of renting gear and often do. So when I bid these jobs, my rate is always stated as an amount for me WITHOUT gear. Then they have the option of supplying a system or having me supply it. It’s often the case that the gear may already be covered and there’s no need for me to supply it. Therefore, by including the cost of the gear, you are saving producers money that they would have otherwise spent anyway. In that sense, the editor on-site is the same as a DP/videographer, DIT, audio recordist, etc.
When you are talking about a suite, whether in an actual facility or your home office, there are plenty of other factors to consider beyond the workstation. Storage, other software, proper audio & video monitoring, access to fast internet, paid review & approval services, etc. Although the system could be a decent laptop, it could also be a trash can Mac Pro with a Promise array, large monitors, pro i/o, etc. Then that’s not a $3K investment, but rather a $15K-$25K investment. So why should you give that away for free? And remember, even a laptop (when talking about a 15″ Retina MBP) with fast storage, some monitoring and all the software you want is more than $3K, as well.
Finally, in the suite set-up, you are also assuming the responsibility to maintain a working and efficient system and some level of archiving of project data and possibly media, too. These are all costs that need to be factored in.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bob Zelin] “Just wait – that day is coming”
Take a look at the website fiverr.com and peruse the section on video services. Yikes!
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “[Bob Zelin] “Just wait – that day is coming”
Take a look at the website fiverr.com and peruse the section on video services. Yikes!
“Plenty of businesses out there self shooting, using “internal resources” to make films, or getting low cost production Companies in.
I’ve been watching my clients do this for a while now. Almost without exception the finished videos achieve little or no engagement online, very important that you point this out to clients!
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[Mike Jeffs] “Not to long ago it was incredible common to have a day rate for the Editor and a separate rate for the Edit suite. All my “research” (read googling) it seems like that isn’t the case anymore. Is it just factored into your Editor day rate? if so what percentage.”
With hourly or daily billing, we charge separately for labor and equipment. With project fee billing, we factor in both labor and equipment costs.
[Mike Jeffs] “Where I am at we charge between $450-$550 a day for editor and up to $120 hr for the edit facilities.”
What’s included in “edit facilities” for $120/hr?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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