How would you quote this?

[Mike Smith]

Pretty penny – I love it ! I had thought of that as a British English only idiom.

Of course if your kit is working well there’s no need to change, though my reading is that MC 5.5 dates back a long way – 2011 – and there have been big advances in software and hardware in that time. I’m guessing from your posts that you invested in a hardware accelerator at that time – maybe Adrenaline? Nitris? I’m guessing that usage of the system involves ingest or transcoding of footage before editing can begin? And no playback of mixed HD formats natively in the timeline? And that the hardware accelerator is needed for any kind of realtime edit playback? I’m guessing you are tied to keeping an older host computer running, for driver compatibility?

Lightworks and Resolve are both capable editors with free versions, and full-price versions at a few hundred dollars. I don’t know if they will run on your hardware. Lightworks has been used by one veteran editor I know (more than 20 years of MC experience, as well as lots of time on various versions of FCP and latterly Premiuere Pro) for the last couple of years, and reports on the most recent version of Resolve are largely favourable. HItfilm is another contender with a free version, though I know less about it. And Avid of course is reportedly launching another free version I think, though I couldn’t find it on their site just now.

On the Apple side, FCPX has lots of devotees and is low cost. On Windows, Edius Pro from Grass Valley is solid and slick, if a little more costly (still probably under $500 – cheap to an old-time Avid buyer?!) , and Vegas has a quirky approach but a decent toolset and some fans.

Bob Zelin’s recent NAB review does a good job of sketching out a little of where video editing is now and is heading, at https://library.creativecow.net/zelin_bob/NAB_Show_2017/1

[Mike Smith]

ed

[Quincy Berry]

Just wanted to say, I read some good things in this thread. And to the person who can’t get %50 percent up front. yikes. That is like industry standard. I don’t move or get booked unless I get my %50 percent upfront, and then the remaining on delivery. I don’t ask for %25 percent when sent a first draft. That’s interesting.

I also shot the stuff I edit so for sure %50 upfront, As a matter of fact, one of my clients, we have a good relationship that they give me %100 up front due to my previous reliability etc.

[Elisa Llamido]

Tremendously helpful, thank you!

I tried loading some footage with my 5.5 and everything came in without a problem, which was my biggest concern. I will stick with it exactly because of the points that you made. Why reinvent the wheel?

I appreciate your workflow comments as well. I haven’t worked with this much footage before (it turns out that it’s a bit over 30 hours) and understanding the challenges inherent with scale is tremendously helpful. I’m glad that you wrote as much as you did.

I appreciate it!

Elisa

[Elisa Llamido]

Thanks for the software recs, Mike! It looks like 5.5 is working fine with the test footage, but I always like to have options in my back pocket in case I run into a problem.

Thank you!

Elisa

[Elisa Llamido]

Follow up:

I got the drive from the client and found out that there was more footage than expected, closer to 30 hours! So I followed Richard’s guidelines for how long it would take and added a bit more (x4), then added time for the “hard costs”, all itemized.

I submmitted this to the client, with an email letting him know that he could cut his costs by eliminating clips that are unnecessary. I also added that if it was completely out of his budget, I could make a cut that fit any dollar amount that he wanted to spend, but it would mean sacrificing the time and care that I take in selecting the cuts. It would still be good, I assured him, but not AS good.

i added a sales pitch about me as a creative artist and what he would get by investing in my skills. (I have found that this is often what finally influences the client and creates an emotional “gut feeling” that says that they should hire me.)

Then I sent it and breathed deeply for a while, trying not think about how extremely cool it would be to get this gig and how sad it would be if I didn’t.

He called me in the morning and asked some quesitons, mostly about what was included and I could hear him wavering. “Is this a worst-case scenario? ” he asked, “is it possible that you’ll finish earlier than this?” “Oh sure!” I told him. “It’s definitely possible. But I think that it’s probably pretty accurate.” “Let’s do it.”

So yay!!

Thank you all for your input. I really, really, really wanted to cut this project and I was afraid that I was going to undervalue my time. Giving me guidelines to work with really helped and now I feel confident in my quote.

Oh, and I bought the Avid upgrade on the last day of the special. It will have a bit of a learning curve, no doubt, but it’s Avid and I get it so it shouldn’t be too bad, I don’t think. But this job definitely made it worth it to upgrade.

Thank you everyone!

Elisa

[Mike Smith]

Well done ! ☺