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I QUIT…. Working for nothing.
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Well put scott.
Craig your rates do seem extreme even to me.
Equates to £510 to £765per day in UK rates and 300 dollars equates to £190.No clients from experiences I`m having will pay them rates.
No way will they pay £190 for two hours.Bectu rates come in around £400.00 per day for cameraman with full kit and I know crews who are struggling to get work at them rates.
My rates have gone as low as £265 a day and I struggle even at this rate and I have 27 years experience in the business.
Its difficult and I have no overheads except living expenses.
Lucky in that respect I suppose -
Scott you are so right on all accounts.
Craig would you kindly tell me if you are making a living at this full time and how many days you get to work with the rates you are charging.
I know of some companies or should i say part timers who try and charge similar rates to yours and probably work 1 day every few months.
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Just like to clarify.
The low rates I`ve tried to charge is not because I wanted too.
Its due to the noobs bringing the industry down to a level that now its about survival.I`m discutted in myself and hate to admit it.
My rates were around £500 a day which was adequate for me and I probably worked about 3 days a week guaranteed.
Not now…no more…
Thankyou to all who have made this happen!! -
COW didn’t exist in 1970. It’s probably a default start date.
I’m a bit older than you (started in Post around 1980) but I can’t imagine retiring. -
Bob Zelin is one of the smartest and most practical people in this industry, and he has written the Business & Marketing forum’s post of the year. This has got to be the most concise post on how to maintain relevance in this business on this board.
One of the many important lessons I see in Bob’s story that is being missed in this conversation is continual re-invention.
Look at the story he wrote above again: Bob started in audio, then became a video engineer when audio didn’t work out. Traditional post video engineering started to fade with the ascendance of NLEs, so Bob became Mr. Max Avid. FCP began stealing market share, so Bob learned the differences and made himself able to support either system. Eventually computers got fast enough that tuning NLEs was no longer rocket science, so there was no value and therefore no money in it. In order to stay relevant with post clients who actually have some money to spend, Bob has pioneered editorial over simple network-attached storage. This is not a straight line from audio engineering, but each jump has built on what came before.
What’s Bob’s next career move? I don’t know if he knows, but I am sure that he will figure something out. He takes nothing for granted, he pays attention to the economics of the industry and how they relate to his current skills as well as adjacent skills he could develop, and he has been systematically working to stay ahead of his competitors for 30 years.
Bob is a case study in how to manage a long freelance career. Bob’s genius is in recognizing that the industry is constantly changing. His success comes from the hard work of continually changing with it — constantly adding new skills to his already-incredible experience. Bob has probably outlasted his own early client base in the industry, but that hasn’t slowed him down. Bob is continually picking up new clients, because he’s at least one step ahead of everyone else, and because he offers real, unique value.
If you are doing the same thing today that you were doing five years ago, you may well be out of business five years from today.
The only sustainable solution in times of change is adaptation. Stasis leads to failure. It’s easier said than done, but I believe that the most important skill in business is continually identifying and developing valuable niches. Anyone who can do this well will always be busy.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Scott Sheriff] “The T4i, no lights and the subway is where you’re at now. I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about tomorrow, when that client buys his own cheap cam, and wants you to come in and run it for ten bucks an hour.”
If they’re coming to me, my rate doesn’t change. As noted, I can offer them hourly . . . at my rate.
[Scott Sheriff] “Or maybe his nephew, or the new kid in the mail room will do it for free. Now what?”
The kid in the mailroom gets the job. I don’t worry about them. When the kid misses a deadline or uploads the embarrassingly wrong take to YouTube they’ll lose money. Even competency has a base rate.
BTW I’ve had a couple of occasions where clients just about did that and cut on iMovie and they came to me to dig them out . . . at my rate. FCPX iMovie import becomes very useful in those situations. 😉[Scott Sheriff] “At what point can you no longer cut anything, and be forced to lower your rate?”
My cost of living determines my base rate. Again you have to keep assessing what you’re offering, your business model.
[Scott Sheriff] “You have already conditioned your client to accept lower quality, and appears you have boxed yourself in. “
Wrong approach. Fast food. Many clients don’t want “quality.” If it were just a matter of “conditioning” you’d be able to up sell. You, as salesperson, have to determine what you can sell them. If you have a Canon 300 and can’t sell it they you’re gone. Wrong business model if it’s not working.
[Scott Sheriff] “My point? It seems you’re in the same boat the rest of us are in, just living in denial”
I get my rate. I cut costs. I offer speed when the client wants that over “quality.”
Denial is trying to sell a product or service that you aren’t able to sell. -
[Andy jackson] “Craig your rates do seem extreme even to me.”
Markets are different due to cost of living. Some people think my rates are low.
I have lots of different things I do. Diversify.
Reporter demo reels (where my VNR experience comes in handy). This is actually a very good market.
Local Cable spots often one day wonders and sometimes handed to me by the cable company when the customer apparently wants something better than their freebee. Then I get the 15% agency fee for the media buy as well.
Then there’s the corporate work.
I also do tech consulting where I’m either trouble shooting or otherwise doing tech setup. -
[Craig Seeman] “I get my rate. I cut costs. I offer speed when the client wants that over “quality.”
Denial is trying to sell a product or service that you aren’t able to sell.”[Craig Seeman] “I have lots of different things I do. Diversify.”
[Craig Seeman] “I also do tech consulting where I’m either trouble shooting or otherwise doing tech setup.”
IMO denial is posting under the premise that you are able to work full time doing production, and able ward off the hordes of production noobs.
This thread was not about doing IT work, engineering support, consulting or career changes. It was about the influx of inexperienced noobs hurting the production market and rates, and how cheap gear and the toleration of crap production values that has fostered this trend.
So in other words, the noobs are taking a bite out of your income, and you do not edit or shoot full time to support yourself.
And if all is as well as you claim and the noobs are truly not effecting you, there would be no need to diversify and “do tech consulting where I’m either trouble shooting or otherwise doing tech setup”, aka IT work. You would be too busy shooting and editing.
While I agree it’s smart to do whatever you can to make a buck, and to suggest alternatives in related fields is also good, it is also a bit disingenuous to imply in your posts that you are somehow able to defeat current production market conditions with your efforts, when you are now admitting that you are supplementing your income with non production work. And if you want to spin the tech support as production feel free. I’m not bashing support. I just think it is clear we were talking about earning a living with hands on shooting and editing.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Scott Sheriff] “This thread was not about doing IT work, engineering support, consulting or career changes.”
Read Bob Zelin’s post. It’s about staying in business and if you focus on an area that isn’t viable for you, you won’t. See Walter’ Soyka’s follow up.
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Yes staying in business
Staying in the business we have love and work damn hard for . The video production business!
Diversify, diversify…thats all i hear. Its always the same story when no real answers are available to get around the state of our production industry.
Everyone knows the industry is now rock bottom.Who honestly thinks that you can now make a full time career in video production. (Not part time)
Making programs only -docs, corporate, broadcast.
Not building websites or lecturing or IT .I’m talking video production.
What were all about
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