$ Rate per minute but POST-PROD ONLY

[Grinner Hester]

Because each minute can vary so much with effects, compositing, sound design, animation, ect., biller per finished minute died out in the 80s. Hourly rates for post houses vary from 600 to as little as 100 per hour depending on market, overhead, speed, and capabilities.

[Bill Davis]

Just to amplify the whole mess …

Understand that metrics like cost “per finished minute” are best as AFTER THE FACT checks and balances.

It gives a producer a sense of whether they’re working efficiently or are getting sloppy at controlling costs.

If you FLIP the metric around and try to make it PREDICTIVE – you’re making a HUGE mistake, in my estimation.

This thinking is based on my first year in college where I decided (wrongly) that I was going to be a music major. I sat in my very first class and the instructor had us diagram an early composition by Palestrina. He pointed out such musical conventions as “leading tones” “Picardy fifths” and other bits of the common language of classical music breakdown and study. Sitting in that class, it struck me that no composer worth the name sits down and composes by saying to him or herself – “I think I’ll insert a leading tone here” – They sit and assess SOUNDS. They strive for pleasing combinations of notes and chords and melody lines. They do not ANALYZE – but rather CREATE. Analysis comes AFTER the creation.

If you wish to create great videos, DO THAT. Create them. But understand that in that act of CREATION, there’s NOTHING more destructive than trying to impose an arbitrary analysis in advance upon your work.

Yes, budgets matter. And you can’t run a business or make a living without paying attention to them.

But they are NOT EVER to be confused with the actual task of creating work. One restricts, the other MUST be allowed to reign free.

When you’re tempted to sit and do line item, budget, or yes PFM analysis – understand that you’re in a DIFFERENT PLACE than the place where you make your videos. And none of the metrics will matter if you don’t school yourself to do the REAL work of creation.

More than that, if you FOCUS on the metrics, you risk ROBBING yourself of the time to learn the real arts of creation.

It’s a tough balance, because both are critical.

But I think THIS is important. Some people will inevitably turn out to be a bean counters who pretend to be creative. And some people will be creatives who pretend to be bean counters. BOTH are typical life paths. But I know WHICH I am called to be. And so I struggle with the beans mightily to serve my passion for creation.

It’s who I am. And I try not to forget that, nor to be too harsh on myself (or others) in the face of that reality.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Mike Cohen]

Depends upon how your business operates.
We charge by the project. Sometimes if asked for an hourly rate we will suggest a flat fee. Usually we are asked for a price without any qualifier.
Know the scope before setting a price. And your rate is for the talent more than the gear.
Mike Cohen

Medical Education / Multimedia Producer

[Rich Rubasch]

All this being said, I still think that after several years cranking out every kind of video you should be able to look at the scope of a project and make a reasonable comparison to what it might take in a cost-per-finished-minute calculation. This would be based on length of video, kind of footage, demands of graphics compositing.

I do it all the time and we are darn close. The only thing no one mentioned as a variable, and the most important one, is what client you are working for. Some love what we do and we can predict that what we do right out of the gate will be great. Others take us round and round until we interpret what they wanted to see all along but had a hard time describing.

Those clients we add in considerable pad.

So we can calculate, based on type of post project, amount/type of graphics and client we are working with, quite accurately, how much a given project will cost per finished minute.

And, just to hone this ability even further, we calculate cost per finished minute after every project to see how we did.

Numbers are everything.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[John Baumchen]

I used to charge $95/hour, (in 2003). Didn’t matter if it was shooting, writing, editing……it was $95/hr

[Jonathon Bevan]

We have a video production calaculator https://www.evideobiz.com/quote.html that may answer some of your questions 🙂