[Rich Rubasch]

As I stated earlier, we are $125/hr versus $175/hr for editing. We basically took the “human” element out of it. If we do an entire day of uploading I usually will cut them a break on the hourly.

We charge $80/hr for encoding and $125/hr for DVD Authoring.

Getting confused? Not to worry, all rates are clearly posted on a neat rates page on our site.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

We have multiple systems so as long as I can cut on another system and the uploading can be automated….simple logging and let the decks run, then our uploading rate is $125 while our editing rate is $175….$225 for HD

Grinner is assuming that he is tying up his only system and his time. But even with a simple second Mac workstation you can cut, build graphics, author, work on other things. That way I can bill $125/hour to upload while I’m billing $150 an hour to build animations on another project.

So although Grinner thinks he’s making as much money as he can, he’s not. And I LOVE telling clients that I am going to charge a lower rate for the long uploads because it’s fair and they love the good news.

Bill what you think is fair for the long uploads, get a second Mac and bill for your time on that Mac too. You’ll be making $300+ per hour in no time!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

I only use a PC to do critical WMV encoding tasks, however I have recently installed Parallels and Windows XP and now I can drag and drop clips to Windows on my Mac and encode locally.

There is not a great Mac option to do what you need…maybe Episode with some tweaking, but only Windows encoder for PC can do it great.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

I agree….you are looking to encode to a “modern” frame size but want it to be viewable in older computers.

How about a series of JPEG still files? Or a PDF document? That goes back a ways and could support the higher frame size but with stills and type.

MPEG-1 is your only other best bet for older computers, but with frame grabs and scaling up, you won’t be able to read much on the screen shots.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

Episode Pro gets my vote. It rocks.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

My point is I have never had these issues. And I would not blame a FCP install for major performance issues. It’s usually elsewhere. At least for me.

Apple writes the OS and FCS. I’d think it odd that they recommend reinstalling the OS before installing an upgrade of a 2009 piece of PRO software.

I wish the advice given here was a bit more reasonable. Like clone your drive, install the software and test. That’s one hour. Doesn’t work? Pop in the other drive and movie on. My guess. All will be well and you’ll get more done anyway.

I’ve been working under deadlines with four edit suites for 9 years and have never installed the OS before a software upgrade, Mac or PC. Just bad advice in my opinion.

Oh, changing your oil in the car…better be safe and replace all the rings and injectors….you never know.

That’s how it sounds to me.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

Not sure if I would recommend Snow Leopard right now. No major advantages.

We cloned the drive, renamed all our existing FC Studio apps with their version number and installed FCS3. All is well. Also updated the Kona drivers etc.

I have never, and I mean never, have ever, and I mean ever, did a clean install of the Operating system before installing Final Cut Studio. For goodness sakes Apple writes all this stuff…and they don’t recommend it!

How is your system running now? If great, clone your drive and install away. I only rename my apps so I can still open FC 6 on the same computer as 7. Look in the Library folders….Apple does not remove previous versions of program files from the extensions and receipts folders.

So if you have a solid running system I say clone it and install it and get back to work.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

We have been able to very accurately estimate (both with hours and cost per finished minute, with and without production) for some time. For clients we know well, we use the simpler cost per finished minute and we base it on the description of the project’s task.

For new clients we do a full line by line estimate and use hourly or daily rates.

Hey Grinner, at the end of a few of your projects calculate the cost per finished minute based on the final invoice and the minutes delivered. Include all deliverables. I’ll bet you’ll come to some accurate conclusions. We have been able to.

So to answer the post, 1k per finished minute is a bit low for Madison WI for HD including shoot and post. You didn’t say how long it was….typically you are more efficient on longer pieces. On shorter videos with more animation muscle it will go up a bit.

I also think Grinners example of a 24 minute show pilot with only a one day shoot seems lean. Can you get enough to fill 245 minutes in a day? Depends on what it is. But 5K complete seems like a lowball bid from a one man band….no offense Grinner!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

Sorry guys, I disagree. First, clone your drive. Then rename all the FC Studio apps…name Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro 6 etc. Motion, soundtrack, Compressor, DVDSP all of them. Put the version number at the end.

Now do the install.

Bingo….both versions on the same Mac. I have a Powerbook with all versions on it since 4.5…running perfectly.

I also have two Dual G5 2.7s with FC 5, 6.0.3 and 6.0.6 all running perfectly.

I have an Intel MacPro with three versions on it as well.

I have never had an issue working this way. But I always clone my drive before the upgrade to be sure if something goes batty. Only time I have had to go back to a clone was after upgrading to Snow Leopard on one of my Intels. Two days and I went back.

So bah humbug boys…you can in fact run several versions of FCP and the rest on the same computer….and some times it comes in darn handy, and I have been doing it since Final Cut 2.0.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator

[Rich Rubasch]

We publish our rates. Why? So clients don’t call when they are making an estimate to recall how much we charge for graphics. Works for them, works for us. How much for 5 DVDs? It’s on our site. Why not publish that? It’s not going to change. For big productions, we do meet and prepare a formal proposal.

Without production, we hover around $300-$600 per finished minute for basic editing with some graphics. Been consistent doing that. Client sits over our shoulder for the entire edit or we add in a bunch of compositing or complex green screen and it ranges from $600-$1200 per finished minute.

With production it depends on crew size and production needs like prompter etc. But for HD editing and post it can range from $2000-$4000 per finished minute. But probably not a training video, but perhaps if it has a lot of 3D elements and the editing gets complex or the client is not prepared with the scripts. Training requires critical pre-pro because it needs to visually describe the process and it can be done many different ways.

My guess is we would create a proposal for the 15 minute training video under $30k. And we would probably come close to what we proposed if we apply our current posted rates. We have done enough projects to know what it will take…and if we know the client well enough what will make things smooth or bumpy.

Hourly post rates in our area don’t vary by much. So published or not, it’s not a mystery. Walter’s point about moving away from the corporate squeeze means you can put more money in the production and post finishing (where most corporate projects come up short) which also means your work will begin to look better and better. meaning you can sell to even bigger clients. Walter, correct me if I’m wrong!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator