[Wolfgang Niederhoffer]

Hey Kim,
I am running into the same problem here in Portland, OR. All the landlords want lots of work history and proof that you’ve been fully employed for 1 year at least. There is something about previous year tax returns if you’re self employed, but since this is my first full year of freelance editing, I don’t have any of that yet. I’ll follow the advice posted earlier of just bringing a print out my bank account info and maybe copies of my last few invoices to show the regularity of my income. Good luck!

-Wolf
AVID/Final Cut Freelance Editor
Portland, OR

[Wolfgang Niederhoffer]

Sounddogs looks good for what I need.
Basically its just an 8 minute industrial with no nat sound. The music stays at one level and the narrator at another. Should be a straightforward job. The content is kind of dated, but I’m not sure that they have a budget to reshoot the whole thing. Apparently it all still applies to their company but the fashion choices of some of the ‘stars’ are a bit 90s-ish. I genuinely think retooling the audio and fixing the logo if possible will be way cheaper than a reshoot.
Again, this all depends on what material exactly I’m repurposing. I doubt that they have an unsupered version because I doubt they thought ahead that they’d change their logo in 10 years when they made the original. But who knows – I may be surprised yet. And I’ll keep an eye on costs of this repurpose vs. costs of a brand new project. Thanks for that tip.

One more question: I’ve got my self set up as a sole proprietor, how do I deal with business costs in terms of buying sound or paying for voice talent/recording space? I’m just getting going in this and as you maybe can tell I’ve got little experience bringing together a larger project.

[Wolfgang Niederhoffer]

Thanks grinner.
Yeah my first inclination is to dive in and do it. I’ve got enough friends in town that I can ask questions of in case I bump into a problem and I feel like it won’t be the most difficult job. But the client still hasn’t gotten back to me with exactly what raw materials she has available for me to work with. There is no talking head stuff actually. Just narration under video.
One biiig problem is that there’s a little bug in the corner of the video with their old logo/name. I said that it was possible to just cover it up. I was thinking some kind of lower third bar which I’d make a bit solid and place the new logo on top of.
In terms of the audio, I’ll also have to find new music as well as the only sound effect used which is the sound of a projector. Any idea where I might be able to find those resources? I’m familiar with KillerTracks and BMG, but don’t you have to be a big company with scale to use those sites? Is there some place that’s better for a one off kind of thing? I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be doing jobs like this so don’t need really to enter into some kind of ongoing subscription.

I’m also struggling with how much to quote for the job. I know there are other posts out there on the subject. I can’t really give a quote until I know what I’m working with anyway. But considering that we’ve got sound recording/editing, graphics creation, and whatever compression/mastering I do at the back end, that could add up to a decent bill.
It would also be helpful if you have any advice about calculating that stuff and how much of a cut I should take for other people’s work (ie, if the voice talent charges 60$/hour, what do I then charge the client? or if the recording studio charges 50$/hour, what do I charge the client?)
In the past I’ve only worked on small scale things where I can do all of the work myself with my own equipment.