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Pricing for finished product?
  • jpbturbojpbturbo

    Hi Everyone,

    I have a question regarding pricing for videography work.

    I work at a nonprofit childrens home that is 100 years old and recently a faculty member at a neighboring college wrote a play about the story of the college and the childrens home which were both founded by the same man around the beginning of the 20th century.

    The play runs for about 45 minutes and is relatively static as far as what would be needed to film it. Well, earlier this year a local man claiming to run a video production company approached someone else at my company about filming the play for us and producing some DVD's for us to be able to share with visitors, donors, board members, etc.

    He was kind of secretive about his work and never gave us a ballpark figure on what he was going to charge us for producing the DVD's of the play. There was no contract either stating that we had even agreed to pay him for this project, in fact he even seemed to avoid anyone who asked about final cost until he was done with the project.

    Note that as the project was ongoing we were not able to see any preliminary footage or edits to have any sort of checks on the quality of the piece.

    Now that the DVD's have been made he has sent us a bill. His pricing scheme worked out to an hourly fee for the actual filming, $250 per hour for on location filming. There were several hours of filming because of the separate narrator sort of shots throughout the piece. That's not a problem.

    The problem is that he included a per unit cost related to the length of the finished(edited as delivered) product at $1000 per unit. In this case a unit being one(1) minute, which makes his cost for editing $43,000.

    Does that seem as ridiculously high to anyone else as it does to me? Are there any of you guys that are a one man shop that would charge $50,000 for a pretty basic edit of locked off shots, no camera movement, for a 43 minute product?

    I've looked at the rate information on the bureau of labor statistics website and can't find anything that would be this expensive even in the 90th percentile of pricing.

    On top of all this, the project looks like it was shot on an old minidv handicam complete with fried blown out highlights and an overall lack of detail. The sound in the project is also terrible.

    Let me know what you think.

    -JPB

  • 13 Replies sorted by
  • maxrmaxr

    WOW, Josh, that's looks totally absurd... not even accounting nonprofit status.
    There's no much advice I can give you, not a freelancer in the States. Is there a signed contract?... IF there is, maybe's not a bad idea to look for "possible" breaches (i.e. that preliminary look at the edit)... also talking to org.'s lawyer and check possible legal actions. If there's no contract... that's very different matter.

    Cheapest solution: a very vicious gang of motherfuckas with spare time :P - Just kidding off course.
    Hopefully you'll be able to turn things around; my suport buddy =)

  • TronTron

    That is nuts... a crazy high price, but honestly I think it's the fault of the person who authorized the work without getting a quote first or outlining the terms ahead of the production start. That is standard practice to avoid these types of price conflicts. The fact that the work was done for a non-profit and that the quality of his work is not that great really has no bearing here, somebody agreed to let him do the work AT ANY PRICE by neglecting to get a quote up front and choosing not to view his film reel.

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    @jpturbo Red flags everywhere here. This guy is obviously a shady character. Although no written contract was signed, he will probably claim verbal contract. Have the institution you work for hire a lawyer to shut this whole thing down. (Yes the costs are extreme...ripoff level! ) Some fee would be reasonable, but I assure you, this guy is shady. Seems like he tried to pull a fast one on some very nice people.

    Next time, have your institution's lawyer write/review a written agreement for any services they need.

    Of course, @maxr solution of clockwork orange gang paying young punk a visit would interesting. "A little bit of the ultra-violence?" (I jest of course.) Lawyer will scare this guy into proper agreement and payment should be upon delivery at this point.

  • maxrmaxr
    The fact that the work was done for a non-profit and that the quality of his work is not that great really has no bearing here

    @Tron you must be right, but morally I'll say differently... now, with law, will it blend?

    @matt_gh2 and it's cheap solution, just some galons of nice, fresh milk ,-)

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    I would guess the guy doesn't have legal leg to stand on. Assuming no written contract, contract at best is verbal contract. I would guess the guy implied that costs would be reasonable, and a lawyer and judge can easily quantify that expectation relative to reasonable/standard industry rates...which do correlate to the professional's experience and the quality of the finished product. TIME TO LAWYER UP.

    @maxr Was that just milk...or some kinda drug concocted to prime the lads up for an evening of revelry? Lol.

  • TronTron

    @maxr I hear you, it's tempting to be a bleeding heart in these instances but I've been on the flip side here and it cuts both ways. In @jpbturbo 's case he is clearly working with a low-value producer (or just a nutjob with a camera!!) and he should flex his legal options if the producer is not willing to negotiate on the price. If legal recourse is not available, it's at least an opportunity to learn from and avoid in the future.

    From the other perspective, I quoted a "flat rate" on a teaser reel once that my client then proceeded to turn into The Godfather 4, 5 & 6. I clearly outlined the scope of the project according to our initial consult but that didn't matter, he thought "flat rate" meant he could wiggle in more shooting days without penalty.

    We came to an amicable agreement in the end, but never again will I do a flat rate project or fail to document the scope of the shot sequences involved in the effort. Budget is always the first thing I discuss with a client because I'd rather disqualify them on the spot then waste both of our time if we're not a good fit or they have unrealistic goals with regard to their content acquisition budget.

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    That's a LOT of money! I wonder how much care was taken over the sound, from what you say. Or pictures, come to that, if most of it was a series of locked-off shots. I'd imagine unless he was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear of a play, and hence had to do a major amount of editing to rescue it, it can't have been that much work. Trouble is (as others have said), if the client (whoever commissioned it, in other words) wasn't clear what was wanted, these things have a habit of going sour - ending up in a lot of wasted work, wasted money, or both (if you end up with a product that's not fit for purpose). Not defending the video guy, but bad results often come from bad contracting, and bad contracting usually only happens when both sides are at fault. If at least one side has a professional level of knowledge, this shouldn't have happened.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Holy crap!! Even that $250 an hour is ridiculous. So for an 8 hour day you're looking at $2,000 just to shoot? That's just insane unless he had a crew and a small grip truck outside.

    Tell him to piss off and chalk it up to a lesson learned. :)

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    @jpbturbo That is crazy, he could have asked for million dollars like that, couldn't he?

    It might be a good idea to ask few other neutral small productions to give you their price for that kind of work, which would probably be some normal figure. Just in case that this guy sues you hoping to get something out of it, you will have some kind of proof to what might be expected as a price for that kind of work, because no contract or verbal agreement existed at the first place.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    I would say his reluctance to show you any edits or footage would be all you needed in court. That would be a clear indication the guy is trying to take advantage of someone. Any normal production company would send a first pass just to make sure everyone is on the same page before wasting anymore time on editing.

    How much money have you all paid him so far?

  • jpbturbojpbturbo

    It has gone to our lawyer and board of directors for a final decision.

    Someone posing as a potential client has emailed him separately and he is saying that $1000/minute is his normal going rate.

    The audio sounded like it was using the on board mics on his Panasonic AGHPX250PJ. I was surprised to hear that he actually records in HD, the footage looked that bad.

    What's funny is that I shot a section of a promo video in the same auditorium a few years ago with a 7D using the same stage lights and it looked way better. I'll grab some screen caps to compare tomorrow when I'm back at work.

    I don't think he's been paid anything so far. I do think he should be paid for his work but something in line with industry norms would be a bit more palatable.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Shouldn't look shitty on a 250. That's not a bad video camera at all. Almost bought one when it came out and it was actually better in low light than some 1/2 chipped cameras. Also he should have been patched in to the house audio system if you have one to capture from there.

    No matter what your rates are, $45,000 for something like this is just an shame. He'll never win in court and you'll never receive the footage, if you even wanted it :)

  • goannagoanna

    Re the money, send this url to your lawyer and do nothing. Re the footage, I'd be tempted to report him to the police as a possible paedophile if he hasn't sought any release forms signed by the kids' parents.

    You will get the footage back or destroyed :-)

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