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Hourly charge


Inazuma
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Hi

I was wondering what you guys think is a reasonable hourly charge for cinematography work? That is, I bring my own equipment (inc. lights), I take all the shots as directed or directing myself, and go home. I don't have professional equipment, just budget stuff (small DSLR's, lenses etc). I've had about two years of building up experience with various projects. I was thinking £40 an hour plus a cost per mile of travel. It would be work for small businesses. What do you think?

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Some go hourly, some do half/full day + extras + edit time. I started hourly and since have gone the half/full day route + an hourly charge for editing because many times we ignore things like time spent packing your gear, getting to the shoot, scouting locations, setup and breakdown time and so on. To me its more relaxed than clock watching and any confusion about when your paid time starts. Google what photographers charge and you'll get some good breakdowns on figuring costs and such. Most starting out seem to really sell themselves short.

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I generally prefer a flat day rate for anything under 12 hours. For me, there's not a whole lot of difference between a 3 hour or 8 hour shoot, since my day is already booked and I can't take other gigs. When clients are watching the clock trying to save a few dollars, the shoots tend to get rushed, which usually means more time in the edit trying to fix problems that could have been solved on set by taking your time. With clients that really want an hourly rate, I'll charge a fee just for showing up, then bill hourly.

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You can't talk about money, that's OUTRAGEOUS! :d I once asked a colleague who pretended to be my friend how much he earned on the job and no wonders got a very vague answer. If people tell how much they make, it gets comparable and decent people start realizing that they do more work for half the money or something like that.

Dunno bout the UK, but in Germany the going rate for a freelance writer slave starts at around 30–40 €, so 40 pounds for filming seems to be quite low. Especially if you factor in how much you have to spend for equipment and software (if you want to have everything legit and legal). I'd change prices according to the client. Corporate people probably won't respect you unless they have to pay decent money anyway – if they CAN respect anything at all. :d

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Hi

I was wondering what you guys think is a reasonable hourly charge for cinematography work? That is, I bring my own equipment (inc. lights), I take all the shots as directed or directing myself, and go home. I don't have professional equipment, just budget stuff (small DSLR's, lenses etc). I've had about two years of building up experience with various projects. I was thinking £40 an hour plus a cost per mile of travel. It would be work for small businesses. What do you think?

Whatever minimum wage is where you live. ;)

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If there are no 'above the line' components to your job description then you may get away with hourly. But as soon as they say 'we'd like to see what you would do here', hourly is going to bite you in the ass. There's no way to measure with time and money the value of experience, research, development, brainstorming, etc that goes into creating something new, custom or original. Day rates or project rates work best for that. Never quote someone on the spot. Ask for an email and tell them you'll send them a proposal/quote very soon (that's more for projects and may not apply to hired gun projects). Find a rate that seems to work (there'll be some trial and error here) and then slowly experiment with inching that rate up, but eventually you'll plateau. That's where I'm at. I couldn't tell you how to get further except just... persistence. 

 

You guys sound like some of the guys I've met in the weight room who bench press 300 pounds one time, brag, and leave.

What were you doing at the weight room? :)

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Reason I ask about hourly rates is because I'm working for a friend who is creating a long-term documentary for someone else and only needs me for 1-3 hours every so often. And filming isn't my full time job so I have no problem doing these little things on the side. 

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Simon says...

Decent enough of a strategy, I'd say. Do you know what your friend asks for himself? I would ask to get nearly the same rate (else it's like: wait, that much cheaper: he must suck, or the other way: wait, that much cheaper, forget about your expensive friend then, you do the whole thing!).

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It has worked for me a lot of times!!!

 

Those are good prices for commercial work. Inazuma told us that he is helping a friend who is working on a long term documentary...

In that case free isn't uncommon. Or $100-$150/day if there's a bit of budget, whatever covers the cost of gear. I thought it was corporate videos for small businesses, in which case $600/$400 is a low rate if you're the vendor, a pretty normal mid/low end rate if you're a wet hire working for someone else.

 

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I do my costs on day rate, whether it's only 3 hours or 10 hours. 

  • Pre-Production: estimated days to complete pre-shoot work. (treatment, references, locations, talent, equipment, shot lists etc). 
  • Production: days to complete shooting schedule. 
  • Post Production: estimated days to complete post work. 

Within these costs, I add a 25% margin to cover the cost of business and a bit more for cushioning. I will also add an extra 2 days for post production amendments and advise the client that should they request anything above what was agreed, then that would be charged at day rate too. 

The amount that you charge really depends on the value/quality of your service, the expense of operating business and the project type :)

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Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm also now wondering what your limit is on a days work? 8 hours?

I've done a 27hr and 25hr day in the past week, though in each case it was because of two separate jobs being done in the same day back to back (a normal day work from pre dawn, plus afterwards an all night shoot! x2)

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