Selling finished Wedding Videos to Pros
 

I've been getting a bunch of emails lately about selling a completed wedding videos. It is something we have been considering, and with the recent pile of emails about this, I thought I would post a couple questions here.

I'm curious who out there is already doing this, what their feedback is, and what the going rate is for a completed video.

I just got an email from Luis here on Dvinfo, but unfortunately the eail he provided doesn't seem to work so I thought I would post my comments publicly instead.

Patrick

I have never publically sold a wedding video, but as someone at the start of his wedding videography career I can say that I am interested in the option to see what other's are doing (outside of 4 minute cliips posted here). I would personally pay up to $50 for one.

That is assuming that the video is strictly what the client would receive. If we are talking a training video, or video with commentary by the videomaker, then I would pay about $100.

Jeff and Andee Wright of blueskiescinema.com sells their videos for $150-$200 each. They also have a 2 day hands-on workshop teaching other videographers their techniques for $995 per person. They can handle up to 9 people per session. They have been cutting back on weddings and have been focusing more on teaching other videographers their techniques. For weddings, he charges a MINUMUM of $10K.

That's it. I'm raising my prices.

Music!
 

Heck if I had to license all that music I would have to charge that much as well!

Patrick, i know you're not stupid, but make sure you put a big watermark logo over the whole thing. there are people out there waiting to use other's stuff to help sell their own.
it's happened to me with in the past where I found my personally-made stuff on sale on ebay, and it was a very unpleasant feeling. (evidently, a copyright symbol wasn't good enough!)

Hi Patrick,

We sell 8 DVDs. Many of them are completed works with audio commentary. 3 DVDs are actually full fledged "training DVDs". Our latest DVD is Real Weddings Volume 1. It is a completed wedding DVD, just as the B&G received it, but with bonus features.

You can listen to the DVD to see exactly what the Bride received, or you listen to an audio commentary track where Trisha and I discuss the cameras, lenses, lights, support devices, camera locations, shooting assignments, microphone equipment and techniques, etc... Or you can listen to the audio commentary that contains our philosophy and the techniques we used while editing the wedding, including the names of the songs we used. It's priced at $125.

We recorded our commentary tracks the first week of August. Little did we know that the Highlight from this wedding was going to win a Gold CEA at WEVA, so needless to say, we show some good stuff.

You can see a preview of the DVD here.
http://tulsaweddingvideos.com/videographers.shtml

Hi Patrick,

Three items come to mind:

1. Ensure your client contract clearly spells out the T&Cs associated with video ownership and usage.

2. Verbally review this clause with the prospective client before signing the contract - better yet, have them initial the paragraph during signing.

3. For selected video, send written confirmation to each client whose video will be used - better yet, give each of them a completed copy of the video.

Since I've never anticipated selling videos, my contract wording would be insufficient for your contract: "xxx reserves the right to use any and all of the raw footage acquired for the final video production for its promotional purposes and other purposes." Typically the wording would include specific conditions such as training, although perhaps you may have other purposes such as entertainment, etc.

The bottom line is, you don't want to surprise your valued clients, who trust you to maintain an appropriate balance of confidentiality in a business environment. In addition to Mark and Trish's excellent videos, some top names that come to mind for training videos include: Randy Stubbs, Steve & Laura Moses, David Robin, John Cooksey, Chris Watson, Ken Ehrhart, and others...

Good luck, Michael

People post wedding clips and sell videos of weddings...Hmmm...do the bride and groom know of this? I wouldn't be crazy about seeing MY wedding plastered all over the net.

Also, it seems too convenient to claim $10,000 per wedding and at the same time offer wedding coverage seminars. "You too can earn $10,000 per weekend!!!"

If I was paying 10k for a wedding, I'd expect a F-900, not a pd150 with ipod headphones.

I would love to see a how to wedding video done by Patrick. How to use the steadicam and behind the scenes of a wedding day. Basically, a how to video a wedding is what I would love to see from start to finish.... Booking, shooting, editing and final products..

$150-200 is a fair price for a good how to video. I would like to see high end videos and Patrick seems to me to be the right person I want to see a how to video from..

Walter

I'd do it if it was me. People are gonna plunder your ideas/techniques anyhow. Might as well get compensated for it.

You'd expect someone to hand over their trade secrets in an edited film to you so you can emulate it and only pay them a measly $50??????

Not if they don't see a full-length film. They can plunder all they like with trailers, but the true test of a great wedding videographer is to put together a complete film with proper flow from start to end.

I agree.

There seems to be a lot high dollar pricing with prosumer gear.

Are you guys solely equating higher pricing with better equipment? What about skill, knowledge, experience, creativity, originality and overall non-suckageness? Doesn't that also ascend pricing?

I'm not sure how you guys operate but to me, charging $10k does not mean earning $10k.