What should I charge?
 

I just had a guy email me saying he has a minDV of his wedding, and has a seperate good quality audio that needs to be synced up with his video, then dump it out to a DVD. What should I charge him? Is $100 too much to ask?

I suppose it all depends on your experience, and what you feel you are worth. Being a new person myself, I feel comfortable with charging $15 an hour.

On-the-other-hand...

My brother now has a one man post facility (kind of semi retired) in the Miami area. (used to edit for Sat Nite Live, etc, etc). He charges a flat $200 per hour for any work.

Wish I could get that but don't have the knowledge or credentials. I figure $50 an hour will cover me.

Google some DV and DVD houses. You'll find somewhere between $50 and $300 an hour depending on the work (and equipment). Of course some of that equipment is to drool for. (And some of the techs are near-legends)

Brad

I think you have to consider the job as well. Very limited equipment is required for what they are asking for and it will not take very much time either. Sure you may be worth $200 an hour, but this job doesn't need somebody like that to have it done right. I would figure out what you believe is fair for your time and the work your doing, and if it is too much for what the job actually is, I would recommend referring them somewhere else. We often turn down small jobs as I would rather help them find somebody that can do it for the right price, then quote them what it is worth to us, which in many cases is way too much for the small job they want done.

You have no idea what you're walking into. I'd never give a flate rate for material I didn't have control over.

How long is the wedding - raw or edited?
What is his source audio on?
How easy will it be for you to find the sync points?
What is the condition of the source - drop outs, someone turning on and off cameras and/or audio recording device.
My experience is that even digital source audio can drift small amounts over time.

You're better off quoting the $15/hr with a $100 minimum (means there's no additional cost if you can do it in 6 hour or so) put $15/hr for each additional hour.

If the wedding video is 90 minutes it can take up to 3 hours to input and another 90 minutes to output. You've spend 4 1/2 hours and only have 90 minutes to sync before you start making LESS than $15/hr.

When I was with SurfGuru.com, I would often get a VHS tape, with anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of miniDV shot video. I would cut it down to a finished 2-5 minute web video on a cd rom, and get $10 for each finished video.
There were some other perks, but that was it. Fresh out of college with an AS in Graphics.

Truth be told, I'd edit for free, just for fun.