How much should I charge?
 

I am shooting a graduation ceremony this saturday, for a shool I use to work at. I'm not making much, its more of a favor for my old boss. I got a call today asking if I would make an audio cd of the graduates thanking their teachers and parents. They want to play the cd prior to the graduation ceremony. I'll have about three hours before the ceremony to record, then burn the audio cd for them. How much should I charge to do this for them? What does this type of service usually cost? Would it be more, since they are asking for this at the last minute?

Hey Ruben,

Factor in the stress of setting up and getting ready for the shoot... Then try to picture 3 hours beforehand (maybe you're not set up, cause you don't wanna arrive 5 hours early?). So they start coming over to you.. And some get there a bit late. Let's say at 2 hours, they're still coming over. Now you have to cut the dead space on either side of each of these clips. Hopefully you matched the levels when recording. Then run the whole thing through a compressor plugin to keep the levels under control. Then render it to a wav/aiff file. Then burn the cd.. There's considerable time involved in this project if there are a lot of students.

I would make sure the camera gear is setup before you start this project.

How much to charge? How experienced are you with doing this kind of audio job? It's not 'hard' but if you're not quick at it, it'll take a lot longer, especially if there's a lot of students/clips.

I would find out how many students will be involved and demand they all arrive 3 hours prior to the ceremony. Maybe set a cut-off time. If they're not there by 2:45 before the ceremony, they don't get recorded, no exceptions. You don't wanna spend a couple of hours working on this, and then not have it ready in time, and get overloaded with stress by being so close to showtime.

I would charge $100, to let them know it's a serious project and demands respect. Then they'll be more like to enforce the 'be here or you don't get recorded' rule. :)

-Eric