Charging for videoing
 

Good Afternoon,

I have been hired to shoot three basketball games on Saturday. Mileage and meals is no problem to sort out, but what kind of payment for the time and dvd is of interest to me. Post will be minor with just cutting out junk! What would be reasonable?


gus

Depends on your experience, what you feel your time and effort is worth. How many hours of shooting and editing? How many dvd's are you producing? All of these factors play into pricing. It's hard to quote you a price without all the details.

With more details it would be easier to give you a reasonable price to ask for.

Mark

Also depends on your market - what others in your area are charging for similar work and format, and can depend on day of the week. - Saturday may be higher because more events, like weddings, happen on Saturdays than, say, Tuesdays.

hello dale,

just finished the 05/06 basketball season. was taping all games (my kid was playing) made some a view dvd for some das in between, and now one dad ask me to tape him the upcomming championship game for $ 50. i don't know if that is the rate for a game.

all the other games will be burned onto dvd/ dublicatet by a local comp. for 4.99 per dvd. (14 games/ 9 kids/ 126 dvd's)

greetings

im only 15. my school the other week payed me £95 just to film there school concert. i have had about 20 hours experience in filming weddings/special events, about 12 hours experience in filming partys and 30 hours experience in filming stupid short films with my friends. i spent two night beings there film ing it and i spent over 10 hours editing it. I also get £3 ontop of that for every dvd sold. the market around me is very high priced for what they offer. £200 per hour to film a concert. then £80 PER hour to edit it and then £7 per dvd. all filmed on XL1 and XL1s. every one shoud know the xm2 has same specs as the xl1s.(except from changlable lense and XLR terminals)

An uncomplicated 1-camcorder shoot and edit of a simple wedding and reception might be a roughly equivalent event, and prices might start around US$1000, including editing and a couple DVD or tapes. But there is wide variation in price. even within a give region.

Thanks & suggestions on shoot
 

Thank you all for your information:

I was going to shoot the three games, lightly edit the three games, perhaps and hour work on each. I was then going to cut them one master dual layer dvd and let them do what they like from there.

Karl,
When you were shooting the game did you use frame or interlaced and what shutter speed did you use.

what would you suggest?


Dale

hello dale,

i did not use my xl1-s camera for that, since there is not enough time to set everything up, outlets is an issue, secure set up of monitor, best spot location blocked with wild parents, bleachers not very stable, some of the gyms don't even have bleachers (7 grade) i need at least 1 hour for set up (may be i am slow) my tripot has a bottom spread.

so, i used my canon trv dvr 730, tape and fs-4. old tripot has center spread, could adjust the legs to the 1 st row down.
sound stereo
tbc on
dnr on
pb auto
rec lp
audio 128 bit
auto tv on
tv input video 1
auto focus
auto shutter on
program ae auto
d zoom 500x
16:9 wide off
steadyshot on
n.s.light off
she has the option of several different lighting conditions, one ist sport. i did not use it.
even the sony has the option of turning the auto shutter off, i can't set anything else on her.
to make all my blah..blah short. everything was straight in auto.
exellent quality, light, color, audio (on board) and focus

had on hand at the tripot at all times, since there were people walking around!

watch out for skylights!

did one game at our st. marys college. they have a videographers platform above the bleachers, and the right lighting. looks like a nba game.

no editing on my side. have still not figured out my liquid 6. program <G>

stopped rec at all time outs, and took shoot of scoreboard between the quarters.

there was no "junk" to cut. very basic titel

putting the highlights of the 12 games together with my old pinnacle 8 program, but that is very time consuming. just loading ea. game (about 55min) have 7 games in my pc now, and work on it for about 2 weeks now!

what kind of camera do you have/ use?

greetings

The stress factor plays a part in my quote. For me, basketball games are pretty easy, even kind of fun anticipating and zooming in on the action. So I think $50/game sounds good for the shoot plus maybe $35/hour editing. There's more stress involved with a championship game, though, so....

I produced a highlight video for a dad to send to colleges on his daughter's behalf. For $375.00 I agreed to shoot three games (two at locations beyond 30 miles from me), burn a DVD w/timecode, edit per his instructions, and give him twenty VCDs. He also had some crummy footage he shot that he insisted I use--took me a long time editing that. I ended up holding his camcorder hostage until he could finally pay me for the editing. The whole process took six months! :)

Would I do something similar for that price again? Probably. Someone else might gasp and tell me I'm charging too much; another may gasp and tell me I'm not charging enough. You have to go with what sounds reasonable in your own mind, I suppose.

hello lorinda,

your pricing sounds about right for a basketball game

greetings


like your: holding his camera..lol

Karl/Lorinda/settings
 

thank you for the information.
I am in ball park with what you people are charging. I am looking at about 250 dollars for the 3 games and cutting them 1 dvd to copy, plus milage and food.
I am shooting with a gl2, using a rode mic, set to cut base down. plan on shooting at 200th of a second or so on Time value. Figure I will not use frame for most if it ( will shoot about 10 minutes of frame at 1/500 so I can rob nice stills). I want to keep depth of field as deep as possible, hence a slower shutter. I may use auto focus if I have to but if I set up mid court, zoom to the key, focus, draw back as far as possible and retain focus I should then be able to keep most of the court infocus and just change zoom. if you have tried the afore mentioned and it did not work please tell me.

Any helpful hints would be good.

I have a shoulder brace and a decent video tripod. With the 20 optical zoom I was thinking of tripoding from center court. do you think moving with the shoulder camera better??


dale

You are so right to stay far, far away from autofocus. The hunting would ruin your video. The plan you mentioned for focus sounds good; I'm sure you'll be checking focus constantly to guard against any drift.

With one camera you don't have much choice but to be pretty much center court, so I would think the tripod would work best. (It's not like you can get cool shots under the basket or anything, right? Because you'd miss action at the other end of the court?) Are you going to be on the floor or in the bleachers/balcony?

People who watch basketball are probably more interested in sharp detail rather than a "movie look," so yeah, I'd stay away from frame mode for the most part.

hallo lorinda,

agree with you, but i had no problems (hunting) with auto focus at all. (my sony, my canon on the other hand hunts like out of control in auto focus)

greetings

I agree with Lorinda Norton

hello nathaniel,

just passing on my expirience with the sony 730. don't know anything about the gl2 auto focus performance.

greetings