hard to say for sure as the discussion of money wasn't really brought up at first. However, I don't believe working for free is necessarily an enjoyable route to take.

You could base it on a day rate, which in many markets is based on a 10-hour day. Those extra 2 hours you spent could be charged hourly as overtime - but then you have to determine exactly what that rate would be. For something like that, especially since it had a 'friend' appeal - I'd be inclined (personally) to set a rate at $500/day for editing + $50/hour after you max out the first 10-hours.... So maybe $600 if that is deemed "reasonable". Of course, that's not counting dvd's. My opinion regarding that duplication request of 33 copies (!!) is that I'd send that outside and just let someone else bill her for it (unless you wish to mark it up a tad). Unless you want to manage the entire process of loading dvd's one by one on your computer (which, is what you said you'd be doing right?).

For a "friend" project like that, the babysitting time at the computer would be enough to drive me a little nuts. Otherwise, she ought to be prepared to further pay you for your time. I mean - yes, the computer would be doing most of the work - but meanwhile, you're sort of on a short leash while this happens, and your computer is out of commission in the meantime. I think it's worth the money to just farm that part out. Just my opinion there.

PS - based on your description, my opinion is also that she might balk at the pricing I listed above. Curious as to what happens.

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I do agree with you about her balking at the prices you suggested. But it's ok ... it's good to hear your opinions about what this stuff is worth (doing it for profit is why I bought the equipment, after all).

I likely won't ask for that much because of the nature of the situation. But it gives me a good idea. I really had no idea about such project pricings ... $50? $200? $800? I really had no idea. I didn't have to take the pics or shoot video ... but hey! Our time and services are worth the bucks (I think) if the job is done professionally and well.

I'll let you know how it goes. Anyone who wants to chime in, please do so!

Thanks again!

Hi Jason,
Since money wasn't dicussed from the start with your client, I'd recommend you set a very nominal fee your services. (Let "her" know she's getting a great price.)
If you plan to pursue this as an income generator, (which it sounds like you are) nothing helps "kick start" a reputation like referalls from satisfied customers. Especially in this type of business. I'm sure you already know that.

The money you "don't make" from this project is probably far less than the future dollar value of what you learned in producing it.

For some people, groups, organizations, etc, I perform many free services (in studio and on site) for the sole purpose of promoting our company and it's capabilities.
It works well for me. I don't count my time in "taxi-meter" minutes, and my customers appreciate it.

Good luck to you.

John

Here's how I'd handle it:

"Marsha - a job like this is worth $600. We never discussed pricing before, so what do you think?"

Then - shut up and wait - take what she offers with a smile and chalk it up to experience. Remember: It's not her money, and the price is "right". Ask and see what happens.

I also agree - FARM OUT THOSE DVD dupes - you won't make squat, and if they start to fail in the burn you will hate yourself. Duping is often the worst part of the job.

I have done VE as "favors" for friends/schools/non-profit groups over the last 4 years using Vegas 3/4. At first, I did it for fun and to learn how to use Vegas. Working with real projects had a better appeal than creating samples with no lasting value. Plus I got some of my work out there for other [paying] people to notice.

For instance, I did some "free" work for a teacher. The school administrator noticed and loved my work. Over the next 2 years they paid me $30,000 [grant money] to do other projects/classroom instruction.

Unlike others suggest here, I would do the copies myself, because I can multitask copying those at work, while I perform other tasks. It only takes seconds to switch disks and stomp on labels. All the hard work is already done.

NOW that you are making 33 copies, you can justify charging $15 each [what people are used to paying for DVDs] Since you volunteered to do the editing work for free, you are only charging for the non-negotiated aspect. You will make close to $500, but still be offering your time for "free".

I just don't think you can charge $50+ /hour if you are new at this. People will never ask you to do anything else if you outprice yourself. Throw a carrot out in front of them and you will get more & more in return. Also, charge by the job vs. by the hour so that people get used to paying for the product vs. your time [which gets faster and faster] I charged $100 for my first marriage video slideshow that took me about 10 hours because I was new at it. The last one I did took 2 hours, but I still charged $100.

Remember, you can always say "no" to people asking for favors, but if you want to make some money doing this, you will have to get people noticing your work. Think of "favors" for others as free advertisement.

I recently completed my first DVD project which went well.

First we spoke on the phone and arranged a meeting, I also got a brief verbal description of the requirement. We met for coffee and spent 30-40 mins discussing the project. I sought to find out her expectations and if i could deliver. I prepared some sketches on paper of what I thought she wanted her reply was "wow thats exactly what I want" so things were well from the start.

We discussed the input media, its format and who is responsible and what work I would need to do to it etc ... this flushed out alot of unknowns (capturing video -mini DVD and VHS, editing it, scanning many photos etc ...)

I explained the effort involved and the time required, and im happy to offer a fixed cost of XXX and deliver this project by XXX date if you deliver this input in this format to me by this date.

She agreed to the above and we went ahead. We met every 3-4 days and each time I handed over a DVD RW with a water marked "work in progress" copy of the project and a check list of things for her to confirm were correct and what was left to do etc ... So the customer saw the work being done, effort going into it and had input to its evolution (small changes).

As we came closer to the final version I made sure in the last couple of check lists I would mention billing "Once the final version is approved I will create the 10 copies required and have them ready the next day. I expect to be paid in fuill when I hand them over".



===========================================
Things I learnt that worked well. (most of it comes from my project management experience)


Define the requirements on paper.

Define the input media and its format and who is supplying it. This is so you can estimate your effort. You dont want to later find out its 500 paper photos not 500 digital photos.

Give the customer an ACCURATE estimate of the cost after finding out the above.

Define the start and end (billing point) upfront. so there are no disputes

The customer loved a work in progress on DVDRW, I need to buy more rw discs. Watermark it in big letters work in progress so it cant be ripped off and you not get paid. this also serves as evidence of your effort.

Act professionally from the beginning (even for friends and family) if you are going to charge them otherwise dont charge.

Give away a free DVD copy of the project to the customers as a referral bonus each time you get a referral. Whats a few dollars if u get a few more 100's of dollars projects.

I like "the_rhino's" approach to charge for the DVD's and offer the editing work for free. I think you'll make more out of the project, and they'll think in terms of the DVD value ($15/DVD sounds reasonable), not the total job cost.

Vic Milt was giving a good close technique, however. "State a price. Ask a question and then "Shut up." Get the response and go from there.

As a baseline, I charge a flat $100/hr for any work that I do (writing, shooting, editing, etc.). However, I have done a LOT of free work, just to get in the door--a lot of it turned into paying projects from others who have seen my work.

Sounds like you have lots of good input already. I thought I add a couple comments. I haven't charged anyone for my work yet so bear that in mind.

If I was in your situation, I think I would say something like, "I hear work like I have done for you typically goes for around $50/hr or more, but i am probably not at full efficiency yet, and we didn't discuss it in advance, so maybe less would be reasonable."

One project I did for free needed 80 DVD copies. I searched the internet and found a place to burn the DVDs for me. If I remember right, it was about $6/disk plus a $25 setup free. This included printing any color image directly on the disk and packaging in a plastic case. Other than example copies i wouldn't consider doing this myself for more than a few copies. As someone else mentioned, people are used to spending around $20 or more for a commercial DVD, so let someone else do the copying, make a few dollers per disk yourself and charge them at least $10-15 dollars per disk.

You mentioned you used your DJ music for the background. Nobody else has mentioned this, but I'm pretty sure this would be a copyright violation. Even if you have paid for the right to play the music, I very much doubt you have any right to use it in this way. Do a search in this forum for the many long discussions with subjects like copyright, music, royalty free, etc. Odds are good that you can get away with it for small projects a few times but even wedding vid people have been sued out of business for doing this kind of thing.

Good luck. Sounds like you have a good running start to getting a small business going, but definately research the music copyright aspect.

For video slide shows you might also consider charging by the picture. I've seen rates of $4 to $5 per picture with a $50 minumum.

On my most recent slide show project I charged $4 per picture and included one straight play DVD or VHS tape in the price.

For a stock menu system on a DVD I charge $80 and for custom menus I charge by the hour.

For duplicates I charge $20 each, and $15 each for 50 or more. I also try to explain that Hollywood DVDs are duplicated in the thousands and that if the customer wants to order 5,000 or more then we could get the price down to $7 or so.

It looks like CustomFlix.com can handle short run numbers, so I may be able to lower the number of copies needed for a price break.

JBJones

Check out these short run duplication prices
Randy

I would never do anything for free. But hey, if she's cute, maybe you can get her phone number or something lol.

Next time, I'd negotiate fees upfront... "my regular rate is __/hr" ..

Most professionals charge well over $100/hour for their time (I charge $425/hr in my business).

I don't know what's standard for video editing... but nothing less than 50/hr rock bottom.


Ken

Wow! Thanks guys for all the interest in my original post and question. There's a lot of good information here. I'll update you now on how it's going.

I was so excited and eager to use my Vegas editor and DVD programs to do a project that I took it on with a favor-type feel at first. The woman that asked me to do this project was originally going to take up a collection to pay me from her classmates. Then, the college said they would pay me out of its budget whatever is "reasonable." It looks like reasonable, even on this project, is widely varied depending on where you are and who you're dealing with.

I decided that my initial final total for this project will be $450. I am burning all 34 DVDs myself on my PC burner since the deadline is so close, labeling them with printed paper sticky labels and jewel cases. My total charges for this overhead & supplies came out to $173. That means that my profit would be about $276. I am charging for 8 hours of work, to be as fair as possible. (It was actually more like 10-12) That comes out to about $35/hour for my time, well within the "reasonable" costs that were suggested in this thread.

I called the woman and told her the cost of $450. Her reaction was, "Holy smokes!" So, to her, it obviously sounded high at the outset. I then broke it down for her. It cost me $85 to buy the 34 DVD-Rs from Staples. She then said, "Well, yeah, I guess you're right. That's almost a hundred dollar chunk right there." I then told her there were ink costs for printing the labels, costs for the labels themselves, and the jewel cases. I also charged $1.50 per disc for burn costs, since I am using a consumer onboard computer burner. After I explained these overhead costs she started to understand better why the cost sounded high.

Her final thought on the situation was, "Well, the college is paying for it, so however much you can get them to dish out, go for it!" Tomorrow (Tuesday) she is sending me the email address of the college personel that I will send the pricing scenario to, and they will get back to me.

I will tell them that the $173 must be paid to recoup my expenses. After that, the $276 profit is the negotiable aspect. If they decide it's too high, I'll have to bring the price down a bit. I won't complain as this started out as a semi-favor to begin with, and I liked the advice about the postive advertising that happens when you just get your work out there for others to see.

The DVD will be presented at graduation next Saturday, the 15th. I'm hard at work getting the copies made right now. I'll keep everyone posted as to how it ends up, and if anyone else wants to add any input, or wants to add new input about what's happened so far, please do! It's really helped me out! I can now feel comfortable about discussing costs on future projects and this has allowed me to get my feet wet.

Thanks again, JH

PS--Thanks for the heads up on the music copyright issue. I wasn't thinking about that at all. She gave me the music she wanted on a CD she had, but it was easier for me to just transfer from my DJ system (the same songs). I'll have to read the prior discussions to find out more about what is right and wrong, as suggested.

Jay:

Just a word of warning (and not from experience, I got warned early and hence didn't try it) that the consensus is that putting the sticky labels on DVDs is a No No as it stops them playing consistantly. There's a bit about on this on a few forums.

On this topic, I got last night an Epson Photo R210 which prints directly to DVDs, and the initial testing blew my mind. It lists for $99 (Yes, ninety nine!) USD, so food for though. The joys of living in OZ, cost me $250 though!

Just food for thought!

Andy

> Her reaction was, "Holy smokes!"

For the future, It might be better to put the customer in control of the price. Next time you might charge a fixed price per picture this way the customer can control what it’s going to cost and your work is really driven by how many pictures you have to process. So if you charged her $2-3 per picture, she could minimize her cost by giving you less pictures (and less work). I think its a fair way to rate photo slide shows. You then offer one or two copies of the work included in the price, and charge for each additional copy. It puts the customer in complete control and then you don’t feel bad asking for a lot of money because the customer gave you 500 pictures or wanted 30 copies.

> I'll have to read the prior discussions to find out more about what is right and wrong, as suggested.

Those discussions are rather lengthy (and emotional). The net of all the copyright discussions is that synching video to music is a different "right" than listening to music because you are creating a derivative work. You could synch someone’s song to a video of images that they don’t agree with, or may suggest something the song is not about (i.e., change its meaning), and they may not want to grant you that right.

So you need to get synch rights from the publisher of the song. Then you need to get performance rights for who ever is performing the song because many songs have several renderings. So that’s two rights you must secure for every song you want to sync to video. Even if you skirt the performance rights by performing the song yourself, you still need synch rights from the publisher of the song.

~jr

Just a word of warning (and not from experience, I got warned early and hence didn't try it) that the consensus is that putting the sticky labels on DVDs is a No No as it stops them playing consistantly.

In all the DVDs I've burned and labled (100s), I have never found this to be the case. It may have at one time--in the beginning, but not these days.

J--

jayhink--What will you do if some of the discs aren't playable?

Jon