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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

How cheap can they get?

Curt Pair

Curt Pair

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A buddy of mine just sent this to me... He missed out on a work opportunity over the weekend... Has it really gotten this bad that folks EXPECT a DP and his gear to go out for $250 per day? Really? Damn!
 

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The more you give technology to the masses, the cheaper the day rate and higher the expectations.
Simple business model in full effect.
We've shot 2 national spots on GoPro Hero cameras with a crew of one.
Be careful what you ask for.
 
BRANDON JAMESON said:
The more you give technology to the masses, the cheaper the day rate and higher the expectations.
Simple business model in full effect.
We've shot 2 national spots on GoPro Hero cameras with a crew of one.
Be careful what you ask for.
Click to expand...

Yowza! That's crazy! Perhaps you could paint the Go Pro housing Red, and be in business! After all it fullfills their requirements... "owner/op of a Red camera..." :)
 
DP Owner Operator, with a Fully loaded Epic M, Lenses and Support, with a DIT portable station, 10k per day, anything less, only if I think the project is truly special to me, okay for this rate I'm also usually the Director/co-Producer.

Any ways, never gone below 6k per day.


All other crew comes at extra cost standard rate.

All other they can go and charge $20 a day for as much as I care, those that Hire them should expect what they pay for.
 
There was girl I knew that just bought a scarlet and under priced my friend and his MX for free... His rate was 500/day, this is also a short film in NYC.
 
As in everything you get what you pay for. The more important the final product the more people are willing to pay. If you need the highest quality then you are willing to pay a premium. On the other hand if the stakes are low then of course there will be compromises made and certain risks need to be taken. The fact that that better tools are getting into younger hands I think is great. The advent of digital cinema and its relationship with projects previously restricted to technically poor quality consumer equipment has lead to a new renaissance in low or no budget type projects. Artists who come from "fine art" and previously could never dream of thinking on a cinematic scale can now have the chance to explore a totally new horizon. Which is better? Pay $$$$ for school or buy a scarlet and work for free to gain experience? Is there an answer to that question? Competition will over time reveal the "real" talent and produce winners and losers.
 
There are a lot of hungry people out there that would shoot pickups for a feature 2nd unit DP credit for cheaper than that. Doesn't bother me really. If people think their self worth is $250 a day with $50,000 worth of equipment.... I'd kinda feel sorry for whoever takes the job.

Ketch, you're my hero hahaha
 
N_Villers said:
As in everything you get what you pay for. The more important the final product the more people are willing to pay. If you need the highest quality then you are willing to pay a premium. On the other hand if the stakes are low then of course there will be compromises made and certain risks need to be taken. The fact that that better tools are getting into younger hands I think is great. The advent of digital cinema and its relationship with projects previously restricted to technically poor quality consumer equipment has lead to a new renaissance in low or no budget type projects. Artists who come from "fine art" and previously could never dream of thinking on a cinematic scale can now have the chance to explore a totally new horizon. Which is better? Pay $$$$ for school or buy a scarlet and work for free to gain experience? Is there an answer to that question? Competition will over time reveal the "real" talent and produce winners and losers.
Click to expand...

Agree totally!
 
Curt Pair said:
A buddy of mine just sent this to me... He missed out on a work opportunity over the weekend... Has it really gotten this bad that folks EXPECT a DP and his gear to go out for $250 per day? Really? Damn!
Click to expand...

They will be beaten like a borrowed mule.
 
Try this....

Buy the "Rent me" app. put age mature, put demand to soft.... insert the price for your camera.... look at the number, remember that the number is only valid if the buyer does not have any other lower priced options... This time there is, scarlet is such an option.

And Epic is considered old in age, also epic demand is quite soft, since there is quite an enormous amount of epics out there. Also Epic is in a price range that is very much in reach for private persons... some people buy cool cars, boats, motorcycles, jetski's etc... and some buys epics...

People with rater high hope tend to want to buy epic's.

So if the rent me app give us the following:

One setup with scarlet and EOS lenses: 20k USD in retail. with "soft" demand and "aged" in the rent me app, that gives you a day rate from 150USD....

So the question is if there is anyone that wants to go shoot something for 350USD a day....

Well, if you add recession to my calculation, then I think a lot of people would, instead of being home worrying over their monthly payments on their camera loans, they would rather go shoot instead of doing nothing.

Epic and scarlets are great cameras but I do not think that we will be able to charge good old film camera rates for regular setups for the above reasons, the development is simply to fast to allow that to happen. Offcourse Mr Mullen would not run to get on board on a 500USD a day project, but on the other hand I get a few hundred film school students that email to get internship that probably would pay 350USD a day just to be close to an epic... and those kids all call them selfs DP since they finished that last skateboard film that they made... So the market is getting... I guess not only bigger, but wider.
 
What makes it worse is you are tied to that client after the shoot, if nothing else to transfer the data.

Makes me happy I only work on my own projects and don't have to deal with this. Makes you want to cry!
 
When USSR fell apart, soviet directors were overjoyed, that finally, with the demise of the government censorship, they would be able to make great films. Fast forward to today and russian cinema is in worse state, than ever. They still churning out the same old movies about Great Patriotic War.
By the same token, right now more directors getting their hands on the equipment, that only a few years ago they could just dream about. Does that means, that we should start seeing daring, experimental and wonderful new films as a result? It is great to talk about the democratization of the filmmaking process, but so far all we're seeing is an increased amount of noise, albeit in 4K:emote_22_yikes: No amount of free or inexpensive tools will ever substitute for the lack of ideas or inexperience. Garbage in, garbage out rule still applies...
 
jake blackstone said:
When USSR fell apart, soviet directors were overjoyed, that finally, with the demise of the government censorship, they would be able to make great films. Fast forward to today and russian cinema is in worse state, than ever. They still churning out the same old movies about Great Patriotic War.
By the same token, right now more directors getting their hands on the equipment, that only a few years ago they could just dream about. Does that means, that we should start seeing daring, experimental and wonderful new films as a result? It is great to talk about the democratization of the filmmaking process, but so far all we're seeing is an increased amount of noise, albeit in 4K:emote_22_yikes: No amount of free or inexpensive tools will ever substitute for the lack of ideas or inexperience. Garbage in, garbage out rule still applies...
Click to expand...

Yup... Still applies.
 
I see those posts all the time, and I've been on shoots like that as well. I'm amazed at the highly experienced DP's out there that are taking low/no pay gigs. But it happens, both here and in LA. Just look at Mandy posts. It's been said over and over, but because narrative film is a highly desirable industry there will be offerings like this and will continue to be in the future - even more so with the advance of technology. I'm happy I've been able to maintain good paying gigs.

What really counts is the relationship and loyalty of the DP/crew with the production team (above the line vs. below the line). I've had my share of freebie / low pay gigs with the hopes future work not pan out. You work hard for the producers and then when they finally get a budget - they find another crew. Most importantly, I have had more producers remain loyal and have been able to build a good client base over the years. In the end that's all you can do, just pay it downward and in the end you'll reap those rewards.

That said, I'm might be shooting two features this summer with a major discount to my day rate. And I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but frankly, I would like to work with these directors, and if I don't, they'll get some other schmuck to do it (or they'll do it themselves with 7Ds).
 
Please don't take the rest of us down with you.

Please don't take the rest of us down with you.

This issue re-emerges on RedUser regularly, typically after some upgrade/new product has brought a few hundred (or thousand) new owner-ops into the RED sphere. Some percentage of the new buyers discover that just having a cool camera does not actually make clients materialize in front of them, who knew? ;-)

I don't mean to be mean, but I had run a production company and been the owner-op of a Sony broadcast camera package for 10 years before I put down my $1,000 deposit at NAB 2006. I knew that even if the body was only $17,500 that a proper professional camera package with lenses and all of the other things one needs would be more like $75,000 so unless you have a good rental house or two nearby you better be able to realistically forecast enough work to make payments on $75K and be compensated for your time.

Even with my years of experience and existing client list I barely made it through 2008/2009 as I bid on dozens of projects that were unable to secure funding, just got canned or skated on their invoices. What made it even tougher, and still does, is people who try to stay alive by workng for unsustainable rates. I am genuinely sympathetic with folks who love this work, bought a camera and are trying to bootstrap their way to success. Really. That said, working for less than cost only erodes rates for all of us and if you do manage to get a few decent clients and survive you will eventually end up needing to charge market rates (or close to) in order to stay in business, buy a house, have a family, etc.

I am far too litigation averse to suggest anything even remotely like price fixing in a public forum, but please, use your heads people. Undercutting the market by 20% to establish yourself is one thing, that's part of a free market, but offering camera packages and on set services for 70% less than the going rate is a best a short term salve for you and a serious problem for the community you want to be a part of. Just sayin'

Cheers - #19
 
It could be worse, they could be asking you to pay them for the privilege of using your gear and talent to make a picture.
 
I can just speak for Syndicate.

Then I have to admit, we have undercut the market here in sweden/scandinavia in more ways than you can imagine, especially when we got our epic. Still we had it paid of in less than 2 months...

Secondly, the camera brought us tons of extra post work.

Third, all those additional jobs forced us into better workflows, gave us better knowledge and simply has given us an advantage edge towards our competition.

So, I always find it a bit fun to hear how all the the experienced DP's and AC's try to tell the new kids how they should not get into aggressive pricing etc. Especially if I go back memory lane (I been in this business for almost 20 years...) The guys that now rant about the youngsters undercutting where all shooting their music videos and such for free 10 years back and further more the guys that where not so eager back then, that did not want to work for free etc, are not even in this business today. Or at least I can not think of one...

So I guess the lesson to learn would be:

Do not listen too closely to what the expertise tells you, instead try to figure out how they got there. Look at their history reel and ask how much they where paid for the stuff they did back then...
 
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