to own or to rent red.. what would you prefer?

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Yeah you're right, and your post was highly informative, laguun, so I thank you for that. You pointed out all of the details that go into running a full-scale rental operation, and actually you made me realize why indeed it would cost more money if you're running an outfit that big.

I think... somewhat ironically... the best rental options may be either really small or really big. The reason I say that is because if you're getting a huge price break by only renting a friend's or a friend of a friend's RED, you are risking no backup equipment but saving a lot of money in the process. If you're running a huge rental company, though, you can afford to have backups without increasing prices TOO much. Like let's say you had 4 REDs and you wanted to have 1 backup available in case of error, you're basically having to pass on the cost of keeping that RED around just to offer that luxury. If you had 20 REDs, you could probably get by with just two backups, which is only 1 for every 10 RED cameras, not 1 for every 4. So I'd rather be running a really small company or a really big one. The medium-level one might be tougher because your overhead is relatively higher per piece of equipment.

 

[Dan McCain]

While you are busy making plans to undercut everyone don't forget to plan for the unforeseen circumstances that can creep up. Imagine a shoot where the producer is spending $20,000 or more per day for cast, crew, dolly and crane rentals etc. And your camera malfunctions, the producer is furious. If you are offering the camera package, you should pay to rent another one (and quickly). These are also the same days when you are doing the producer a favor and you agreed to shoot for $500 (the less they pay you the more demanding they will be). And what happens to your reputation while your camera is in the shop being repaired and you are booked on another shoot the next fews days? Will you sub-rent the camera and keep the client, and how much will that cost you, especially if you have to rent a camera for more than you are charging?

How about if you rent your camera to someone who is traveling for a week but wants a three day rental. As soon as the camera goes out your best client needs you for two week long shoot starting a day before your camera gets back. What do you do? Another two week long job overseas (where there are no RED rental houses) calls while your camera is gone and starts the day after it should back. You organize for the renter to ship by FedEx so it gets back the day before you leave. Fedex comes and the package didn't arrive. Now what do you do?

Now imagine all these unfortunate situations happen at the same time and then you dont have any work for a month. Can you pay your loans, insurance, repair bills, credit card bills, fed ex costs, rent, food etc etc.

Some of these may sound extreme, but sometimes productions are crazy and situations like these arise. I have discovered there is no easy money, and just when you think you have an easy shoot, some complication will creep up to make sure you work for the money. I don't write this to be cynical and discourage you, but these are realities you will probably face often so prepare in advance and make sure you are charging enough to make a living through the good and bad times.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

I have plenty of money to deal with any problems like that if they arise, yes. My income per month on just investments is plenty, let's just put it that way, so if money can solve a problem I can solve the problem.

But I get your point. Maybe I haven't emphasized this enough but I am not starting an equipment rental company right now. I never rule anything out, one day, maybe that'd be a nice side business to have. But right now my plan would be to rent equipment out only as a last resort to add to my income and keep me busy, which is why I'd most likely be going with my equipment anywhere it went, because that would be the point for me. I'm really not interested in having other people use my equipment, but it's a service I could provide. I'll have a full basic set of equipment eventually from a dolly and a steadicam to lighting equipment to editing equipment to camera equipment, etc. If someone wanted to put together a small indie production I'd be able to help them out with anything they wanted or needed. If they're trying to make Spider-Man 4 I can't help. I don't have that kind of equipment, haha.

If someone is shooting a movie that costs $20,000 per day, which is not super expensive for a big shoot by any means but also not super cheap, then I'm not really sure they're going to want to rent from me. Maybe, but I'm thinking probably the people I would be renting to would be smaller fish who are looking to save a little money in exchange for the possibility that hassles like that arise.

I would not be trying to make a living just off my equipment. If anything it would be just a little extra cash to help me out.

I have no idea how they do it in the real equipment rental market, but if someone wants my camera for a week I don't care if they're shooting for 1 hour, 1 day, or all 7 days, they'll pay me for the amount of time my camera is gone and not able to be rented to anyone else. That's a no brainer. How retarded would it be if I told a company I want their camera for a year but I'm only really shooting for just 4 days so could I just pay for that? Uhh no. That's not how it works. Granted if you rented a camera for seven days I'm not going to charge you the same daily rental fee that I'd charge someone who rented for one day. Negotiations are always possible, that's how business goes. But I can't understand how I'm supposed to know or care how many days you're shooting with the camera if you're going to take it for longer. That's really your problem to figure out as the producer or DP or director, not mine, I'm just the one giving you the equipment.

 

[Stephen Williams]

I have no idea how they do it in the real equipment rental market, but if someone wants my camera for a week I don't care if they're shooting for 1 hour, 1 day, or all 7 days, they'll pay me for the amount of time my camera is gone and not able to be rented to anyone else. That's a no brainer. How retarded would it be if I told a company I want their camera for a year but I'm only really shooting for just 4 days so could I just pay for that? Uhh no. That's not how it works. Granted if you rented a camera for seven days I'm not going to charge you the same daily rental fee that I'd charge someone who rented for one day. Negotiations are always possible, that's how business goes. But I can't understand how I'm supposed to know or care how many days you're shooting with the camera if you're going to take it for longer. That's really your problem to figure out as the producer or DP or director, not mine, I'm just the one giving you the equipment.

Hi,

3 day weeks are common, sometimes you will get offered 2 or 1.5 day weeks.

Stephen

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

So how does that work? What does a 3-day week mean? I'm confused by that. If you rent it for a week you get to shoot for three days? That seems odd. A week to me means five days.

 

[Nick Shaw]

Fairly common in equipment rental is that you pay for four days for a seven day week, and for three days for a five day week. Also delivery and collection days are not usually chargable, but obviously that means that kit cannot be with anybody else for at least a day either side of a job.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Ah, I see. What do they use those days for? I mean it seems like wasted time. Yeah you could say the first day is for camera tests or something but get with the program, you gotta know how to use equipment before you rent it, or come in and test it earlier or something. Also as far as travel time, I'd say it's simple, you come get the camera Sunday night, you bring it back by late Friday, you get five days of filming and you'd just pay for five days of filming. Makes sense to me anyway. If I were renting that's how I'd want to do it. If someone told me I have to check out a camera Monday afternoon and return it Friday morning or something, I'd be bummed.

We heard that some companies if you check out equipment Friday and return it Monday morning early, you only pay for one day because they don't charge for the weekend days. But I have no idea if that's true or not.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

Thats the buisness,

I day means a lost afternoon & morning!

Weekend 1 day quite possible.

Stephen

 

[Dominique Grenier]

Ah, I see. What do they use those days for? I mean it seems like wasted time.

That's not the point. It doesn't matter if you shoot or not. It is just a deal rental house usually make. It is a special price like when you negotiate a special kit "If I take this along side of this, could you give me a better price" kind of deal, you see?

So the special deal is if you rent the camera for five days, you only pay 3, if you take it for 7 days, you only pay 4, regardless of what you do with your camera during this time.

Your kind of required to do this, unless you don't want to rent your camera on long shoot. Who would be interested to rent equipement for a 30 days long shoot at full price per day??? ($500/day x 30 = $15,000, almost what the RED body is worth!!!)

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

(RED body only)>>Fair prices are:

1. € 400,00 daily
2. € 1.200,00 weekly
3. € 4.800,00 monthly

 

[donatello b]

usually the longer you rent equipment the better day/week you get ...
also supply & demand plays a part ... we've all have rented camera's for features and recieved 3, 2 1/2 , 2 and every now & then 1 1/2 day week ... i've never paid a 4 day week on a feature - they've tend to start at 3 days and goes down from there ... some of this also depends on what other equipment you need on certain days (maybe extra body,special lens)
it's all a package deal ... if a camera/equipment goes down the rental house replaces it ( at their cost) and if they do not have it on their shelf to replace they have arrangements with other rental houses to get the needed equipment ...

once 300-500 individual RED owners hit the streets of LA - there will deals in all price ranges ....

 

[Finner]

That's not the point. It doesn't matter if you shoot or not. It is just a deal rental house usually make. It is a special price like when you negotiate a special kit "If I take this along side of this, could you give me a better price" kind of deal, you see?

So the special deal is if you rent the camera for five days, you only pay 3, if you take it for 7 days, you only pay 4, regardless of what you do with your camera during this time.

There is a little more to add to this. If I was shooting a project for 1 month (5days a week with weekends off) A rental house would charge me a 2 or 3 day week (I have been getting 2 day weeks lately). So you do not get charged anything for the weekend and each week you only pay for 2 days of rental. So if you were charging $500 a day you will end up with $1,000 a week. Also as far as 1 day commercials or music videos go the camera is out of rental circulation for 3 days even though the rental rate and shoot is only 1 day. Day 1 would be camera prep (no rental charge) day 2 would be the shoot (1 day rental charge) day 3 would be return of gear (no charge). This is tipically how rental companies work. the bags of money that you think the rental companies make is not correct.

 

[Curran Giddens]

Hi,

Normally a rental house will give you 50% of revenue earned from each piece of kit.

Stephen

If I get 50% of the revenue earned from a RED package on loan to a rental house, what if they just keep my RED as backup?

In other words, if I get 50% of revenue only when my RED package is rented, the rental house can just keep my RED as a backup (which is of some value) and say it hasn't been rented.

I guess I'm hoping for a guaranteed fee for a long-term loan with an established rental shop, even if it is less then 50% of rental rate.

 

[Emmanuel Cambier]

I am also looking for a guaranteed fee for a long term loan, anybody has an experience about this practice?

 

[Mark K.]

ARGH! No don't do long term loans - use you camera to shoot pretty 4k footage that you then upload to the net at 1k so I can get all giggly about buying my own some day!

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

If someone wanted to rent a camera for a month, you'd only charge them 8 days of actually renting it? Wow... I'm not sure if I'd bother at that point, doesn't really seem worth it. Just find projects you can do yourself and you'd make more than that.

I guess the way you guys put things isn't very clear to me, it may be industry-talk, but to say "I got a 2 day week" makes no sense to me at all, grammatically. To say, "I got the camera for a week and paid for just two days" makes sense, or "I paid for only two days out of seven." *shrug*

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Thinking about this, though, I have a question for some of you veterans here. If I'm going to be shooting something up in Portland where I need to rent equipment (unless I drove everything I have up there, which I might, depending on cost), and it's going to be a three-week shoot, will I be able to get a break on equipment if I rent all with the same company? Let's say I need a few 2Ks, a few 1Ks, a few tweenies, some flags, silks, etc., all the basic grip equipment like that, and I want a dolly for the three week shoot, etc., I won't pay book prices will I mean? I mean if I am using the equipment for three weeks and getting a fair amount of it, I would assume it'd be possible to get a price break.

My only issue there is I think in the interest of keeping the budget low I would be better off -- since we plan on having a large equipment van by that point -- just driving it up to Portland 1,000 miles and back 1,000 miles. Sure, you waste two full days and you spend some money on gas, but if that could save $5,000 to $10,000 then it would absolutely be worth it to me.

 

[Finner]

If someone wanted to rent a camera for a month, you'd only charge them 8 days of actually renting it?

Yep. Thats how the rental game is currently working. They are not making as much money as you thought. The thing is compared to a commercial or music vid that preps 1 day(free) shoots 1 day(rental that day) and returns the camera on the 3rd day(free) you will actually make more on the 2 day week rental of a one month feature then 3 commercials and 2 music vids.

I guess the way you guys put things isn't very clear to me, it may be industry-talk, but to say "I got a 2 day week" makes no sense to me at all, grammatically. To say, "I got the camera for a week and paid for just two days" makes sense, or "I paid for only two days out of seven." *shrug*

Most everything in the film industry is spoken in a short hand industry talk manner that is rarely "grammatically correct" so get use to it. Saying 2 day or three day weeks when talking about rentals seems very easy to understand to me and there is a lot more technical lingo that is a lot more complex then the phrase 2 day week rental is.


As far as looking to rent equipment for a 3 week shoot you should be able to swing a pretty good deal as you will probably be able to get a 2-3 day week on equipment. By the way learn the lingo of 2day week rentals honestly I really don't see it as that tough of a concept to grasp and if you try to rent from a rental house without the right lingo they will charge you more or worse yet decide not to rent to you at all because they see you as an unexperienced liability.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

In general, the more you can rent from one company, rather than break it up over several, the better deal you can strike (plus the more convenient it is to pick-up), but whether or not you'll get a better deal in Portland or L.A. (enough to justify the cost of driving the equipment up there) just depends -- you just have to start the bidding process and see what the numbers are like.

Also, rental companies outside of a major market like L.A. tend to provide more services & products under one roof for all-around production needs, rather than have as many seperate specialty rental companies as in L.A. On the other hand, the variety of choices may be more limited -- for example, the rental company may have a Chapman PeeWee dolly instead of a Fisher 11 dolly, if that matters much to you (doesn't to me actually). It may have one type of HMI light but not another, etc.

Another advantage of renting locally for a couple of weeks, besides not having to drive everything up from L.A., is if something breaks, the rental house is right there to replace it.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

That's a good point for sure. I'm not sure, though, because it depends how easy it is to move the RED and its equipment up there. If it's too difficult to fly it up with me, along with my tripod, I'd be better off just driving everything up there and if something breaks or doesn't work right I can always go to a local equipment dealer and bite the bullet for a few hundred. I'm sure some stuff I'll probably rent regardless, it's just a matter of reducing what I must rent.

Finner -- I am not saying it's difficult to learn the lingo, I was only saying at first I was confused because I've never heard anyone say that, but obviously I'm not an idiot I can figure it out and now I understand it. It makes sense, it just didn't upon first reading. That's why I was confused.