- Alright, Let's say you're starting out
as a freelance filmmaker.
You have a nice little reel.
People are starting to ask you to make videos for them.
But how much do you charge?
Let's talk about money.
(upbeat reflective music)
But we're not talking about money alone.
I got my good friend with me.
- [Matt] Mark.
- Hey, what's up Mattie?
How you doing?
- [Matt] How's it going?
- Good man.
It's been a while.
- So one of the last times I think I've hung out with you,
insert flashback here.
- I'm in the future Mattie.
- Who thinks that Mark should start
his own YouTube channel about filmmaking or something else?
- Think it would be super fun.
- Okay, so?
- I started one.
I finally did it.
- [Matt} YouTube Channel.
New YouTube channel from Mark.
You've posted a few really good videos already.
- Thanks man.
- I've been following along.
Mark, if you don't know, he's a DP and a Director.
You been what working in the industry for like
five, six years at least.
- I think I was counting in my last video actually,
it's nine.
- Nine years.
- Yeah.
- Okay, so Mark is one of the few people that I know
in the YouTube space that's still very heavily
in the industry.
So if you want like industry, insider knowledge tips,
you should go follow Mark.
When you're first starting out,
figuring out how much to charge for your time,
for your skills, for your filmmaking,
it's really, really hard.
To make it a little bit easier for us,
I think we can think about the money
and getting paid in two different way.
The first is a project based rate,
and the second is a day rate.
A project based rate is really simple.
A person comes to you with a need to make a video,
and you are in charge of the whole project
from start to finish.
And you need to figure out
how much is each of those things gonna cost.
How much is it gonna cost to direct, DP, sound,
do you need actors, do you need to feed your crew?
All of those things, you need to figure out.
And that's why project based pay
can be a little bit tricky
because you need to make sure
you are covering all your bases
because if you miss a big area,
for example, you didn't budget for
an editor or editing days,
you're gonna end up getting paid less per hour.
So you really wanna make sure
you got everything covered, and there's no surprises.
Also, I think Mark has a good point for this.
Mark you had a good point about
a contingency plan or contingency line item.
Is that what you said?
- Yeah, yeah.
Because on your thing you have lines,
and so it's a line item, on your budget.
(laughs)
And contingency is important
because you never know what the project
is gonna throw at you.
Actually just this last week,
I quoted a project for a client and we're working on it
and part way through I was like, you know,
I think I need an Art Director.
But luckily, I had put contingency in,
which is essentially just some money
that's your, oh crap money.
Like it you ever need-- - [Matt] Oh shoot.
I need more money.
- Yeah, exactly.
So I was able to take some money out of my contingency,
and hire an Art Director.
And I didn't have to worry about it affecting my day rate
or the overall quality of the project.
- So on top of all the other things
that you've come up with, the editing, the directing,
all those things that you've put into your project budget,
also add a contingency line.
Just some extra, just a little extra money
because you never know what's gonna happen.
So essentially project based work,
you're trying to figure out all of the different roles
and how much that's gonna cost.
Even if you're doing all of those roles,
you still need to take them all into account
And figure out one lump sum,
how much is it gonna cost to make this video?
Then we have day rate which is, I think,
a little bit more simple
and a little bit easier to figure out.
Basically you're gonna get a day rate,
out of an amount of money,
per day that you're on that project,
on that film shoot.
For example, as a DP, you might get paid $800
for that day of shooting,
and then maybe you'll get half day rate
for travel days or edit days.
But there's a day rate for every single day
that you're on that project.
A day rate is great because if the project
goes on for a longer period of time,
you keep getting paid more for every single extra day
that you're working.
Whereas, with a project based rate,
if you didn't calculate properly
and you end up having to do a lot of extra days,
it's kind of gonna suck because that's out of your pocket.
You're having to put in extra,
and you're gonna get paid less per hour on that project.
Now there is the risk, always,
that a production company you're gonna get five days,
and then you only get three for whatever reason
and depending on your contract.
So you might miss out on some days.
Whereas, with a project based rate,
you're always gonna get that whole amount of money.
That's something you have to think about.
But also an interesting thing about day rate
is that you can add in--
- Sir, this is a no vlogging zone.
There's no vlogging allowed here.
- I didn't know--
- You're gonna have to shut this down.
- Oh man.
Sometimes you can add your own camera gear
to your day rate so you kind of have your day rate,
and then you have a gear rental rate.
Instead of the production company renting
from somewhere else, they're gonna rent your camera,
we're gonna use that camera for this film shoot,
and you're gonna get extra money for that.
So let's say your day rate for shooting it is $600,
and then you bring on your EOS R, maybe not your EOS R,
maybe a little bit better camera.
You bring your C300,
you're gonna get paid another $300 for that.
So that's an interesting way to kind of pay off your gear,
and maybe make a little bit more money each day.
But typically I find when you're starting out
you kind of end up doing a whole bunch of different roles,
and you're doing project based rates
so you're charging for the whole production of the video.
All of the different roles,
you're putting into this one package.
Then as you develop in your career,
you start being hired for a specific purpose,
whether it's Director, DP, Gaffer,
Audio Engineer, whatever it is,
and then you're gonna get a day rate for your work.
Mark has some great insight on this
because he's been working in the industry for a while,
so let's go ask him.
Oh, I did also wanna mention that $800 for a day of work
can seem like an insane amount of money,
and it is quite a bit of money,
but you also have to take into account
that you're not gonna be filming every single day,
so it has to kind of cover your off days also.
So, yeah, it's a lot of money for that day,
but you need to spread that money out throughout the month,
so it ends up being a little bit less.
- [Matt] So Mark, you were on a shoot for like, what,
a month in Berlin, was it?
- Yeah, yeah.
I was there for all of January, shooting in Berlin.
- [Matt] And were you on a project rate or a day rate?
- I was actually on a day rate
which kind of turned into a project rate.
So as a Director, you get paid for every day of shooting,
but we only had three days of shooting.
But then I had to stay an extra week,
week and a half, to work on post production.
So it ended up being a bit of a project rate.
But the nice thing is you make sure your Director's rate
is fairly good, so that if there is a week or two weeks
of post production and some pre production,
kind of covers the whole thing.
- So just like I said,
the day rate might seem like a lot of money,
but it needs to cover some of your other days also,
that you're not working.
Or in this case, Mark was kind of working,
helping out with the project still,
but he wasn't getting paid a day rate for those days.
Just give them an idea, what are like,
you don't have to say your amount,
- Yeah.
but what are some day rate ranges?
Like people that are starting off--
- For sure.
- Maybe start off and then what does it kind of go up into?
What are the day rates?
- So, Director of Photography,
are we talking Canadian or U.S. money?
(laughs)
What are we talking?
- [Matt] Let's go U.S.
- Okay, U.S. dollars.
Usually when you're starting off as a DP
and you're on smaller projects,
it's about $1200 a day for a DP.
Maybe on the lower end it's about $850.
But then when you get up to a bigger commercial,
when you get to higher end commercial jobs,
it's starting to get around $3000 a day.
Some of the crazy,
like there's 10 or 15 amazing DPs in the world
who can charge like $10,000 a day.
But that's them, that's not me.
(laughs)
- That's like an absurd amount of money.
That's a lot of money.
I think when I first started out,
I think my kind of cutoff was $500.
- Yep.
- That was like, I didn't do anything below $500 a day.
But then, I think the most I ever got
for freelancing was like $3000 for a half day.
And man I was so happy that day.
That was like crazy money for me.
- Yeah.
- And you don't have to tell your rates, it's fine.
(laughs)
Okay, so give us some pointers on
how do you figure out how much to charge
because it's a really hard thing to figure out.
- Yeah.
So in the early days, I would try to get the job,
so I would kind of undercut my budget
and the clients would hire me
because it was really cheap.
But then I found myself up late at night editing the photos,
or doing graphics, working on an edit,
and I started thinking,
"Man, I hate this, I don't think I'm getting paid enough."
- [Matt] Regret.
- Yeah, it was big regret.
So what I started doing, is when I would quote the client,
if it was a 10 day project, I would think,
"Hmm, maybe three of these nights
I'm gonna be up really late working."
How much money would someone have to pay me
for me to be okay to stay up till two or three a.m.
working on my computer?
So then I would start adding that budget in.
In the early days I was like hey if you pay be 200 bucks
and said stay up till midnight working on photos,
I'd be like, I'm in.
So I would start adding that in,
and then you start understanding what
you value your time for, and then that helps you.
You wanna think, how much do I value my time,
how much money does someone have to pay me
to take a day out of my life, to work on this project?
And that's different for every person.
- Yeah, I think that's what makes this so hard is that like,
yeah there's an industry standard kind of,
but then it's kind of different for every person
because maybe you value time with your family
way more than another person,
they really like working, so they're willing to work
for a little bit less and just work all the time.
Whereas, the other person wants to just chill at home.
So there's really no hard fast rules.
You kind of just have to figure out for yourself.
- But a good thing to do is to ask around.
Maybe see what your friends are charging
because you wanna know what the industry going rate is.
Because if a client asks you and you say $300,
and then they go to the next guy and he say $800,
they might wonder, why is this guy so much cheaper?
Is he not as good, is he not as confident,
or maybe they'll end up going with you,
but meanwhile you could have made
maybe five or six hundred dollars.
So it's good to ask around and know what kind of
the industry standard is in your community.
- Yeah, I think for me, when I started out,
day rates were around 500
and then project based rates were kind of in the
three to five thousand dollars, I found a lot,
for like a three to five minute.
That was kind of what it fell into, when I first started.
Then when you get further in your career,
your rates start going up.
Like I said, I made $3000 for a half day that one time.
And even for weddings, I started I think for
800 euros or something, was the first wedding I did.
By the end of it, we were charging at one point 3000,
then we're like why not just charge 5000.
That was a really interesting thing that happened
when we went up to 5000, we started to
attract better weddings or better clients
that were really, really nice looking,
and they were hiring us, paying us a lot of money
because they really liked our style.
They weren't like the clients that are penny pinching
because they understood our work.
They really liked it,
and that's why they were willing to pay for it.
Another interesting thing that happened
with that whole wedding charging more
was that then I was doing a little bit less work,
but I was still getting paid the same amount
because I was charging so much more.
So that's also something to keep in mind.
Anyways, as you can see,
figuring out what to charge is really complicated,
really hard but basically I would figure out
what the industry standard is, and what works best for you.
Then kind of low, maybe a little bit less
than you really want and then as you're getting jobs,
getting more and more work, and all of the sudden
you're getting so much work you're having to turn down work,
you should be increasing your amounts
for your project rates and for your day rates.
That's at least how I did it,
and I'm pretty sure that's how Mark did it also.
I think that's probably the best way
to figure out what to charge for your filmmaking.
And make sure you are charging.
Don't just keep doing free work
because you deserve to be paid for your time,
and your effort, and your skills.
(upbeat reflective music)