Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE......

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by Tim Kolb on Jun 2, 2002 at 3:42:46 am . 1. What state/region are you currently working in? Wisconsin...small market (broadcast-wise) 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $ 180.00 Media 100 or Canopus 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? (example: 1.5 hours shoot time for on camera chatter, 2.5 hours of logging, editing and blah,blah,blah, and around and hour of compositing/titling/effecting/whatever.) Don't know what the "going" rate is...we don't really dabble in spots under $2500.00 4. What is your most common task? Production. Recently got rid of some management duties. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) We are one of only two production companies to have 13 years behind them in busines in this market. We've been losing the big production companies in the upper two thirds of the state for several years...the remaining players should be able to benefit from the market stabilizing soon...(I hope) 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) We just show people what we can do...I suspect we actually get and keep clients (95% of our work is long-form corporate and new media) because we are curious. We ask a lot of questions about a client's business and really try to understand their product/technology/market/challenges, etc. to make the best project possible for them...and sometimes point out that they really don't need a video (and therefore, us) to best solve a particular problem. Many people who are very spiritual have a saying about the role they want to play in the lives of the people they encounter and associate with through life...and I heard a profesional in our business say it to someone at his office while he talked to them on his cel from NAB..."Be a blessing." I'm probably not the world's most spiritual guy and certainly my "goodness" can always use work, but I would say that professionals in our industry who try to follow the general idea of these words (maybe "Be a valued advisor and asset"...) will compete just fine. I suspect this may not be what you were looking for... Tim K Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by Nick Griffin on Jun 2, 2002 at 2:18:16 pm Okay. Michael. I'll bite. But like Tim, my answers may not be appropriate to what you're looking for. 1. What state/region are you currently working in? I reside and have offices in Maryland on the east coat of the US. But because of the industrial/technical nature of what I do, and that I have an expertise in a couple of niche markets, my clients are all over the place: Virginia, New York/New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California -- I go where the companies are. The furthest client I ever had was in NSW, Australia and for a number of years I had several clients in the Northeastern Caribbean. Caribbean clients resulted mostly from the fact that I was there calling on them on a regular basis while my competitors were either local (and of limited skills) or tourists who were opportunistically "hitting on" them rather than actually working in the market year in, year out. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) Gee. I never sell a single hour. But seriously, I fight like hell to keep hourly rates and prices in general inside the "black box" of an all-encompassing project. That and the fact that different clients, with different requirements and different budgets pay different rates. Sorry to be obtuse, but for my business there is no easy answer. I've been know to work for free and known to grab the really big brass ring when it was passing by. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? Sorry. Not in that business, so I wouldn't know. 4. What is your most common task? Unfortunately for the past several months I have to say that it's been writing proposals and marketing plans to secure more business. Like many of us, I go through a feast/famine cycle wherein when I'm very busy I don't take the necessary time to develop new business and when I'm not busy that's about all I do do. (One of my many failings which I will seek to correct with my next set of New Year's resolutions.) 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) In one of the niches I am clearly the quality leader, yet second in sales volume. (I've always said --or is it rationalized-- that I would rather serve fewer clients better.) In the other niche I am probably near the bottom of a very big pile. But those things I do work on are profitable, and I have no desire to have the hundred+ employees needed to be near the top, and again, I make money doing what I do, so I'm happy. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? By getting as involved as possible with my clients' businesses. By being visible in the niche's conferences and trade shows. By maintaining regular and active contact with many different people. I also try to remember birthdays and, every few years, send out a fairly extravagant promotional piece. Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by Timothy Allen on Jun 3, 2002 at 11:44:33 pm 1. What state/region are you currently working in? Houston, TX. (Clients are from all over the world.) 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) I work at a government facility, so we're not set up that way. When I was in Memphis, (and when I do freelance, the rate hovers around around $185/hr. for editing. I rarely just edit anymore, so more often, I charge per project, not per hour. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? It really depends on what's involved. If it's a national spot, music alone can be around $3,000. (Trust me...original music is worth what people pay for it. So is canned for that matter...) 4.What is your most common task? Meetings. With videographers, clients, editors, graphic artists, set designers etc. Bringing all the "ideas" together into something that makes sense (or makes people feel what the client wants them to feel). This involves more "producing" than "editing". I still spend a WHOLE lot of time shuffling through tape. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? You get what you work for. I'm happy to be doing what I love. I really believe that if you do what you love, the money will follow. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? I try to turn my weaknesses into strengths. (Specific programs, for example.)It seems to work, but I also do my best to make sure that I'm giving the clients what they are looking for. (I'm not talking about the video product, I'm talking about what the product is supposed to accomplish...i.e. make people buy something/understand something, etc.) Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by bob bonniol on Jun 4, 2002 at 4:15:01 pm OK, I'll play... 1. What state/region are you currently working in? This is a tough question for us. We're located in Seattle, but 75% of our clients are in the NY to DC corridor, with another 10% in LA, 10% international (Sydney,London), and maybe 5% local. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $180 p/hr on our Avid DS, $125 p/hr on our Matrox Digisuite. Rates vary widely per project. That's our broadcast commercial rate. Because we mainly create content for concert video projection and other live entertainment stuff, we often end up quoting a 'whole project' fee that includes editing,compositing,animation,storyboards etc... The edit rate is subsumed in this in these cases. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? We have no local spot clients. We do some local DVD content creation work and projection design work for the Seattle Opera. Our regional and national commercial client budgets range from $10,000 to $100,000 for 30 second spots, concept to completion. This price usually includes a :30, :10, and 2:00 'B-roll' (most of our commercial clients are the same producers we design content for shows with... we end up doing their commercials for the shows as well...) 4. What is your most common task? I'm the Creative Director... that means I mainly ride herd over several animators, compositors, editors, and illustators. I get my hands dirty doing the heavy compositing, and final cut editorial myself. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) Our position is good. Our market is VERY focussed, there are only so many people producing live shows that need projection and multimedia presence. Within this market we are probably ranked about 3rd nationwide. We are just in the past year beginning to crack into commercial production as well. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) Press,Press,Press... With us it's about getting the word out. Concert and live entertainment producers don't crack the yellow pages when they need content design. We do alot of press releases, we solicit articles on EVERY project we do. We focus on Entertainment Design Magazine, Post Magazine, Video Systems Design, Theatrical Index, etc. We are press WHORES. In our business it's all about the 'current flavor' to get through the door. Once I have a producers attention for a moment I can knock em' dead with our reel usually, or better yet a few 'teaser' images of what their project could look like. Once we're in the show creation relationship with a producer, it's not hard to convince them to let us do the commercial as well. We do alot of targeted direct marketing. It's fairly easy to keep track of the likely business opportunities in our market... there's really only about 20 or 30 business entities that have a demand for our kind of work, and within those entities, maybe 200 people we keep track of. We are equally obsessive about 'tracking' the competition, what they're up to, who they're working with, and how good it's looking. I know we do 'weird' stuff, but I hope this helps... Best, Bob Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by bob bonniol on Jun 4, 2002 at 4:15:08 pm OK, I'll play... 1. What state/region are you currently working in? This is a tough question for us. We're located in Seattle, but 75% of our clients are in the NY to DC corridor, with another 10% in LA, 10% international (Sydney,London), and maybe 5% local. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $180 p/hr on our Avid DS, $125 p/hr on our Matrox Digisuite. Rates vary widely per project. That's our broadcast commercial rate. Because we mainly create content for concert video projection and other live entertainment stuff, we often end up quoting a 'whole project' fee that includes editing,compositing,animation,storyboards etc... The edit rate is subsumed in this in these cases. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? We have no local spot clients. We do some local DVD content creation work and projection design work for the Seattle Opera. Our regional and national commercial client budgets range from $10,000 to $100,000 for 30 second spots, concept to completion. This price usually includes a :30, :10, and 2:00 'B-roll' (most of our commercial clients are the same producers we design content for shows with... we end up doing their commercials for the shows as well...) 4. What is your most common task? I'm the Creative Director... that means I mainly ride herd over several animators, compositors, editors, and illustators. I get my hands dirty doing the heavy compositing, and final cut editorial myself. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) Our position is good. Our market is VERY focussed, there are only so many people producing live shows that need projection and multimedia presence. Within this market we are probably ranked about 3rd nationwide. We are just in the past year beginning to crack into commercial production as well. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) Press,Press,Press... With us it's about getting the word out. Concert and live entertainment producers don't crack the yellow pages when they need content design. We do alot of press releases, we solicit articles on EVERY project we do. We focus on Entertainment Design Magazine, Post Magazine, Video Systems Design, Theatrical Index, etc. We are press WHORES. In our business it's all about the 'current flavor' to get through the door. Once I have a producers attention for a moment I can knock em' dead with our reel usually, or better yet a few 'teaser' images of what their project could look like. Once we're in the show creation relationship with a producer, it's not hard to convince them to let us do the commercial as well. We do alot of targeted direct marketing. It's fairly easy to keep track of the likely business opportunities in our market... there's really only about 20 or 30 business entities that have a demand for our kind of work, and within those entities, maybe 200 people we keep track of. We are equally obsessive about 'tracking' the competition, what they're up to, who they're working with, and how good it's looking. I know we do 'weird' stuff, but I hope this helps... Best, Bob Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by bob bonniol on Jun 4, 2002 at 4:15:15 pm OK, I'll play... 1. What state/region are you currently working in? This is a tough question for us. We're located in Seattle, but 75% of our clients are in the NY to DC corridor, with another 10% in LA, 10% international (Sydney,London), and maybe 5% local. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $180 p/hr on our Avid DS, $125 p/hr on our Matrox Digisuite. Rates vary widely per project. That's our broadcast commercial rate. Because we mainly create content for concert video projection and other live entertainment stuff, we often end up quoting a 'whole project' fee that includes editing,compositing,animation,storyboards etc... The edit rate is subsumed in this in these cases. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? We have no local spot clients. We do some local DVD content creation work and projection design work for the Seattle Opera. Our regional and national commercial client budgets range from $10,000 to $100,000 for 30 second spots, concept to completion. This price usually includes a :30, :10, and 2:00 'B-roll' (most of our commercial clients are the same producers we design content for shows with... we end up doing their commercials for the shows as well...) 4. What is your most common task? I'm the Creative Director... that means I mainly ride herd over several animators, compositors, editors, and illustators. I get my hands dirty doing the heavy compositing, and final cut editorial myself. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) Our position is good. Our market is VERY focussed, there are only so many people producing live shows that need projection and multimedia presence. Within this market we are probably ranked about 3rd nationwide. We are just in the past year beginning to crack into commercial production as well. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) Press,Press,Press... With us it's about getting the word out. Concert and live entertainment producers don't crack the yellow pages when they need content design. We do alot of press releases, we solicit articles on EVERY project we do. We focus on Entertainment Design Magazine, Post Magazine, Video Systems Design, Theatrical Index, etc. We are press WHORES. In our business it's all about the 'current flavor' to get through the door. Once I have a producers attention for a moment I can knock em' dead with our reel usually, or better yet a few 'teaser' images of what their project could look like. Once we're in the show creation relationship with a producer, it's not hard to convince them to let us do the commercial as well. We do alot of targeted direct marketing. It's fairly easy to keep track of the likely business opportunities in our market... there's really only about 20 or 30 business entities that have a demand for our kind of work, and within those entities, maybe 200 people we keep track of. We are equally obsessive about 'tracking' the competition, what they're up to, who they're working with, and how good it's looking. I know we do 'weird' stuff, but I hope this helps... Best, Bob Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by bob bonniol on Jun 4, 2002 at 4:15:43 pm OK, I'll play... 1. What state/region are you currently working in? This is a tough question for us. We're located in Seattle, but 75% of our clients are in the NY to DC corridor, with another 10% in LA, 10% international (Sydney,London), and maybe 5% local. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $180 p/hr on our Avid DS, $125 p/hr on our Matrox Digisuite. Rates vary widely per project. That's our broadcast commercial rate. Because we mainly create content for concert video projection and other live entertainment stuff, we often end up quoting a 'whole project' fee that includes editing,compositing,animation,storyboards etc... The edit rate is subsumed in this in these cases. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? We have no local spot clients. We do some local DVD content creation work and projection design work for the Seattle Opera. Our regional and national commercial client budgets range from $10,000 to $100,000 for 30 second spots, concept to completion. This price usually includes a :30, :10, and 2:00 'B-roll' (most of our commercial clients are the same producers we design content for shows with... we end up doing their commercials for the shows as well...) 4. What is your most common task? I'm the Creative Director... that means I mainly ride herd over several animators, compositors, editors, and illustators. I get my hands dirty doing the heavy compositing, and final cut editorial myself. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) Our position is good. Our market is VERY focussed, there are only so many people producing live shows that need projection and multimedia presence. Within this market we are probably ranked about 3rd nationwide. We are just in the past year beginning to break into commercial production as well. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) Press,Press,Press... With us it's about getting the word out. Concert and live entertainment producers don't crack the yellow pages when they need content design. We do alot of press releases, we solicit articles on EVERY project we do. We focus on Entertainment Design Magazine, Post Magazine, Video Systems Design, Theatrical Index, etc. We are press WHORES. In our business it's all about the 'current flavor' to get through the door. Once I have a producers attention for a moment I can knock em' dead with our reel usually, or better yet a few 'teaser' images of what their project could look like. Once we're in the show creation relationship with a producer, it's not hard to convince them to let us do the commercial as well. We do alot of targeted direct marketing. It's fairly easy to keep track of the likely business opportunities in our market... there's really only about 20 or 30 business entities that have a demand for our kind of work, and within those entities, maybe 200 people we keep track of. We are equally obsessive about 'tracking' the competition, what they're up to, who they're working with, and how good it's looking. I know we do 'weird' stuff, but I hope this helps... Best, Bob Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Professionals poll....Please participate.....PRETTY PLEASE, PLEASE...... by bob bonniol on Jun 4, 2002 at 4:16:43 pm OK, I'll play... 1. What state/region are you currently working in? This is a tough question for us. We're located in Seattle, but 75% of our clients are in the NY to DC corridor, with another 10% in LA, 10% international (Sydney,London), and maybe 5% local. 2. What is your going rate for a single hour of non-linear editing? (not including logging and menial tasks.) $180 p/hr on our Avid DS, $125 p/hr on our Matrox Digisuite. Rates vary widely per project. That's our broadcast commercial rate. Because we mainly create content for concert video projection and other live entertainment stuff, we often end up quoting a 'whole project' fee that includes editing,compositing,animation,storyboards etc... The edit rate is subsumed in this in these cases. 3. What is the "going" rate in your market for a standard "concept to completion" :30 second spot? We have no local spot clients. We do some local DVD content creation work and projection design work for the Seattle Opera. Our regional and national commercial client budgets range from $10,000 to $100,000 for 30 second spots, concept to completion. This price usually includes a :30, :10, and 2:00 'B-roll' (most of our commercial clients are the same producers we design content for shows with... we end up doing their commercials for the shows as well...) 4. What is your most common task? I'm the Creative Director... that means I mainly ride herd over several animators, compositors, editors, and illustators. I get my hands dirty doing the heavy compositing, and final cut editorial myself. 5. How do you feel about your position in the market? (bear in mind that you don't need to be a business owner to have an opinion about your market.) Our position is good. Our market is VERY focussed, there are only so many people producing live shows that need projection and multimedia presence. Within this market we are probably ranked about 3rd nationwide. We are just in the past year beginning to break into commercial production as well. 6. How do you compete with people that you view to be at, or around, your level of experience and strength in the marketplace? (I'm not looking for trade secrets, just generalizations.) Press,Press,Press... With us it's about getting the word out. Concert and live entertainment producers don't open the yellow pages when they need content design. We do alot of press releases, we solicit articles on EVERY project we do. We focus on Entertainment Design Magazine, Post Magazine, Video Systems Design, Theatrical Index, etc. We are press WHORES. In our business it's all about the 'current flavor' to get through the door. Once I have a producers attention for a moment I can knock em' dead with our reel usually, or better yet a few 'teaser' images of what their project could look like. Once we're in the show creation relationship with a producer, it's not hard to convince them to let us do the commercial as well. We do alot of targeted direct marketing. It's fairly easy to keep track of the likely business opportunities in our market... there's really only about 20 or 30 business entities that have a demand for our kind of work, and within those entities, maybe 200 people we keep track of. We are equally obsessive about 'tracking' the competition, what they're up to, who they're working with, and how good it's looking. I know we do 'weird' stuff, but I hope this helps... Best, Bob Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re:very competitive, but... by Timothy Allen on Jun 8, 2002 at 6:43:06 pm You said, "I guess we are really cheap $250" By my calculations, you are only charging for editing (@ $100/hr) and throwing in everything else for free. In the example that was given there was about 5 hours of work. (example: 1.5 hours shoot time for on camera chatter, 2.5 hours of logging, editing and blah,blah,blah, and around and hour of compositing/titling/effecting/whatever.) (This example is not even considering whatever you did to get the job, paperwork, and archiving and wrapping up things,which most likely would amount to at least one full 8 hour day.) If you only have 2 people working on this (you and a grip/secretary/assistant/whoever), then for 8 hours you are only getting $15.63 per hour. After taxes and social security that is only around $10.16 per hour each. (At a tax rate of 35%.) After you throw in medical insurance, business insurance, (equipment and/or location insurance, advertising & marketing and other normal "costs of doing business", you can't be clearing much over minumum wage, and you seem to be close to having to work every day in order to cover your costs. So my question is: which of those "extra costs" do you cut first? Production insurance? O.K. while it lasts, but one accident on the set could end your buisiness. Medical insurance for yourself? Sacrificial, but again, if you get hurt it could spell disaster not only for yourself, but for your business. I'm not doubting that you put out a great product at a great price. You may be cutting costs by being a one man shop, borrowing gear, etc. I just wonder how long it can last? I'm hearing about a lot of people with rates similar to your's around the country, and I think that the market is going that direction. I'm just curious about how you plan to sustain those rates in the long run. Do you plan on growing your business (either size, assets, or client base?) I really don't mean to be discouraging, there was a time when I would have been estatic earning $10 an hour doing video. How long will it be before you get tired of that rate? In my experience, clients love it when you drop your rates, but have a really difficult time if you raise them. Starting out at $250 a spot, what room do you have to discount rates (for long term contracts, bulk dubs etc.?) Just wondering... Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index