I always bear in mind too what it's worth to the client and what they can afford. This means I do loose on some jobs but as I have about zero overheads that's OK. What it does mean is my name gets out there, remember the old Six Degrees of Separation rule.
I now make very good money just because of a job I did for someone who just mentioned my name in passing to someone else. Believe me, money cannot buy advertising that comes from a happy client and the great thing is they can open up opprotunities that no one else is exploring.
Bob.

Bingo.

I recorded, edited (multi-camera), & made DVD's of a musical for someone. I didn't charge that much 1) because it was my first gig with her & 2) I do this as a hobby & don't want to make mad $$$ off it.

I'd say it depends on WHY you're doing the editing. I never charge someone more then they can afford & always give them an estimate first. ex: normally I say "it will cost at MOST this, but could be less". That way they know what to expect.

In fact, I'm doing a short video for someone & quoted them between $250 & 300. Ends up it won't cost them more then ~$200.

We figure we can process about 35-40 pictures an hour -- that is, capture them, crop them and add them to the timeline with transitions. We capture using a copy stand and digital camera to acquire each image so we can re-compose pictures as needed. We crop using a variety of shapes, and vary the transitions between pictures.

I'm sure that many Vegas users would argue that acquiring images with a scanner is faster and they're probably right. We're used to working with the copy stand and find that having clients work along with us, framing shots on the copy stand, is an excellent way to involve them in the project.

With pictures on screen for an average of 5 seconds it takes 12 pictures for a minute of finished tape. So a 10 minute finished photo montage has roughly 120 pictures in it and takes about 3 to 3.5 hours to put to tape.

Figure another hour to add music, titles and captions and you're looking at 4 to 5 hours total for a 10 minute piece. Multiply this by your hourly rate for editing and you've got the price for the job.

If someone brought us 500 pictures to be put into a montage, I'd give them an estimate of 17 to 20 hours for the finished project. This time would include capture, cropping, to timeline with transitions, adding titles and captions, adding and adjusting music, and review with client. Client changes -- there are almost always some -- could increase this time.

Obviously the length of time involved will depend on how much you do with each photo.

Congratulations on your paying job: hope you get many, many more.

Jack

Easy: 5$ per slide, minimum charge 50$. Use DSE's lazy boy's photomatage creation tool in Ultimate S or so it yourself with Pan?Crop. We refuse to use any music we do not hold licenses for and don't do "nudge-nudge...I won't tell who put Billy Ray Cyrus on there..." Unethical and, more significantly for me, highly illegal. Extra tweaks anbd titles are 100$ per hour. Hope that helps.

Peter
(formerly known as PB and unable to chnage handle)

I am clearly in the wrong market area. We typically do $1.20/picture (on average) for a photo-montage type deal and still get folks who think we're charging too much - I finally gave up on the music issue (though I started out with a "no tolerance" policy); we were losing too much business if we didn't do Billy Ray or whomever (sorry, but that's the way it is - when I see these guys doing wedding video's at WEVA pulling in 6 figures/year who don't care about sync licenses, I'm not going to worry about what we do - yep, we bad, and if the music folks ever give me a way to pay for this I will happily do it).

I don't think our market would support $100/hour; it might, but we're still getting some push-back at $50/hour.

--Scott