When starting out as an editor and filmmaker for music promo videos how much is a good price to ask for when editing a film?

How should I price my services? There isn’t loads of budget, it’s for an album release for a friend, I did two whole days of shooting, and I am also editing a couple of promo vids for the project including a 2 min vid, and a shorter 1min-30 sec clip

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  • Hi Annie, in my experience I would say that a good starting point for video editing work is £200-250 per day. This means you're working at around a £25 per hour rate, depending on how many hours you work in the day. While this might seem like a lot compared to the overall budget of the project, this is the kind of rate I was charging when I started out. Now I charge more but of course, I now have years of experience under my belt that I am able to offer a client. You could also agree to a project fee rather than use a day rate. I've made numerous music videos in the past and find that a fee for the whole thing is an easier route for the person funding it. Then it's up to you to decide how much time you want to invest in it. Either way I would still start off with some ground rules and/or number of feedback sessions. Normally it's 2-3 rounds of notes from the initial edit. It's very important to set this stuff at the beginning otherwise the revisions from the 'client' can just go on and on - at some point you need to draw a line under a project and let it out into the world.

    Good luck!
  • Personally I’d say as your just starting out and it’s low budget the least you should do is ask for your time spent to be charged at a minimum rate say £10/ph. However it seems that you didn’t discuss payment before which may make it sticky, you should always discuss this before you start the work! Worst case scenario you can just take this as an opportunity to learn from mistakes for next time x

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