[MacDV] My first graduation ceremony

[Claire Hart]

> Just curious, what do people charge to do this kind of
> work?  Is there a ballpark average?

This explanation is probably going to be a lot longer than you wanted, 
but for those thinking they might want to get into this line of 
business, some of this info might be beneficial.

This is a difficult question to answer because we actually determined 
three different projects within the graduation for our video guy, and 
then had a quote for each project.  Since our graduation only includes 
18 graduates this year (and never more than 26 in any year so far), we 
always produce a "blessing" video.  The parents of each graduate record 
a 45-60 second audio segment with an audio engineer at his studio.  The 
parents also bring 14-16 photos of their child.  The CD produced by the 
audio guy plus the 14-18 photos per graduate are all sent to the video 
guy, who will scan the photos and combine them with the audio.  Each 
graduate's segment is played right before he/she walks across the stage 
to receive his diploma.  We are paying $150 for the audio work (about 5 
hours' work) and $300 for the video work (about 10 hours' work).

(By the way, when I say "scan" here, I believe that he actually shoots 
each photo with his camera rather than scanning with a scanner.  He 
says it's faster and produces a better picture.)

A photo montage is the second project.  Photos from the year's 
activities are combined and viewed to a song of the group's choosing.  
This is basically a PowerPoint-type of project.  The video guy will 
scan the photos and produce the "movie" for $60 (about 2 hours' work).  
If all the photos are already digitized, the charge will be somewhat 
less.  If we include video, the charge will be slightly more.

The third task is for the graduation itself to be recorded as a 
2-camera shoot with professional cameras.  The two cameras will be 
manned by additional personnel during the actual graduation.  During 
this ceremony, the video guy also cues up and plays the photo montage 
and each graduate's segment (mentioned in paragraph one above) right 
before each one walks across the stage.  He will incorporate the 
pre-recorded video segments plus the footage of the ceremony into the 
final video.  While the video guy handles the video, the audio guy 
(mentioned in paragraph one) will actually run the sound board, play 
the right tracks at the appropriate times, etc.  Both men will attend 
one hour of the rehearsal two days prior.  The audio guy will spend 3-4 
hours as a result at $30/hr., and the video guy will charge $390 for 
this third segment, with an additional $60 if we want the final product 
to be authored to DVD rather than left on VHS.  He will not charge for 
copies ordered initially.

Last year, the families initially payed $1400 for one man to do it all, 
including the montage video, the "blessing" video, audio, everything.  
He later billed for an additional $400 because everything took longer 
than he anticipated.  The result was not as professional, both during 
the ceremony AND in the final video result.  This year's guys are 
professionals (full-time, done this for years, good references).  If we 
provide the VHS cassettes or blank DVDs, we will not be charged for the 
initial order of copies of the ceremony to each family.  As you can 
see, we'll pay less than $1100 this year.

Two years ago, I thought I was going to be able to do all of this, 
doing it for free since my son was a graduate and I wanted to play with 
my software.  I did not realize how much hard drive space you needed to 
do video.  Right before the ceremony, I had to call in all favors, 
including my son's video friends, to create these projects from the 
tons of photos I had already scanned plus the audio we had already had 
recorded.  The graduation was held in a church, and the church's 
soundman charged an hourly fee to run the sound.  He also set up one 
camera on the stage and a second camera on the large screens (bad idea, 
but we didn't know it at the time).  One of my son's friends pulled an 
all-nighter to "meld" everything together, and even was alert enough to 
run the computer side of the video during the ceremony the next 
afternoon.  That final video had glitches that we were never able to 
remedy, but the ceremony itself was good.  The transitions between 
photos during the video were too busy and time-consuming, but I didn't 
have the time to edit the work before the ceremony, so in a way that 
was my fault.  I decided at that point to go with the professionals!  
This year my other son graduates, and I've pulled heavily in favor of 
working with the men that we ended up working with.

Claire