[MacDV] Re: Slideshow DVD Pricing--MacDV Digest, Vol 19, Issue 2

[Trueman H. Hight]

Thanks Ted,
This is very helpful.

By the way, my son was born at Beale AFB hospital when I was 
stationed there way, way, way back in 1953-55.  The only buildings on 
the base then was the old hospital.  The troops lived in tents and 
those of us who were married lived in very small trailers on base.  I 
did like the area though.

Trueman




>Ted Langdell
>Ted Langdell Creative Broadcast Services
>Marysville, CA
>Main:  	(530) 741-1212
>
>I do quite a few of these every year.  They can be fun to do, create 
>a lot of smiles, and become a signature product for a video 
>production business.
>
>If you're planning on doing this for money, you need to break out 
>the various work segments and make sure you don't feel like you're 
>short-changing yourself in the process... or actually ARE spending 
>more than you're receiving.
>
>The hard costs add up, and creating the package can be rather time 
>consuming depending on the number of pictures involved.
>
>Are you:
>
>Scanning
>
>Cleaning up (in photoshop, say to take out red eye, clean up specks 
>and lines, other defects in the print)
>
>Dropping the cleaned up pictures into a timeline
>
>Adding motion and transitions
>
>Adding music
>
>Making the pictures work with the music and vice versa (may require 
>editing music to make things end at the end of a picture sequence or 
>adjusting the timing of picture changes to match music flow)
>
>Adding titles as appropriate
>
>Outputting file for DVD
>
>Authoring DVD in iDVD or DVDSP
>
>Making copies  (figure in copy time and hard costs of DVD's, 
>printing labels on the disk (design and printing time and ink), 
>creating and printing case inserts (high gloss photo paper and ink, 
>trimming paper to fit) and providing cases.)
>
>I'd suggest you time how long it takes to do each of: Scan ten 
>pictures... clean them up, drop them into a timeline with 
>transitions and add motion.
>
>Use the results to calculate the average number of pictures you can 
>do in an hour and then use what you think your time is worth to come 
>up with a cost per work element.
>
>If it takes you (on average) three minutes to scan a picture (and I 
>use a scanner setting of 300 DPI at a finished print size of 6" in 
>the longest dimension to a .tiff or photoshop file (no compression) 
>so that I end up with enough pixels to go from a group shot to a 
>single face with no artifacts or pixellation).
>
>It might take you another three minutes (on average) to clean up a 
>picture as outlined above... so you could figure six minutes per 
>picture just to get it ready to go into a timeline.
>
>That means you could do ten pictures an hour.  Divide your hourly 
>worth by ten and that's your cost per picture to scan.  Your hourly 
>capacity is dependent on your harware, software and skill.  Some 
>pictures may require little or no cleanup. Some may require a whole 
>lot.  It may tend do average out over a project.
>
>Use a similar method to cost-out the other parts of the process.
>
>Mark up the price of the items you pay cash for to cover the getting 
>and keeping on hand of DVD's, paper, ink, DVD cases, etc.
>
>You'll soon see why some of us charge thousands to do a well-crafted 
>project of several hundred images.
>
>Even if you give your time away on family member's projects, do 
>recoup your hard costs so you don't go into the hole.
>
>Hope this is helpful.
>
>Ted.