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So it has happened again 3rd time in 2 months I quote what I think is a fair rate of 550/10 for a basic mix package with breakaway tether to camera for a small job. And the guy counter offers with 350 for the day with gear. The last one was even worse and wanted me to throw in a 744t for the 350 instead of the 800 it should have cost him.

Has the floor fallen out of the rates with the film types or am I missing something. The only thing these have in common as far as I know is the jobs originated from the local producers association. Which here is composed mostly of film and episodic types.

Am I missing something here I mean I get paid better and do a lot less work doing network news and live shot audio.

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Unfortunately Geoff,

Your plan of attack has been pretty much my plan of attack as well in response to the multitrack pricing issue going on. I settle for jobs that are simple with 2 to 4 wireless lavs, shotgun, mixer, and ENG cable for the most part. And I will get my $650 to $700 for the day. Downside is that I find myself working less. I still do issue my quotes for bigger jobs, but again, I have been beaten out everytime after pricing the 788T recorder at an additional $150/day.

The problem could stem from the whole reaity TV genre. I believe the trend of low ball pricing could have started here.

When it comes to the current demands of big reality shows, there are many sound mixers that are undercutting legit commercial mixers with their 788T by throwing it in practically for free. While there are few mixers out there that are able to get their day rate plus $600 in kit fee for their reality mule bags, they are outweighed by the many that undercut and price their day rate and the same amount of gear for around $600-$650 total.

And then you have to throw in VER rental house. They align themselves completely on the producer side in giving them the cheapest deals that many mixers can't compete with pricewise. They maintain private corporate accounts with their producer clients. And they do not associate themselves with mixers in making deals. Just producers. And they do give these reality shows the best of the best in gear. They go out of their way to provide an embarrassment of riches in audio gear to make their client happy. One reality show I know of and (which I admit) worked on for some episodes had four 788T recorders, over forty 411A wireless kit sets, 4 or 5 Sennheiser 416 shotgun mikes, 12 IFBs, and still more stuff that is too much to mention. VER is a big presence on many big reality shows. And BTW, VER is in every major city across the US.

You are not missing anything Geoff, we are getting lowballed from all angles. All you can do is stick to your fair-pricing guns.

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$350 for the day with kit is insane. I don't think I would even try to negotiate at that point.

Was it one or two days? The camera rental house offering their 1 day week rental prices really skew what producers think they should rent kit for. Even $350 for just labor is too low. They might find people (students) at those rates, but they won't be pros.

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Simply turn down the low rates for labor and gear. It really is easy to do. Here are the scenarios for what can happen when you turn down the low rate:

1. Producer offers same low rate to other people, no one accepts, producer ends up paying full rate.

2. Producer finds someone for that low rate. Cheap sound mixer does a fantastic job and solidifies his/her low rate with that producer and they will never be able to get the rate higher.

3. Producer finds someone for that low rate. Cheap sound mixers screws up the sound, producer regrets hiring that person and next time looks for a different low-rate sound mixer. Continue back to first option...

4. Producer finds someone to work for low rates. Producer now sees that as the going rate for Sound Mixer, Sun, Moon, and Stars. Producer never learns. Producer continues to make more and more money at Cheap Sound Mixers expense. Cheap Sound Mixer continues living in mother's basement just to pay back the loan from his mother that he used to buy his Zoom H4N Profressional Sound Recorder (as was told to him by the 19 year old at the counter of Guitar Center where he bought it). Producer enjoys rolling hundred-dollar bills and smoking them on set while whipping the crew to meet those unrealistic expectations they learned at film school while helping on all those student projects so they could earn the title of Producer.

Moral of the story? Just turn down the low rates for labor and gear. You will benefit in the long run.

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...

Has the floor fallen out of the rates with the film types or am I missing something. The only thing these have in common as far as I know is the jobs originated from the local producers association. Which here is composed mostly of film and episodic types.

Am I missing something here I mean I get paid better and do a lot less work doing network news and live shot audio.

I think you've already stated the answer. I'm learning very quickly that if I want to overwork myself and make much less money, I should stick to narrative work. Of course many pros at the top have a very different scenario going for them and make legitimate income with narrative work, but at my level narrative is a joke.

Producers are absolutely delusional about what it takes to make a proper film, and with tuna sandwich offers becoming the norm, I'm very often too far apart even to negotiate.

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$350 for the day with kit is insane. I don't think I would even try to negotiate at that point. Was it one or two days? The camera rental house offering their 1 day week rental prices really skew what producers think they should rent kit for. Even $350 for just labor is too low. They might find people (students) at those rates, but they won't be pros.

That was my response, it was a 3 day and I was willing to work with them a bit on gear. But lets face it just to rent the recorder here in dallas would have been 250 and that would have meant I would lose money on the job as things were looking. I guess for me what I find most shocking is that there are a lot of these jobs coming out of the producers association where most of the members are mid to late career professionals. Though they are frequently passing this along for a friend type of deals.

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Even if a producer finds someone for a low rate that does a good job, even if the producer sticks with that person because of their low rate, that is still money lost and a client you don't have.

I'm getting calls every day to work for 200/250/ day. For this rate the producers want up to 4 wireless. Comteks. Time code. Camera Hops. And refuse to give me a boom op.

After saying no, I wait a few days and call back trying to see if I can negotiate a deal in the 11th hour of their production only to be told that not only did someone say yes to the 200, but they threw in all the gear and then some. Later when I see the projects final product, the sound has actually been done pretty well.

HOW CAN YOU COMPETE WITH THAT.

Realistically you can only say no for so long before you have not worked in a month and need to pay your rent.

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I think you've already stated the answer. I'm learning very quickly that if I want to overwork myself and make much less money, I should stick to narrative work. Of course many pros at the top have a very different scenario going for them and make legitimate income with narrative work, but at my level narrative is a joke.

Yup.

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I'm getting calls every day to work for 200/250/ day. For this rate the producers want up to 4 wireless. Comteks. Time code. Camera Hops. And refuse to give me a boom op.

After saying no, I wait a few days and call back trying to see if I can negotiate a deal in the 11th hour of their production only to be told that not only did someone say yes to the 200, but they threw in all the gear and then some. Later when I see the projects final product, the sound has actually been done pretty well.

Hard to believe than anyone who has managed to acquire 4 Lectros (or maybe g3s) comteks and hops (okay that's six wireless) and "extras" is such a noob they would not know the rental alone is over $200. Smells very fishy to me.

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Hard to believe than anyone who has managed to acquire 4 Lectros (or maybe g3s) comteks and hops (okay that's six wireless) and "extras" is such a noob they would not know the rental alone is over $200. Smells very fishy to me.

It's called - their parents.

People move out here every day with the kit and rent paid for from their dad's (or mom's) pocket. All their expenses are covered. It does not matter to them how much they make as long as they get to work on something. If that means undercutting everyone else, that's what they do.

For every 1 of these people that eventually blow a job or get a bad reputation for one reason or another, There are 10 more to take their place.

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I'm not sure what the standards are for "the sound has actually been done pretty well." I watch a lot of films from every budget level, and quite frankly, the producers usually get what they paid for -- sometimes less. There are many low budget movies done with other than totally professional teams that sound "fair" or "okay" but not what I would call close to "really good."

If an emerging filmmaker is trying to get distribution on a low budget feature, "done pretty well" normally won't cut it. The competition is too great. It needs to be something special -- and I tell them that. Many don't listen -- a few do. The ones who do listen seem to be more successful than those who don't -- imagine that.

Unfortunately, the bottom line, then, is that I don't do as many features as I'd like to.

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" so they could earn the title of Producer. "

:wacko:

so they could take the title of Producer.

" There are many low budget movies done with other than totally professional teams that sound "fair" or "okay" but not what I would call close to "really good." "

well, yes, but the fact is probably that there were lots of other considerations besides what "they" paid the sound mixer or sound crew... (or what their resumes looked like)

All those other things that go along with lo-budget that affect the final product. poor locations, lack of a sound crew, lack of post production, lack of coverage, multiple camcorders, lack of or poor lighting, lack of alternate takes, lack of set-up time, insistence on less than best micing options (aka 'wire 'em all, and no boom', too much 'it will save time', lack of proper lock-ups, and etc. etc.

Here goes: even the best archer won't be able to hit the target as well, when conditions (lighting, wind, etc) are poor and there are significant obstacles on the range...

Edited by studiomprd
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About a year ago I wrestled with this very thing. I finally learned how to say no, and and stuck to my rate guns. I'm lucky enough to live in a market that's getting busier, so I could afford to do so. Now, I work fewer days that I used to, but I make more on those days.

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Just had one "reality" job that made me want to laugh into the phone as I hung up on them.

single sound mixer, $450/12 labor plus $200/gear for the following:

4 wireless plus boom into a 5 channel mixer. Just a single IFB (like I believed that) Sounds normal, right? I was even OK with it up until this point:

4 separate camera hops to 2 cameras. (ok... maybe... warning flags start to wave)

The mix was to be specified as follows:

Cam #1 gets talent #1 isolated on L, mix of talent #1 and extras (someone lav'd) in frame of that camera on R...

Cam #2 gets talent #2 isolated on L, mix of talent #2 and extras (someone lav'd) in THAT frame on R...

The boom? - Would be dynamically routed to the R mix of whichever camera's extras happened to be under it. I guess I was just supposed to magically route that through my 5-bus mixer?

All this while being bag based, and presumably in two locations at the same time, as the "talent" on this show are not supposed to be together much of the time, based on tradition. So I would be doing the job of 4 people.

Yea.... NO. I replied that my equipment wasn't capable of that kind of routing and thanked her for her time and hung up.

Where do these fools come from?

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Just had one "reality" job that made me want to laugh into the phone as I hung up on them.

single sound mixer, $450/12 labor plus $200/gear for the following:

4 wireless plus boom into a 5 channel mixer. Just a single IFB (like I believed that) Sounds normal, right? I was even OK with it up until this point:

4 separate camera hops to 2 cameras. (ok... maybe... warning flags start to wave)

The mix was to be specified as follows:

Cam #1 gets talent #1 isolated on L, mix of talent #1 and extras (someone lav'd) in frame of that camera on R...

Cam #2 gets talent #2 isolated on L, mix of talent #2 and extras (someone lav'd) in THAT frame on R...

The boom? - Would be dynamically routed to the R mix of whichever camera's extras happened to be under it. I guess I was just supposed to magically route that through my 5-bus mixer?

All this while being bag based, and presumably in two locations at the same time, as the "talent" on this show are not supposed to be together much of the time, based on tradition. So I would be doing the job of 4 people.

Yea.... NO. I replied that my equipment wasn't capable of that kind of routing and thanked her for her time and hung up.

Where do these fools come from?

Was this an MTV gig? I've talked with them multiple times about their gear needs and setup and every time I quote them a fair price of around $1000 per day because that's what it takes. Every time they have stuck with their budget because they find someone to do it.This is EXACTLY why producers have low rates. Because they can and do find people to give away a ton of gear for free.
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Matthew: Yup. That was the same crew of loonies being talked about in the "Mixer needed in NC" thread in the "Available for work" section. Seems like they have contacted most of the members here, and it feels quite gratifying that we are all laughing in their faces equally - Maybe they will up their offer as a result, but I suspect not.

For me, this isn't so much a matter of a low rate (even though it really is) but more than that, is that their own description of the project virtually ensures audio problems and is setting the mixer up for failure. Nobody should have to work like that, it risks our reputations for nothing.

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There have been rich parents for a long time now. Has it only been recently that rate cutting has become a problem? Is it the change in gear/gear pricing that has made this profession more accessible to new comer?

I think cheaper cameras have lead to lower rates. Any kid just out of school buys an inexpensive camera and all of a sudden is a DP. They charge low rates and production thinks that sound should do the same. If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked to lower my rate because "we are shooting on a (insert cheep camera name here)"

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There have been rich parents for a long time now. Has it only been recently that rate cutting has become a problem? Is it the change in gear/gear pricing that has made this profession more accessible to new comers?

No, it's not new ***sigh*** but we can still rant about it. :)

The functionality of the gear certainly has improved (track count, timecode at a lower price point) but producers are also expecting more as well.

Those who have been at this for decades can speak to what was average or expected years ago in relation to what is expected now.

I was on the tail end of analog tape being the norm for music recording. At that point having a 24 track Studer or Ampex was needed, along with a large analog console, outboard gear, and a room to put it in. But...along came computers and multi-channel interfaces. Sound quality aside, what it took to get 24 tracks of audio 15 years ago is far different than what it takes now. More people are recording and mixing their own albums and professional studios have decreased tremendously in numbers. Are more people making a career out of music recording today than a couple decades back? I'm not sure. But I know studio rates have dropped a whole lot for those facilities still open.

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If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked to lower my rate because "we are shooting on a (insert cheep camera name here)"

I wish I could make a dollar for every time I've heard that line. That could accumulate to a nice yearly salary. ;)

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