laurenbanjo

I don’t get $800/10 $500 base package every job. My general rule of thumb is first take away gear. I’ll do boom and mixer only for $300. Then my second rule is giving a max discount of $200, preferably based on an 8 hour day. So sometimes I work for $900-1000 for a single person interview day. but I don’t do a bunch of wireless and timecode and hops and ifbs for $1000, nor do I do interviews for $500. there’s also always side hustles (I pick up shifts at Amazon when I’m slow), and self funded indie short films (I’ll do 50% off my rates for those)

It’s always slow in January. I did three interview days and have three days as an A2 for a live stream. Six days in January is five more than I had last year. Hear me out; I’m not trying to sound rude — but you can either do the job, or you can’t. And if you can, you should charge appropriately for it. If you can’t, you need to focus on short films before doing corporate/commercial work (which should always be “full rate”). So there is no “I’m not experienced enough to charge these rates”. There’s only “I’m not experienced enough to take jobs where it’s unacceptable for me to undercut my peers”.

on the nova, you can zoom in on your scan. But you don’t really need to, since it auto picks frequencies. 999/1000, these are perfectly clean and usable frequencies with zero interference. Whenever I have dropouts, it’s almost always due to transmitter placement. Like if it’s on their back and they lay or sit back, and ankle rigs sometimes give me trouble as well. Then there’s people who’s bodies just absorb RF like crazy. I had this one girl who was super skinny so I was very confused, but no matter what transmitter or what frequency I was on, she was getting dropouts. Must have been something in her sweat. Having a foamie on the antenna helps.

Zaxcom is wide enough for what’s legal in the US, so traveling to different states isn’t an issue. It’s just not great for traveling to different countries.

I worked 152 days in sound in the last 12 months. The average per day was more like $8-900. So yes, I do take jobs that don’t pay $1300. Here is the breakdown of jobs under $1000 a day: - I did about 700 hours of boom operating on union jobs. This pays as low as $18 an hour for a Tier 0, all the way up to $59 an hour on a Majors. Most mixers let me have a kit fee of $50 per day. I also get health insurance and pension hours when I take these jobs, which is worth a lot in and of itself. - I did a few self-funded short films or docs for 50% off my rates. These were situations where the director/writer paying most of it out of their own pocket. True passion projects. - I did a couple nights filling in for the main sound person at a local bar when he got sick. $40/hr for 4-5 hours using the bar’s equipment*. - A sound mixer who was already set up for a week long fitness video had a family emergency. I filled in for him using his equipment and got the labor only while he got the gear rental*. - I did some days in a studio location that already had equipment permanently installed*, for $750/10. - Did some A2 work for broadcast shows at $500/10. - Live sound for a children’s musical for $25/hr in February when I was insanely slow, using their equipment* - I also work a few hours a week at a local Amazon facility for $20/hr. This gets me an extra $10k a year, but I didn’t include it in my averages or days worked because it’s not a sound job. Just a side hustle that I treat as a gym membership that I get paid to use. * I do sometimes use other people’s equipment, but this is only the case of filling in for a friend, or a place like a bar, theater, or studio where the equipment is permanently installed. I don’t use production’s field mixers on location, for example. So yes, no one is going to yell at you for taking jobs like the ones I listed above for less than “full rate”. But when it’s a job production sound mixing, for a corporate or commercial client, using your own equipment, you should be hitting closer to the $1200-1300 number (or more depending on hours and gear). And I noticed how difficult it is to gain clients through the internet, as you mentioned. The truth of the matter is, most of most people’s work comes from referrals from other sound mixers. This is why it’s imperative to be a team player. If Bob’s client asks him to work a job, but he’s already booked — he’s going to pass it to Sally who he knows charges the same rates as him, and does a great job and stays professional, and would be honest if the client tried to steal her (if they go behind Bob’s back and offer her a gig, she should say, “I’d love to work with you again, but you are Bob’s client — did you check with him first?”), rather than going with Jim who he knows will undercut him, and/or steal his clients, and/or do a bad job and make him look bad, and/or be unprofessional and make him look bad.

Hi Larry! That was me who said that. First of all, I’m really glad you made this thread. It’s important to have an open discussion. I’m also glad that you seem open to raising your rates as well! I’m in the NYC market, too… so *you* must be the guy producers tell me “our guy usually does it for $800”, to which I respond “then use your guy” (ok, I don’t actually say that out loud, lol) When you, a seasoned pro who is rarely ever going to make a mistake and always going to provide the best audio possible, quotes $800 all in for a day, it hurts the rest of us mixers. I don’t mind when a beginner charges that much, because if they screw up the job, production will learn to stop being so cheap. But when you quote that much, not only are you leaving a lot of money on the table, but you set a baseline to your clients of what rates should be, and it makes it harder for the rest of us to charge our rates. My $800/$500 post was referring to an opening quote. It’s okay to negotiate down a bit… maybe it’s a boom only job so you knock $200 off the gear, or maybe it’s going to be a one hour interview so you knock $100 off the labor. I would say that portal to portal, mileage, and tolls are a personal preference. If you can get them, that’s great, if you can’t, I don’t think other mixers will say you’re undercutting. I personally don’t often charge them when working in NYC because I live in NJ to save money so I don’t want to lose the job by charging them a $16 holland tunnel toll. But I do charge parking, always, and I’ll do mileage and tolls if it’s outside of the 5 boroughs. I would say if you’re within $200 of $800/$500, you won’t be undercutting, as long as you are not giving away a bunch of free OT or equipment (like 5 lavs and 10 IFBs for $500 is a big no-no). but definitely open with those numbers. Remember, NYC is insanely expensive. You need to make like $200k to get a house and raise a family in the surrounding areas, with a 1-2 hour commute. And producers definitely have the money. I’m sure if you ask your gaffer friends, they are making around the same day rate as us. Camera ops usually make $1000/10. So don’t be the lowest paid person (aside from the PA) on set when audio is half the project! If more than 75% of producers instantly say yes to your rate without haggling, you’re not charging enough. I probably get turned away 50% of the time. It’s okay. Because I only need 2 producers to say yes to $1200 to make the same amount of money as 3 producers saying yes to $800, except I had a day less of work! It was super hard at first, but the more things I turned down, the more things seemed to come. I started quoting “full rate” in January 2020, and I’ve raised my income each year since. In December 2020, at 27 years old, I was finally able to move out of my parent’s house. This year, I was finally able to pay off all my crippling student loan debt. And I finally might be able to buy a house in central Jersey in 2-3 years! Lastly, don’t be afraid when you start quoting these numbers now. It’s slow for all of us now, but that’s why we charge what we do — we save up cash and we can have a nice relaxing winter. It’s definitely easier to get these numbers when it’s busy. But don’t give up. The more people who quote these numbers, the more we’ll get them. Trusting the process is key. By the way, Gotham Sound is having a holiday party this week in Astoria. I hope to see you there!

Thank you for posting a real answer! Makes it a lot less frustrating understanding the real reason behind it.

Am I the only one that agrees this is a stupid design? I’m not upset that the blocks overlap, it’s just annoying that you have to change your wideband pack from one “block” to the other, instead of just tuning it to a frequency and it just working. It’s annoying when setting stuff up in a rush. The packs should have absolutely no block settings — just a frequency range you can either to tune to or not. It’s the same annoyance when my Zaxcom Nova auto picks frequencies that I can’t even tune any of my transmitters to (lower 500s), except at least that can be changed by setting different bounds.

I’m the one that asked him to wire her because we were in a reflective bathroom with a huge mirror and they told me she was only going to be doing the dialogue in the wide.

I just sent this post to a friend who is about to do his first union job as a utility. I think it’s such a great discussion that I just had to bump it up 10-12 years later so more people see it!

yeah, the lithiums simultaneously last too long but not long enough! I try to save them if I’m doing some kind of doc where I know I’m not going to be able to change them for a long time.

The MKH50 is a nice warm mic for interiors, but be careful when booming because it has a noticeable change in bass if you get slightly off-axis. my favorite mic is the Sanken CSM1. But it’s also very bright. I don’t think bright is a bad thing. I prefer my 50 for narratives, but use the M1 for interviews.

It's a great idea and I need one of these for sure but jeez, $185?

Still on my first kit. I got a Zoom F8 and Rode NTG3. Good enough for student films and low budget stuff. Plus I also use the Zoom F8 for remote recordings for live shows.

I can't believe I'm just missing this... I'll be in Vegas April 5-11