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Hello all, I'm writing today to see the general stance on an 'indie rate'. I have been doing bag work for nearly a decade now and have generally turned down or priced myself out of all the indie flicks that have come my way. What can I say, I like my predictable 10 hour full rate days and have gotten pretty good at it. Lately however, I'm being asked more and more to quote on indie projects. Sometimes from regular 'corporate' clients who themselves are branching out. One thing that gets said to me often is 'you have to realize this is an indie project...'. As if that's supposed to be an automatic discount for my labour and equipment. So far I've held fast to my rates and when the money has been there I've taken the odd indie movie. Recently however, one such regular client has come to me about an indie and the PM they've got negotiating with me is using all the cliche's she has in her arsenal to get me to lower my rate. The problem for me is that I just don't have the equipment necessary to do this project properly without investing in some significant equipment upgrades. I love this group of people and would love to help out, but financially it's not making a lot of sense. I'm probably going to pass on the job and slowly add more gear to my kit so that the next time I'm in this position I might have a little more wiggle room to help out. That leads me to this: is there such thing as an 'indie rate', and when, where and why would you offer one? There are times when I think doing an indie might be fun for a week or when I'd like to help out a really good client who is trying something different. But I have a very hard time deciding when I should offer that rate as I'd hate the idea of losing out on fully paid work or selling myself short in general. I don't have to tell most of you how we as technicians don't have reels and really aren't in this for any sort of glory. So, do you have an indie rate, and how does it compare to your usual film package? Do you ask production what their overall budget is in helping to determine your rate? Should it be a certain % of their budget? Thanks in advance!