#Help me set a charge?
5 messages in this thread
I have a new customer that wants to contract out the rendering portion of his
work. He is going to buy 3DS and do the modeling and animation work with his
people, but he wants to turn the rendering to tape portion over to me. What is
an average rate for this kind of work? Should it be charged by the finished
second or by the hour of rendering time. This seems like a lot of additional
wear and tear on the equipment. Can you pros out there give me a little
guidance??
Thanks – Greg
I find that the to tape charge for most files is between .50-1.00 per frame
depending on the output (S-VHS, Beta etc.). As for doing the rendering, it is
usually charged by the hour for machine time. This ranges from $20 an hour for
night rendering (no rush) to $65 an hour for day rendering (rush) plus setup
charges.
Andrew McClary Graphic Alchemy
Greg,
the going rate for rendering and laying to tape seems to be $1.00 to $2.00 per
frame, depending on equipment, animation complexity etc. Course, I would never
pay that much, but that's the going rate. Make sure you have enough RAM to
render their images without paging, etc.
Yes, the going rate for rendering and laying to tape is $1.00-$2.00 per frame.
Of course NOBODY pays that much unless they are a complete fool. But, that's
the price everybody talks about because we animators are so used to living in a
virtual world that some of us have started dealing with virtual money and
virtual customers. <g>
Don,
you are quite right. It's very similar to the old hourly rate or finished
second charge dilemmas – ideally you want $100 per hour or $500 per finished
second, but reality sets in and you usually settle for a mere fraction of that.
Since you settled for a mere fraction of that, say $100 per second, you cannot
then pay $2 per frame ($60 per second) for rendering because you'd make a
pittance, and your wife/partner/accountant would chastise you heavily for being
more of a charitable institute than a business.