Yep another wedding video question « Videomaker Community Forums

wildstormfilms
Member

I was wondering would it be right on my part to charge for additional DVDs for the couples family or should I work that into the final price? I'm trying to work out my pricing structure. My basic wedding package is as follows:

Wedding Package

Tailored for couples who are on a budget but want broadcast quality media.

Ã‚Â· Preceremony filming
Ã‚Â· Reception/dancing filming
Ã‚Â· Two cameras to establish multi views
Ã‚Â· Choice of music
Ã‚Â· Editing and effects
Ã‚Â· Family and friends interviews
Ã‚Â· 1 DVD

Additional DVDs for family members and friends will cost extra.

Posted 4 years ago #
brandon0409
Member

From personal experience and for further sales tax reasons I won't explain, it is better to include at least 3 copies. That allows for the Bride & Groom, Parents of Bride, and Parents of the Groom.

I would not give them less than three copies.

I include 10. The media is inexpensive and can be recreated fairly quickly (with good equipment).
Many people want those extra copies to give to grandparents and other members of their bridal party.
Again I say this helps with tax purposes as well.

I urge you visit and read the post I have linked to below.
http://www.videomaker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5139

Guaging the bride an holding the video hostage is what gives us videographer a bad name in the wedding community.

The Bride and groom are already paying upwords of $1000 + for your services, throwing in three $1.50 (your cost) videos into the package won't hurt your profits any.

Just my two cents.

Posted 4 years ago #
TheThurbs
Member

I agree with brandon on this one... there should be at least 3 copies included.

If you are burning single layer, then the bride and the groom could (hypothetically) copy the disc for all their friends, causing you to lose minimal profits... but it's a risk you take giving them even one copy. You're really charging them to shoot and edit the wedding... not to reproduce your work.

One option to encourage the wedding party and guests to purchase copies from you is to burn dual layer (DL) discs. Most consumers do not have the capability to copy and re-burn these (plus, it looks like you have enough content to cover that). Then, you could just have guests email you to purchase a copy if they wish.

You could also offer the bride and groom the option to purchase "discounted" extra copies as bridal party gifts in addition to the 3 or more copies included in the package (this should be offered as an add-on when you set up the wedding contract).

What you should always do, regardless of whether or not you sell or give the extra discs away is to include your contact info on the wedding video multiple times (DVD menu, credits, etc), on the disc, and maybe even include a mini-brochure so that the bride's friends know who to contact for their big days.

Posted 4 years ago #
Kevin Shaw
Member

brandon0409 Wrote:
Guaging the bride an holding the video hostage is what gives us videographer a bad name in the wedding community.

It's not "holding the video hostage" to charge some reasonable fee for additional copies, especially if you take the time to print a nice label on each disc and package it in a decent DVD case with a personalized insert. Plus note that many couples are paying at least $5-10 for each print they order from their photographer, so charging a little more than that for an entire video is hardly gouging. That said, I agree on including at least 3 copies for the couple and their parents, and if you want to give away more that's up to you. I include 3 copies in my base package and charge $25 for each copy after that; if someone wanted a lot of copies I'd probably give them a discount.

We're in business here, not doing charity work - although many wedding videographers are almost working for free considering how little they charge. If videographers have a bad name in the wedding community it may be because we don't charge enough to earn respect for what we do...

Posted 4 years ago #
Endeavor
Member

If videographers have a bad name in the wedding community it may be because we don't charge enough to earn respect for what we do...

Sorry Kevin, you're absolutely wrong. If videographers have a bad name, it's because the price they charge is too much for the quality of service they provide. Many of the videographers that charge average fees aren't any better than uncle Morty and the ones who are talented professionals feel the need to charge whatever they can squeeze out of the client for every little thing they can. No wonder most brides have such a low opinion of wedding videographers.

About charging for extra DVDs, charging $25 for burning and printing a DVD that takes you maybe 10 minutes and costs you maybe $1 is WAY too much IMO. You can't tell me that service is worth any more than that. Secondly, why would you not want the client to have as many DVDs as possible? This is cheap advertising! I make it a point to get my work into as many hands as possible. My most common package includes 10 copies and I offer more for $5 each (but honestly would give them more for free within reason). I figure that will cover any expense and time I put into it, plus a little profit and it gets my work out there.

Posted 4 years ago #
brandon0409
Member

Amen!

Posted 4 years ago #
Kevin Shaw
Member

Endeavor Wrote:
If videographers have a bad name, it's because the price they charge is too much for the quality of service they provide. Many of the videographers that charge average fees aren't any better than uncle Morty and the ones who are talented professionals feel the need to charge whatever they can squeeze out of the client for every little thing they can. No wonder most brides have such a low opinion of wedding videographers.

In my experience, anyone who hasn't actually tried to produce a video professionally or watched someone else do it doesn't understand the amount of work which goes into this activity, hence doesn't appreciate the value of the service provided. The best wedding videographers know they have to charge several thousand dollars to have a viable business but few couples understand that, and even 'average' wedding videographers may be worth more than they're typically getting paid. I'm all in favor of providing good value to customers and wish we could give every couple a great wedding video at a price they thought was reasonable, but what most of them think is reasonable wouldn't make sense.

As far as extra discs are concerned, I agree that the more you can distribute the better. But if you add up the cost of materials and the time it takes to burn, label and package a DVD in a nice case with a printed cover that's not a trivial expense, so if you give away copies you're devaluing your own work. If you want to think of making copies as an advertising expense rather than a profit center that's fine, but the real value of the copies is more than just a few bucks if you're doing a nice job making them.

Overall I'd say most wedding videographers are under-appreciated and under-paid for the amount of work they do, and have come to agree (somewhat) with those who say most of us should charge more for our efforts. Of course if customers won't pay more because they don't appreciate the results then it's a moot point, but there needs to be a reasonable compromise which fairly compensates videographers for their efforts.

Posted 4 years ago #
Endeavor
Member

In my experience, anyone who hasn't actually tried to produce a video professionally or watched someone else do it doesn't understand the amount of work which goes into this activity,

The thing is, brides don't care how much time you spend working on it. They care of what they get in the end is worth the amount they are paying. That's it.

So, I can see 2 potential pitfalls that a videographer can fall victim to: One, their workflow is not very time-friendly and they are taking alot of time to produce the product, or two, they are getting the job done quickly but it's not very good. In either situation you will end up feeling like you are underpaid. But you won't convince the client of that. The solution is to get better. With experience, you learn to maximize your time working on each product and turn out a great video at the same time. I am able to edit and deliver a product in 2 days (not including shooting day) and still continue to improve the quality of my work. If you can do this you can charge a rate that is in line with the competition and you will be making a decent amount of money for the time and skill you put into your work.

Posted 4 years ago #
Kevin Shaw
Member

Endeavor Wrote:
I am able to edit and deliver a product in 2 days (not including shooting day) and still continue to improve the quality of my work. If you can do this you can charge a rate that is in line with the competition and you will be making a decent amount of money for the time and skill you put into your work.

That's pretty good efficiency compared to some of us: what would you say is the key to delivering quality results in that length of time?

From a business standpoint, one day of shooting plus two days post-production plus assorted business overhead time works out to at least 30 hours per wedding video. If we assume that a fair hourly rate is at least $50 (including all equipment costs, overhead and taxes), then a good wedding video ought to cost a minimum of $1500 - and that's about all most couples are readily willing to pay. But they'll freely spend several thousand for the photographer and maybe only get 50-100 prints in an album for their trouble, so something doesn't add up there. And they'll spend many thousands of dollars on food, at least a thousand or two for the wedding dress, another thousand or more for decorations, several hundred dollars for the cake, and so on. Heck, some venues will charge as much just to cut the cake as cheap videographers are charging for a completed wedding video, so there's a problem here somewhere. If couples really valued wedding videography there wouuld be more of them willing to pay more money to get it done right, but that demand simply doesn't exist. Either most couples don't care about video at all or they don't care enough to pay a fair price for a good one, so what gives?

Posted 4 years ago #
Endeavor
Member

If couples really valued wedding videography there wouuld be more of them willing to pay more money to get it done right, but that demand simply doesn't exist. Either most couples don't care about video at all or they don't care enough to pay a fair price for a good one, so what gives?

I think that comes from the same 2 problems. Many brides don't see value in wedding videos because they either have only ever seen mediocre videos or they see videographers taking advantage of them. Now, of course this isn't the case with all brides. Obviously some of us are getting business from somewhere. But most brides don't seem to see any worth in a wedding video (at least any more worth than a video by uncle Jimmy).

As far as the efficiency thing goes, I am preparing to write an article on using time effectively when editing. I'll let you know when it's done, but the general idea is to have a good system that works and improve that system every time you do a job.

Posted 4 years ago #
Kevin Shaw
Member

Endeavor Wrote:
Many brides don't see value in wedding videos because they either have only ever seen mediocre videos or they see videographers taking advantage of them.

I would rephrase the second half of that sentence to read, "they see good videographers charging more than they're willing to spend." In other words, most couples who are considering getting a wedding video simply don't want to pay much for it, whether it's good or not. Clearly there are a few who will pay more for good results, but at best that's maybe 5-10% of all couples getting married today. By comparison, the number of couples willing to pay good money for a decent photographer is probably well over 50%, so we've really got some work to do to get video recognized as a valuable service.

Posted 4 years ago #
brandon0409
Member

I am able to edit and deliver a product in 2 days (not including shooting day)

Please give me your secret for turning out a video in 2 days.

The last wedding I did, (Rehearsal dinner - Wedding - Reception) ended up being a total of about 10 MiniDV tapes (Two/three cameras worth total). Total coverage time was about 11 hours (obviously did not film that much.)

It takes me nearly a week just to log and download all of that footage.
I used to just download it blindly, but then I realized that I was spending more time looking for clips so I began to log the footage before I downloaded it.

Please tell me your secret.

Thanks

Posted 4 years ago #
Endeavor
Member

Kevin Shaw Wrote:
I would rephrase the second half of that sentence to read, "they see good videographers charging more than they're willing to spend." In other words, most couples who are considering getting a wedding video simply don't want to pay much for it, whether it's good or not. Clearly there are a few who will pay more for good results, but at best that's maybe 5-10% of all couples getting married today. By comparison, the number of couples willing to pay good money for a decent photographer is probably well over 50%, so we've really got some work to do to get video recognized as a valuable service.

Agreed. I will concede on that point.

Please give me your secret for turning out a video in 2 days.

I am working on an article/workshop that will (I hope) help videographers to make the best use of their time. Looks like there is a pretty big need for it so I will try to get it onto the "front burner" so to speak. Mainly it comes from experience (and I know that's a relative term) and organization. I'll let you know when I get the article done.

Posted 4 years ago #