Will Work for Free: Shooting Charity Video

Every once in a while a charity video shooting project comes along that piques my interest, even though I know I won’t get a dime out of the job.

Most video producers, at some time in their career, are approached by someone looking to get free services from them ‘out of the goodness of their heart’ or ‘for the love of the project’. Many times, this person who approached the video producer is completely clueless to how much time is involved in making even a simple 2-minute video. Shooting charity video is usually one of these causes.

Recently, a non-video producer contacted one of my compadres to edit 9 hours of stage performances down to a 5 minute promotional piece. My associate was wary of what he would be expected to deliver and most of the reluctance was the ‘nine hours of footage’… anything over an hour is a nightmare if it’s not well-shot or well-logged. We’re talking about possibly a couple 40-hour work weeks just cutting it down.

The standard “rate” one edits is roughly based on a time-conversion-by-edited-footage ratio.

1 minute of edited footage = 1 hour of editing time – minimum. Based on that, the performance footage would yield a minimum of a 5-7 hour project, but the added amount of footage translates to a 540:7 ratio – that is, 540 minutes of raw footage to a 7 minute edited piece, which might end up making the work involved to be roughly 9 hours per edited minute,  which factors to 63 hours of work!

Unless the contractor has full blocks of footage he already knows will be cut out and depending on how well organized he is, this is still quite a time-consuming project. I wonder if he is a aware and willing to pay the price for this work? People don’t value the time it takes for editors to do their magic!

What Price Pro for Hire?

Some time back, I blogged about a couple situations when twice I was hired to do a video, then the contractor balked at a ‘below minimum wage’ quote. In each incident, the people had lots of money at their disposal, they just didn’t want to spend it on my work. My blog,  What Price Pro for Hire? got a number of people responding, and I suspect it was because they, too, have been treated unfairly by contractors.

Forums member robGRAUERT summed it up well when he wrote: “Video is a powerful tool that requires skill if it’s to be effective. People need to respect it.” While forums member jusbe said he was a professional who had “developed and paid for skills with blood, sweat, tears, time and cash.” He added, “Tough luck if a multi-national electronics company sold them the idea that all you need to be a skilled videographer is a fancy amateur camera.”

When I was approached two years ago, I was given the standard “it can help me break in the business and open doors… earn my dues…” lines, when, of course, I paid my dues 30+ years ago when I first started working in TV.

For the Love of the Project

Which, actually, brings me to my original point. Last weekend I DID do a charity shoot – for free – because I felt good about the cause and I went into it knowing I wasn’t going to be paid – but… I stuck to my guns about several points: “I will shoot the event only, but I won’t edit it. I will hand the tape over to whomever you get to edit it and will be done with it. I ask for my full name and title to be acknowledged on the credits, and I do not want the tape back or any other associations with the project.”

The shoot was planned to be a one-hour event, but ended up costing me four hours of my time; but I didn’t regret it because I went into it with full knowledge of was expected of me. And I enjoyed the work.

Charity work CAN get you great recognition, there are hundreds of YouTube videos being made every year to help support some cause from traditional well-known charity organizations like the Red Cross to small local fund-raisers to help a family that’s recently lost their home to fire. There are even video production houses, now, that specialize in producing charity video for a discount, and many contests that can get you started.  To stand out from the crowd, you need to deliver a clean product, regardless of how you are compensated.

What price should you place on doing charity work? You really need to consider the organization and your skill level, and also what they expect to do with the video. If it is going to be a series, then you might bid lower for the first one, if they like your work you might convince them to compensate you for more later on.

Shooting charity video can be rewarding, as long as you go in with an open mind and know you might gain nothing but a pat on the back. Charity video shooting isn’t for everyone and I wouldn’t do it too often myself, but I did experience a nice Autumn day in the park, and feel honored to help the cause.

To find out more about getting paid for your video work, check out these stories from Videomaker: From Pay to Profit, and 5 Steps to More Profit From Video.

Videomaker is celebrating 25 years of helping people make better video! Join us this Thursday, June 2 at 5:30 PM PST at ustream.tv/channel/vm25anniversary as Videomaker founder and publisher Matt York looks back on a quarter century of helming the nation’s premiere video training resource. This is a special presentation just for Videomaker fans and readers, so we hope you’ll join us!

Ever since the first movies caught the public eye, people have dreamed of harnessing the power of moving pictures to tell their own stories. There was once a time when, unless you had some connection to either the Hollywood film industry or professional television, there was virtually no way to get your message in front of an audience. The advent of home video technology changed all that. Suddenly, it was possible for ANYONE to be a movie maker. All across the world, ordinary people began to discover their own potential, becoming documentarians, citizen journalists and indie movie directors or just using video to document their own lives for fun. Community activists could turn the spotlight on vital overlooked issues, young directors could create professional-grade movies in their own backyards, and new parents could record their childrens’ first steps for posterity.

It was in those heady days when that first generation of videographers was just discovering its new potential that one young upstart video enthusiast had a dream: Matt York wanted to create a magazine to help ordinary people to master video technology. The result was Videomaker, the first magazine dedicated to home video enthusiasts and prosumers. Today, Videomaker is still going strong. Although it’s still dedicated to the same core mission – helping people make better video – it’s changed in ways that Matt never could have foreseen. Today’s Videomaker is more than just a magazine: It’s also a thriving Internet community, a series of online webinars and live workshops, and a line of trusted expert training DVDs. Looking back, it’s hard to believe how far we’ve come!

This week, we’re taking a moment to really think about all the changes we’ve seen. From the rise of the Internet to the dawn of digital video, the video world is astonishingly different than it was in 1986. No one knows this better than Videomaker publisher Matt York, who has personally overseen the creation of every single Videomaker issue since we first began printing 25 years ago. Join us this Thursday as Matt reflects back on the history of video and Videomaker, how it’s changed over a quarter century and – perhaps more importantly – how it’s stayed the same. Check out
ustream.tv/channel/vm25anniversary Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PST to view live streaming video of this event.

Making a professional presentation now has one more element to share with Google Docs – video playback. Being able to share your video is like having a YouTube channel, but you decide who may view with no other pesky titles. As with other Google Docs, many file types are supported, including WebM, .MPEG4, .MOV, .AVI, .MPEGPS, .WMV and .FLV. The size limit is the same as YouTube at 1GB and Flash is necessary for viewing. Support is not yet available, but common issues are likely the same as with YouTube.

Though video editing is not an option, there are numerous applications for sharing video, such as screening dailies, which are during-production views and critiques of a film crew’s work. More versatility and uncluttered sharing make Google Docs worth a look if you don’t already know its services.

Check this out! Have you wondered what your cat does during the day? Well check out the ‘Cat Cam‘ a little micro camera attached to a cat’s collar. The camera automatically shoots a photo every two minutes from your cat’s perspective. The ‘Cat Cam’ is even available for order if you would like to strap up your feline or perhaps canine friend and see what their up to.