There isn’t a good topic group fit for this one, but it is Motorsport related so I dropped it here.
Any tips or suggestions for my son regarding light video editing and production. He has recently been asked to do some collaboration on the side and is trying to determine what type of rates to charge. By the hour, by project, rate, etc.
He is using Wondershare. Started out putting together some short reels for iRacing and has been asked to work on some reels and short mixes for some real life racing. He won’t be at the events, he won’t have much control over the content that is recorded. He will receive a mix of photos and videos to work with. He is not be asked to do a bunch of post editing on the images right now, just the media design work.
If any of you have tips, suggestions, or otherwise do this professionally or semi-pro please chime in.
Zero experience in this field for me. Give me numbers and charts or people to manage. The artistic realm is beyond this engineer, so I can’t offer the kid much guidance.
I use wondershare for a lot of things, over the past 5 years or so the development has come along in leaps and bounds.
As an engineer myself, it’s also tough to figure out what to charge for creative time, my advice would be to not undersell yourself, but also be willing to work with the budget of the customer. I spend WAY more time editing stuff for free than I should, because I can be finicky about the look and feel of videos.
My advice would be to charge by the project deliverables, until you get a feel for your “time input” to produce them. “X dollar amount for Y number of reels” seems like a good jumping off point.
Editing and videography is a learned skill. You’re also hampered by the assets you receive.
I’m not a pro by any means but fairly proud of a few of the videos we made on the YouTube channel for point karting…anyway.
I’ve used Sony Vegas in the past and Premiere. A student creative cloud account isn’t that much as I recall. Cameo is a Vimeo owned company and their phone app is really intuitive and free and easy to use for simple videos.
Creative work is often abused and under priced. You can have different attitudes about what to charge, but I think if you’re starting out it’s fair for both sides to expect a lower rate to offset lower experience. Fiverr and UpWork are decent references for down market freelancer rates.
Getting paid in experience is a bs compensation plan that is several generations out of date. However, so is most compensation in sports, so it’s unfortunately one thing one can expect.
Building a portfolio of work and projects is really helpful to leverage different rates moving forward.
Editing is A TON of work. Hopefully he doesn’t get burnt out
This is a little high level but hear me out and see if it helps.
I’m a big fan of value based pricing for my consulting work vs time + materials.
Value based pricing (further) encourages you to think about the client’s perspective, come up with ways to add value and demonstrate an ROI for them.
So, put yourself in their shoes and think about what the “deliverables” might be worth to them.
With that in mind, now think about how much of your time it might take to complete the task. From there you can also decide if the engagement is worth it for you or not. That decision doesn’t have to be solely financial of course.
Practical example: I had someone design some parts for me in CAD and get them laser cut. They charged be only 1.5hrs of labor. That was for ten parts… The VALUE of having those parts however is at least five times what he charged me based on his time.
Another example…. A simple google sheet with an API that I made for an executive at a startup. Took me probably 1.5 hrs to make, but saved him 3hrs a week. The value to the exec and company there is much more than my billable hours, was priced accordingly and in full agreement with the client.
Something to noodle on. I’m not oblivious to the fact that this is probably hard to implement when starting out as a video editor or content creator…. But I figured this is the kinda thing I wish I had known when I started doing consulting and gig oriented work.
Davinci Resolve is incredibly powerful and totally free. It takes a bit to figure out but there are tons of youtube videos which can walk you think basically anything you would ever want to do in a video.
As for pricing, all I can recommend is that you consider how the media he creates will be used. Will it be driving sales and used as marketing material the client is profiting from? Will he give up rights to the footage? It also doesn’t hurt to figure out a rough dollar amount that feels comfortable and then initially state a fee higher than that “comfortable number”. You can always negotiate down, but you can’t negotiate higher than your initial offer.
Also, even though it might not feel like the project is “legit” enough, I would highly recommend you still draft up a contract laying out the terms both parties understand to be what is being agreed to. Consider the final project resolution, how it will be delivered, copyright ownership, how long he is obligated to retain a backup, etc. There are tons of example freelance photography and videography contracts out there which can help you in the right direction. Contracts protect both parties! It is never a bad thing to get things in writing!
I have done a lot of creative work over the years, having been involved in publishing non stop since I was a kid … (to date me, in high school we were still using hot wax and exacto knives to make the paper).
It can be rewarding but like everyone said? It’s not valued appropriately and is often taken for granted/advantqge.
I don’t know why folks in the music industry, for example, were so bad about paying for work. Everyone wants you to work for free for them. Fuck that mightily.
Charge appropriately. I’m not sure what that is these days but don’t work for free. If what we do is so trivial, then they can do it themselves.
Things to ponder: What’s the purpose of the video? Who is the audience and what’s in there that would compel them to watch? Is it for promotion of a driver or brand\sponsor (Driven?). Or just a keepsake for the driver or team?
The transitions are pretty jarring for me, but might be appropriate depending on who it’s for. General aesthetic is nice. Looks professionally shot. Onboard videos tend to grab the most attention, try to get as much gopro action from people as you can and use the clips that have action. Example: Starting from the back makes much more interesting content than starting on the front row.
He might already know, but be aware of copyright stikes on music too.
Love it! The more he does it the easier it gets and he finds his “voice”. The production aspect is more time consuming initially as you work out the style.
For example, @Bokeno_Racing has a distinctive style-approach to his OVKA stuff, it’s on autopilot now that he’s been doing it a while and he probably can crank stuff out quickly for that client.
As far as goals/targets, he is not sure. Ultimate goal is to work in motorsport, preferably behind the wheel (but he has realistic expectations). This has sort of evolved on him. We are friends with and drove with one of the partners of Driven Performance during TSRS last year. They wanted to get an esports team going, but know little of it and knew Curt was heavily into it. So they tasked him with finding drivers, organizing the team, scheduling events, etc. Pretty much functioning as a lead driver, team principal, etc. Its taught him a lot, with very little financial commit from either party. They also have made a push into the American karting market this year and at times bounced ideas off of him and included him in planning discussions, partly to help him learn and grow and partly to get input from a target demographic. At 17 he will likely end up formally on the payroll in some capacity, but until then anything he does will likely be for trade of goods (goods he wants).
So out of all of this, he started making videos for the iRacing team and from that led to the request for trying to do some post edits and reels on footage they were putting together. The video I shared is a young Mexican driver that is working with them with hopes of progressing to professional motorsport and is driving multiple national series in the US at the moment on the FA Kart/DPK team.
I definitely recommend Adobe After Effects (referred to as Ae) or Adobe Premiere Pro (Pp). If you don’t want to pay, I would go for Davinci Resolve (I know all this BS bc I edit stuff). If you want to get fancy you can use Blender (my favorite paired with Ae), but I don’t recommend this as it takes an eternity to learn.
