Recently I've edited 15min feature film for the wedding and it took me about 36 hours. Here's the breakdown for each process. I'd like to know how you guys are doing for the same length of edit. I appreciate your feedback.

Project Preparation : 0.5
Footage Screening and Loggin : 6
Music Selection and Mark : 2.5
Editing : 15
Multicam Sync and Logging : 2
Color Grading : 8
Audio Sweetening : 2.5

Seriously? I'm sure it's beautiful but if it takes you 36 hours to edit a 15min wedding film, you need to reconsider your career options.

I don't do weddings, but I've just completed a 3 min show reel that has taken that kind of time - if it's complex, then some things take time, a 30 minute project might take only 5 hours? Depends what is in it, how many edits there are and how accurate they need to be. Working with music projects means much more precise edits to link material together, rather than a simple butt joint. That's why editing is always so different.

Seriously? I'm sure it's beautiful but if it takes you 36 hours to edit a 15min wedding film, you need to reconsider your career options.

What's your reasoning behind that?

The 3-4 minute wedding trailer (out of a total of about 4 hours),takes me about 4 hours to complete.

stelios

What's your reasoning behind that?

It's commonly accepted that standard editing time for a complex and fast paced corporate video, complete with vector graphics, titles, overlays, voiceovers etc takes approx 1hr editing per minute of final video.

If you are taking 3hrs to edit 1min of wedding video, you are either (1) grossly ineffiecient (2) grossly pedantic, (3) lying to impress your clients or (4) using Final Cut X

This is not meant as abuse to the OP, I just can't believe the numbers. Do you have family? Girlfriend? Other hobbies? :)

It's commonly accepted that standard editing time for a complex and fast paced corporate video, complete with vector graphics, titles, overlays, voiceovers etc takes approx 1hr editing per minute of final video.

If you are taking 3hrs to edit 1min of wedding video, you are either (1) grossly ineffiecient (2) grossly pedantic, (3) lying to impress your clients or (4) using Final Cut X

This is not meant as abuse to the OP, I just can't believe the numbers. Do you have family? Girlfriend? Other hobbies? :)

You cannot compare corporate edits to wedding edits. Corporate edits are clear-cut, straight forward and in my opinion, easier, in comparison to a short-form edit where the narrative/style/pace/music is all in the editors hands.

You also generally have a script/brief and shoot only what you need when it comes to corporate work.

Can anyone please post a clip which you have spent 3hrs editing each minute. I'm dying to see...

John, I'm not sure if the industry standard in your area is different, but from what I gathered, 30-60h seems to be about a decent average.

If you're interested in keeping yourself updated with what's going on around the world, here are some interesting events you might want to consider checking out:

IN[FOCUS] (http://www.infocusvideoevent.com/2013-video-education) (US)

Masters in Motion (http://shooteditlearn.com/) (US)

Mayad Academy 2012 | It's more fun in the Philippines! (http://mayadacademy.com/) (Philippines)

Exposed | Down Under (http://www.exposeddownunder.com.au/) (Australia)

Society Of Movement (https://www.facebook.com/SocietyOfMovement/events) (UK)

WPPI 2013 Wedding Photographer Trade Show (http://www.wppionline.com/wppi-show.shtml) (US)

WEVA (http://www.wevaexpo.com/) (US)

There could be more but I can't remember all of them. Hope this helps!

Seriously? I'm sure it's beautiful but if it takes you 36 hours to edit a 15min wedding film, you need to reconsider your career options.

I have known editors to obsess over a single cut for hours on end; they would tweak it, use different frames, cut on this frame or cut on that frame, chuck out the second scene and cut on a different scene, lose the original scene and match that to the new one, then chuck them both out and go back to square one. On and on it goes for just one cut.

Now, I used to edit news stories for broadcast TV using Sony PVE tape to tape machines, and we would often crank out 5 minute stories in about 15 minutes.

If you need to be quick; be quick. If not; take all the time in the world, so what?

I have known editors to obsess over a single cut for hours on end; they would tweak it, use different frames, cut on this frame or cut on that frame, chuck out the second scene and cut on a different scene, lose the original scene and match that to the new one, then chuck them both out and go back to square one. On and on it goes for just one cut.

You are correct.

There has been many times where I'm 12 hours into a highlight film, and the next day I watch it and wonder what I was thinking and rip it apart and tell the story differently. I think the more personally invested with the couple the longer it takes too cause you are really try to give them something that fits their vibe and story.

It takes me a good amount of time to edit, but thats just because I'm not all that efficient of an editor.

The color grading seems to be a bit long. With weddings I try to get as much looking good in camera as possible, then just go through and either fix bad shots, or just am tweaking saturation and mix lighting shots.

But I'd say if the final product is good and the couple is thrilled then don't worry about the time. Just make sure you are getting paid for that time cause when you do get into trouble is when you invest more than you can afford and it screws you in the end.

Can anyone please post a clip which you have spent 3hrs editing each minute. I'm dying to see...

I'll bite ..... it took me about 8 hours to complete this 4 minute highlight so its close enough

John & Pon - The Rest of our Lives on Vimeo

Kren

Hi John

I'm with you on this one. I think the guys are totally missing the point that weddings are a business. It you take 36 hours to edit a 15 min hilight thene unless you are doing it for free and hve nothing else better to do with your time, then I certainly hope that you are charging at least $4500 JUST for the highlight alone..that is based on the fact that that part of the filming/getting there and back/and 36 hours editing.

We have a local videographer that said once he took two days to get a 2 minute sequence done and is often known to take up to 6 months to deliver a wedding DVD to the bride.

Sometimes wedding videographers tend to border close to obsession with absolute prefection without considering the edit from a business costing point of view. It that's what turns some people on then great for them but I like to enjoy life too.

I'm doing a budget wedding edit today ..bridal prep shoot, outdoor ceremony, photoshoot on stedicam and reception up to the end of the first dance ....so about 70 -90 minutes of DVD and edit time is estimated at around 10 hours ... that's what I cost at so that the time I have to edit. Seriously what would one actually be doing on a 15 minute video with the 15 hours of "edit time' ...Do you have maybe 60 hours of footage to go thru???

I really cannot see how people doing these long winded edits and charging standard prices make any money!!

Chris

For this edit, It takes more than it usually take for the package. It was $3500 package with 3-4 min highlight and 13 - 17 min Feature film along with a Documentary Edit which doesn't take too long (generally 2-3 hrs) I usually set aside 45 - 55 hours for the entire edit and authoring (with motion menu and customized package design), and Feature films generally take about 25 -30 hrs. For this wedding , I did make few shooting mistakes that I have to correct in the post. Besides, It was one of the heart-warming wedding that you want to spend little more time to make it right! I had to do many secondary color correction with keyframing the mask, little bit of rotoscoping here and there.. I'm not sure if that is the normal practice in the event film industry, and I appreciate your honest opinion. Business-wise, I can run this practice without damaging the bottom line , although I can do better if I can be more fast, I guess.

I guess that depends on what you feel you are worth... If you take your initial at least 10 hours to actually attend the wedding, going to see the couple, attend the rehearsal and travelling cost and time plus your edit time you are actually coming out with around $50.00 an hour.

That's not really an issue as long as you feel that $50.00 an hour is a reasonable amount to pay yourself and if, of course, you shot the wedding solo. Too many videographers get wrapped up in getting super creative with the editing and end up forgetting that they are running a business and have expenses plus need to make a decent wack of cash to pay the bills too.

Often you have to stop yourself and say "Ok, that's good enough" ...Remember that brides don't have the same technical expertise as you and to them it's just a pretty video with nice music and memories and all your extra hard work isn't even noticed!

Chris

I'm doing a budget wedding edit today ..bridal prep shoot, outdoor ceremony, photoshoot on stedicam and reception up to the end of the first dance ....so about 70 -90 minutes of DVD and edit time is estimated at around 10 hours ... that's what I cost at so that the time I have to edit. Seriously what would one actually be doing on a 15 minute video with the 15 hours of "edit time' ...Do you have maybe 60 hours of footage to go thru???

Just by looking at some random wedding demo's on Vimeo I can pretty easy say which one was done in a few hours time and which took 4 times longer, one of those two I stop watching after 30 seconds and the other one I put in my favourites just for inspiration.

I could edit a full wedding in a day as well but it will be very straightforward cutting and adding music, quick money for me and a boring registration for the couple. In that sense I would be a smart businessman but I"m not. I do undercharge because it's almost impossible to charge a normal hour rate for weddings here, if I would I hardly would get a job. But I refuse to cut corners just to save time because for me it would just be a job and once I get that feeling I will quit with filming, it still feels like a passion now and I want that to reflect in my work.

Hi Noa

It not the time at all but what you make out of the wedding..If you can charge $7000 for a wedding then you can allocate 10 hours for shooting and 60 hours for editing and you make $100 an hour and the couple get a really stunning product that DID take a week to get perfect.

Now, if your market can only support say $2000 for a full wedding then you still have 10 hours to shoot it but to achieve what you are worth you only have 10 hours to edit it..If that's your market then you obviously need to shoot documentary style but you still make $100 an hour and the bride gets a product that's worth $2000 not $7000 ...It's simple arithmetic ..my market doesn't support $7000 weddings so I shoot documentary style!!

If, of course, you wish to do stunning, cinematic weddings that take you 60 hours to edit and still only charge $2000 then that is entirely up to you...you might have another income source or are just doing weddings cos you love them ...If that's what you want to achieve then I raise my hat to you sir, BUT you ain't gonna make a decent living out of it.

Chris

If you want people to pay you more for your work, you have to prove them that you're worth more. Not just once or twice, but time and time again, until everyone is convinced that you are really worth it.

The market doesn't change in just a day or two. It takes time for people to see and understand the value of high quality products. It can take years to perfect your craft, and even longer for people to see the real value of your work.

So it all comes down to what your short-term and long-term goals are. And most importantly, what really makes you happy. If you just want to run a smooth business that is profitable right now, then it is absolutely understandable that you don't see the point of doing more than what you're being paid for.

Otherwise, there are some obvious sacrifices that need to be made. You sometimes just have to bite the bullet, be patient, work harder and try to become better everyday. Success doesn't come easy to everyone.

I usually don't do weddings. Just for very close friends and family.
Last 14min film I done took me about 4 hours of editing, including titles, grading and music.

But I was senior editor for years, so I'm used to working extremely efficient.

It also helps, that I don't need to trancode my footage, don't have to render anything (except for final mastering) and know (since I shot it) my material inside out. So there is no need to go through every single clip. I sort them by timecode, start on top and edit along.

Frank

Frank, That is quite impressive. It takes more than 4 hours for me to just screening the footages. I use premiere pro cs6 so I don't have to transcode, but still i will never edit in 4 hours for 14min films. Do you set up the story line and music before the edit , much like same day edit, so when you shoot you only take what you need for the edit? Even in that case, it's quite impressive work process. I would appreciate if you share your edit process. Thanks!

Hi Long

That's a very admirable attitude but sadly not a good business one... By all means charge maybe a little less when you start but once you can produce a reasonable product then you should be paid for your time.

I really cannot see any reason to take years to prove to "people" that you are worth more? You are worth what you are worth and spending huge amounts of edit time as a dismal hourly rate isn't going to make people think you are worth more. Simply charge what you are worth, end of story and cost your videos according to your maket (it's no good being the best in the world and charging $20K per wedding if the village you live in are all poor) and edit your footage according to your costing.

Chris

Footage Screening and Loggin : 6
Multicam Sync and Logging : 2


John, are you shooting the footage, in addition to editing it? If you are shooting, then all the shots should be in your head. At the end of the night, you should be able to visualize how the big puzzle pieces will fit together, eliminating the steps above. If you didn't shoot, then fast forward through the entire day. You'll still be able to visualize how to put everything together once you run it through quickly.

Hi John

The earlier you log it the easier it is...if I shoot a wedding on Saturday I log it on Sunday as the shoot, as Warren says, is still fresh in your mind and you remember what you shot...Logging and skipping thru footage shouldn't take you much more than realtime at the most ..normally a lot less!! 6 hours to log seems to indicate you have 10 hours of footage to wade thru..in that case it will take you an awfully long time! Then again logging other peoples footage at a venue where you were not present is very tiresome..I certainly wouldn't want to do that!!!

I'm shooting in AVCHD so my camera creates a clip at every start band stop..logging is simply identifying the clips from the thumbnails and saying OK, clips 23 to 45 is the bridal prep and then as Warren says zip thru the footage with your shuttle control to give a fast forward scan and you are done.

During editing it's useful to remember that you have just the shot you need during the vows for your highlight and your log sheet will tell you which clip to grab and use.

Maybe if you tell us roughly how much you shoot, how many cameras/operators and when you log then we can throw some hints your way to speed up your process.

Chris

This is going to be a hint off topic, but goes along with the discussion about value of time spent here.

What too many people don't understand, is how to "cost out" their business. We all have heard a wedding video done doc sxtyle should cost the customer $XXXX and a cinematic style should cost the customer $XXXX more, but few have an idea what it costs THEM to actually produce this for sale. Until you know and understand what your REAL cost is, you have no idea if you are making or losing money on your business, until maybe its too late. Everything associated with creating a wedding video has a cost to you. Everything from the cameras down to the power to run your computer, you have to pay for, in order to create your videos.

Let's start with cameras. You pay $XXXX for them and you will use them for X years. At the end of X years you will be able to sell them for $XXX. The difference between those two amounts is your depreciation and you divide that number by the amount of time, in this case, years. That gives you your annual cost to just own the cameras.

On to your computer. Do the same as with your cameras, calculate your annual cost to just own your computer.

Software or upgrades, same as cameras and computer, you need to calculate your annual cost of owning it.

Audio gear, same as everything else, you need to find your annual cost in this as well.

Tripods and heads, steadicams, sliders, cranes etc. you need this annual cost calculated.

Will you print DVD covers or DVDs ??? Need to calculate the annual cost of that printer and possibly the DVD burner/duplicator if it's separate from the computer.

If you notice, you have not yet shot even one frame of footage or even turned the computer on and already are spending lots of money, to be able to create wedding videos. You say "but Chip, you are a moron, I already OWN all that stuff." I look at you and say "GREAT....now tell me..... where's the money going to come from when you wear it all out???"

SD cards, extra batteries, ink for the printer, DVD blanks and covers, maintenance/repairs on the gear, you need to estimate a total here and make that as an annual cost.

Internet access for the computer, data and cell service for your phone, electricity to run that computer and insanely huge monitor, portions of these bills are associated with your business so you need to calculate a percentage and add these costs to come up with an annual expense.

Website, business cards, pamphlets, flyers, any other forms of advertizing, add them up for an annual cost.

Business use of vehicle or cost of public transportation to get around to conduct business. In the US the government uses approximately $.50 per mile driven, as it's estimate of your cost to drive your own car for business purposes. If you know your use last year, use that. If not, make an estimate of how many miles you will drive for everything and anything related to your business and calculate your mileage expense. If you use public transportation, make an annual estimate of what that will cost you.

I am sure there are others to be added to this list, depending on your situation, your business model etc. Things like health insurance, wages for a second shooter, sublet work for editing or audio, anything you will need to pay for. If you know you already need/use those, add it in as an annual cost.

Now you add all that up and come up with your total annual estimated cost of being in business to be able to create wedding videos for customers. You take that annual total and divide it by the number of weddings you will shoot in a year and you have that portion of your cost per wedding figured out.

What is missing from this list this list so far, is what others are talking about, you haven't paid yourself yet.But if your wedding video costs the customer $3000 and your cost per wedding for expenses is $300, gross to you is down to $2700. You notice those costs don't scale much with the price point the customer pays, they are set regardless of what you charge. So if you only charge $2000, your gross is now $1700.

If you are doing this as a hobby or its your passion and are doing it more for the enjoyment or art of it all, you probably could care less how much money you make. Your personal satisfaction is your goal. If you are looking at this as a business, then you need to cost out your time as well.

To cost out your time for this, you need to consider what job you could have and be doing, during the hours of the day and for the amount of time you are spending creating videos. If you spend just nights and weekends creating videos, that job you could have during those hours would most likely be a low paying job. If you have skills and are doing this during the normal business day, that job you could have could be a more career centered job that pays substantially better. Whichever type job is what you could realistically get to be working and earning a paycheck during the hours you spend now, that is the one you select for this. You need to investigate and determine what an hourly rate of pay and hourly value of BENEFITS would be associated working for someone else instead of creating videos.

In case you don't get it so far, costing you out is about assessing a VALUE to your TIME. Time is a finite commodity and someone will buy it from you, to accomplish something for them. When someone is willing to buy something from you, that's when you determine value. Just like your videos. You may think they are worth $50K but if no one will buy them from you for that price, that is not their true value. But I am digressing here.

So we have your costs per wedding for your gear and expenses and now we should have your cost per hour of what your time could be sold for on the open job market. Take your average number of hours spent shooting and creating your videos and multiply times the hourly rate you could be earning elsewhere to give you your total time value. Take that time value, add it to your expenses total and you come up with a fairly complete costing of what it takes you to create a wedding video for your customer.

You have your total cost now and you already know what you charge. Subtract your cost total from your sales price and that is the amount of profit (if it's a positive number) your company made doing business. If that subtracted amount is a negative number, that is how much it COST YOU to create wedding videos for other people, instead of just working for someone else.

Hey Chip

Its far from being off topic as edit time is money time and the longer you edit (unless you are a hobbist) the less money you are making.
It;s a compromise between being a business person and an artist. Just note that wherever you go in the world true artists are usually the poorest of the poor as they dedicate so much time to a work of art that might sell for a fraction of what the artist's time is worth. That's why I still give poor Long a hard time as he tends to look towards the artistic side to generate a reputation and then can charge more for his work.
Musicians tend to be in the same category too (I know, my daughter is one!!)

I did read on another forum once that if you calculate your actually costs plus your time based on what you would be paid in a normal job, a wedding video needs to be above the $3K mark at least to make it worth your while!! Sometimes, of course, brides in your area just won't pay that much!!

It is still very important to look at all your costs...going out to see a couple to sign them up might take a 2 hour chunk out of your day and some mileage and wear and tear on your car too...attending a rehearsal also can do the same thing. You have to keep these costs in check and then it's important to be practical about editing...sitting at the computer fussing over details for 3 hours that the bride won't even see needs to be addressed. We tend to be over critical of our work and way, way to technical as well!! Just remember (unless you have a weird desire to just impress forum viewers with your technical skills) that the bride is really only interested in the content. She isn't going to get out a magnifier to check resolution and technical perfection ...if the shots are in focus and the dresses are the correct colour and the audio is clean..that is all she wants. A perfect example is a bride who showed me a sample from another videographer (shot on a large format sensor) with really stunning focus pulls and a tiny DOF. She wanted to know from me why the people behind her were "fuzzy" and told me she wanted everything "clear" like she saw on my sample DVD.

Take a serious look at your costs, it might be that you could make more money flipping burgers at the weekend with current time usage so it's a very important (though not so interesting) part of being a wedding videographer.

Chris

That's why I still give poor Long a hard time as he tends to look towards the artistic side to generate a reputation and then can charge more for his work.

Hi Chris,

You don't need to worry about giving "poor Long" a hard time for doing things the way I do them. I'm doing just fine with my filmmaking career and I'm confident that the future is looking promising :) I'm simply here to share some thoughts based on my own experience hoping it could help others who are still stuck in the sub $2000 wedding video market and want get out of it.

By no means am I saying that what worked for me would work for everyone else. But I know for sure that it helped me get through darker days when I used to struggle and think that I'll never make enough money to survive in this industry.

Maybe I'm just the luckiest guy in the world and circumstances have lead me to a better path than I ever thought possible. In fact, I do know that I'm one very lucky person for being able to learn from who I believe are the best people in the industry and I'll forever be grateful for that. But nevertheless, I know I've been working very hard for it and will keep on doing so.

If my opinion doesn't reflect yours, please accept my apologies in advance.

Cheers!

Long

Hi Long

Not at all..in fact you have my undying admiration for making such a great effort!! As you say it works for you but it might not work for others.

I do weddings strictly as a business not to enhance my creative talent simply because the market doesn't cater for brides who are prepared to spend a decent amount of money...Over here wedding videos are way down the list of priorities whether they are good or not so good so it's considered a bit of an extra..You find here most brides are happy to spend $3K (by niece actually spend $5K!!) on a photographer for 6 hours and then they might get a video IF they have a few pennies left so you know that you are not going to sell a $3K wedding video to them at all. The main reason they get video is if either Mum or Dad pay for it or they have a lot of overseas family who ask for a DVD.

You are doing well so keep doing what you are doing!!

Chris

Last 14min film I done took me about 4 hours of editing, including titles, grading and music.

Much also depends on how much raw footage you have, if there is one camera used and no external audio recorders and you only have 1 hour of raw material on the timeline, you could do a 14 minute edit in 2 hour or less. I also don't check every single clip, just trow it on the timeline and give a quick scrub over it to maybe check some specific shots to see if I got it right :).

Transcoding is also not necessery in my case in Edius 6.5 so the time between importing and starting to edit is just a matter of 1 minute. I just put all footage on the timeline and start to do my rough clean up there, once that is done I copy it to a second sequence and start to finetune each part of the day as a separate sequence.

If I have some interesting b roll footage that's spread throughout the timeline and what I want to use together I just put it in a bin when I see it for later use. Color correcting is also very basic, the color of my camera allready looks good so I just boost the color a bit so it pops more and that's done with a preset, with my dslr I often film now with the technicolor cinestyle preset when it gets real dark and for that I also have a yuv preset that is adapted to get the colors back. Otherwise maybe just correcting some mistakes I made with whitebalancing but other then that I don't spend time on this part.

I'm awful, truly awful, at business, and really appreciate Chip and Chris' thoughts in this thread.

One unbusinesslike thought I wanted to add -- I wouldn't be surprised if, on at least some level, many (most?) people who film weddings like filming weddings, and don't charge what their time could be worth in an open market. Instead, they're making an economic compromise in exchange for job satisfaction or lifestyle.

Ditto with many jobs, I suppose. Not everyone who can pull down a lawyer's or a banker's salary wants to sell their soul for it. Not everyone who could be earning a miner's salary wants to put their neck on the line for it.

Hi Adrian

Very good point...At least you are getting paid for something you enjoy doing and it a social occasion plus you normally get a meal and soft drinks too...Taking the mistress/wife/girlfriend out for the night is going to set you back a fair wack so it's fair to say that is worth something!! Plus you forgot the fact that as a wedding videographer you don't have to crawl out of bed at 5am on Monday morning and face the freeway gridlock for an hour to get to a job you probably don't even like.

All that is worth a bit of a discount to your rate of course, but it's still important to cost out correctly first ..you can always give the couple an entertainment/social discount later on your true price!!

Chris

I'm awful, truly awful, at business, and really appreciate Chip and Chris' thoughts in this thread.

One unbusinesslike thought I wanted to add -- I wouldn't be surprised if, on at least some level, many (most?) people who film weddings like filming weddings, and don't charge what their time could be worth in an open market. Instead, they're making an economic compromise in exchange for job satisfaction or lifestyle.

Ditto with many jobs, I suppose. Not everyone who can pull down a lawyer's or a banker's salary wants to sell their soul for it. Not everyone who could be earning a miner's salary wants to put their neck on the line for it.

Hey Adrian,

One thing you will sometimes hear from documentary style videographers who have been around for many years is that the cinema style videographers are desperate artists who have no sense of business. Their reasoning is very understandable if you think about their background. The traditional wedding documentary business has been around since the beginning of time. It is clear by now that people have already figured out how to run this type of business properly.

On the opposite side, the cinema style wedding business is still fairly young in many areas in the world. A lot of companies are still in their trials and error stage. Therefore, it wouldn't be uncommon to find companies who are undercharging for their service or still trying to figure out how to market themselves while only a few ones are making good money. From an outsider's point of view, it's easy to think that many of us don't know what we're doing and are not good business people.

Speaking from personal experience, I won't lie to you and say that you have to be ready to make sacrifices and invest time and money before you can start getting an interesting income if you want to get into the cinema style. I think it's the case for most new business concepts, not just weddings. However, the potential is definitely huge. Just look at the biggest names all around the world and how much they charge. You will know that the dominant style is evident. What's even more interesting at this day and age is that you don't need to only limit yourself to your local area anymore. If you are good enough, you can easily find contracts everywhere.

Obviously enough, it's far from being easy to make it that big. Because if it was, everyone would be rich by now. But I think it all boils down to what your personal goals are and how you plan on reaching them. As long as it makes sense for you, there's no right or wrong ways of doing things. Just look at the differences between Chris and I and I think we can agree that there's more than one approach to the business.

Long

I'm going to echo Long's post. I used to use the "in my market" argument a lot. I just wasn't thinking, shooting, editing, or marketing right. It wasn't my market that was the problem. It was me. Also, I think any business owner that spends more than a few hours with an edit is not using his or her time as efficiently as they could. Editors are relatively easy to find in any size market and they can be very cost effective. Then, you as a business owner get to become a director. Guide the edit, be strict in your standards, and you build a business that is also creative. Not to mention you can get interns from any local college to make DVDs and handle shipping, logging, backup. And you direct the workflow. It works. I did it, in a lot smaller market than Perth... :) Interesting conversation.
Bill

Adrian....

Going through this exercise only gives you the knowledge of where you stand when you are done creating a video. You either generated a profit doing so, or you could have created more wealth for yourself by investing your time elsewhere. It's a very cut and dried analysis, cold and heartless also.

We have all heard or even have said "well, its just my time" as if the person saying that considers their "time" as something of no value. Time is a commodity and that commodity is finite. Because it is a finite commodity that can not be created out of thin air, people will purchase more of it from others, to accomplish what they desire and cannot accomplish in the amount of time they currently have.

When you engage in creating a video, you are selling your time and a portion of your other costs to someone. If you are doing your creation and creating a profit, that time was completely purchased by your customer. IF this calculation shows you are not creating a profit and creating your videos is costing YOU, then you are selling a portion of your time to your customer and the rest of your time that the customer isn't paying for, you are selling your time to yourself.

By doing this exercise, when completed, you should see that if you could make changes to some of the various factors affecting your costs, the final calculation changes too. So as in this thread where they are discussing improving editing efficiency, they not only will reduce time spent, but that efficiency will also reduce the cost to create that video. If quality is maintained during efficiency so the sales price remains the same, the final calculation becomes a more positive amount than before applying the efficiency.

But you bring up a good point, personal enjoyment. This exercise makes no conclusions to right way or wrong way, having fun or not. It just gives you a positive or negative number. Maybe you will see you could make more money working as a ditch digger instead of creating the videos you enjoy doing. Maybe you will find out that, even though you may HATE doing weddings, you can't make the same kind of money elsewhere. This is where only you can factor in your own personal preferences, but now doing it knowing where you stand.

It's very interesting to see how different everybody works and this shows me that often I'm very slow.

I don't do weddings, but for me it's never about how much money I get for a project. I try always my very best and therefor often I can't do the cheaper jobs. If I find out later that I'm way slower than I expected, it's my own problem and not my customers.

However, my editing time mostly depends on how much footage I have to select. Often my longest projects are JUST my private vacation videos.

For example: I did spent about 50 hours for a private 5 minute video which I just did for my best friend and myself. OK, later I decided to upload it on Youtube, but I'll never earn money with it. The reason why it took me so long was the fact that I had more than 30 hours on each of the 2 GoPro cameras. So to find the best sequences is work. Again I don't do weddings, but I'm sure you also create tons of footage, so the selection is what is taking most of the time. Not the editing itself.

Hi Swen

Personal videos are a completely different story..you do them in your own free time so if they take you 5 hours or 50 hours it doesn't really matter...you are not being paid for them and you are getting enjoyment from them...editing vacation/own time videos are half the fun anyway as you are not under any delivery date pressure..if it takes you a month to finish you haven't lost any money cos it's your time.

Just enjoy them!!

Chris

Hi Long

Sorry, but whether you shoot DSLR, video camera, documentary or cinematic all business rules apply if you want to make a decent profit.

You can't say because you used a DSLR and did a creative shoot for a certain wedding that you should make a loss on it. In fact, you should be making a bigger profit because you expended more effort and you should be able to add a little "value-plus" for your outstanding creativity too.

It's your own choice if you want to use tools that make the shoot and edit a lot longer but based on the creativeness and beauty of the finished product you are entitled to charge that much more...never undersell your services! You are still worth XXX per hour regardless if if do a quickie shoot with a handycam and an upload to YouTube or a multicam wedding with C300's so charge accordingly for your time.

Chris

Chris,
I think the point that Long was trying to make is that the potential for money making is greater with creative projects than with straight doc and it's a process to work up to... Also, I have to agree about enjoying your work. I make about the same as when I had a jobby job but I am so much more happy being creative than working a 9 to 5 putting money in someone else's pocket.
Bill

Hi Chris,

As Bill stated, one important thing many people seem to overlook is the potential growth in production value.

I think it's no secret that a wedding documentary service can normally be found between $1-2K while a creative wedding film can be found anywhere between $1-20K.

Depending on where you are currently standing, you can either be at loss or making very good profits.

Another thing many people don't always think about is the investment part. For documentary style videographers, I can understand that this can easily be forgotten. Because once you have reached the max possible income for a wedding project, it is hard to imagine that one can invest any more time or money back into the business as opposed to many wedding filmmakers who still have a long way to go until they reach their limit.

Long

Hi Bill

Yep I do understand his point and see where he is going...I guess it's really up to him except if you put 60 hours into a job that's costed at 30 hours purely to "enhance" your reputation until you think you are worth 60 hours pay then it's tough to say "Ok guys, I was a crappy videographer five years ago but now I'm awesome so my prices are going up double cos I deserve it"

I'm sure Long is already worth a lot more than he is charging already BUT my simple point that I was trying to get across was regardless of how brilliant you are, unless the infrastructure you are targeting can actually support your eventual top prices then you will have to continue to work for a lot less than you should be getting.

I'm sure Long has already researched his market carefully and even if he is charging $1000 (just abribary figures of course) but as soon as he "gets really good" he can charge $4000 then there actually WILL be a market in his area. (which I'm sure he knows)

Chris

I'm just not sure the market part is valid. There are guys in NY that would tell you nobody in big cities values video. I know that if I had researched my market first, I would've stayed with Doc style. Make efficient money and move on. Because I chose to push into a more creative, emotional style, I have been able to surge forward in less than a year. I have stopped worrying about my market and started focusing on creating something that brides want. All of this analysis means nothing if you aren't doing what you want. HOWEVER. if you are doing what you want in making simple docs, then that is perfect. That's what perspective's are for.
Bill

I just find it funny that people can quickly jump to conclusions and say that an edit is non-profitable and unworthy without even gathering half of the information...

1) What is the desired result that the editor is trying to achieve?
2) How much is he getting paid for the edit?
3) How much content is there?
4) What kind of content is it?
5) What tools is he using?

Without knowing these elements, there is no way you can tell if an editor is fast or slow, and if he's getting overpaid or underpaid.

Well, OP gave a good breakdown which rang alarm bells for me. "Color Grading: 8hrs" for a 15min film is out of the ballpark. I've colorgraded for years, mainly in simple Premiere filters, but lately more custom work with Colorista II and Looks so I know how long it should take a competent editor. Not a fast one, nor a ultra-experienced one. Just a competent one.

1 hour maximum is all it should take.

Stephen Hawkins, blindfolded, high on crack, and editing with his nose would only take 2hrs.

Frank, That is quite impressive. It takes more than 4 hours for me to just screening the footages. ... I would appreciate if you share your edit process. Thanks!

I'm not able to remember my own phone number, or my girlfriend's birthday - but I never forget a picture - I seem to have (after all those years of editing) a very good brain for visual stuff.

So while shooting, it almost does an automatic rough edit (I n´know it sounds strange).
I try to edit as soon as possible after the shooting, while it is still fresh.
I dump all my cards to my Raid, and scrub through the clips. As soon as I see the part I want (i.e. remember it from shooting) I "in-out" it and throw it at the timeline. Rough cut done.
Than I look for music and pace my cut accordingly - some rearranging and fine tuning and that's picture lock.
Slap some titles on it and do the grading - done.

I think I have said enough that is obviously falling on deaf ears so here is some even better advice.

Take as long as you like to get your edit absolutely perfect ... if guys want to spend 60 hours on an edit then shucks it's your time!! Thr OP was simply asking if his times were normal or not ...obviously normal for some is not normal for others.

Like Frank I also 'edit in my head' mainly because like people such as Don Bloom and that era we are used to shooting-to-edit so we actually have very efficient and compact raw footage then is almost ready to edit and doesn't have any bad, wobbly or out of focus shots in it. In the days on linear editing you just had to shoot that way.

Chris

Well, OP gave a good breakdown which rang alarm bells for me. "Color Grading: 8hrs" for a 15min film is out of the ballpark. I've colorgraded for years, mainly in simple Premiere filters, but lately more custom work with Colorista II and Looks so I know how long it should take a competent editor. Not a fast one, nor a ultra-experienced one. Just a competent one.

1 hour maximum is all it should take.

Stephen Hawkins, blindfolded, high on crack, and editing with his nose would only take 2hrs.

Color grading for this one took way more than it usually takes since it was 6:30 wedding ceremony and has no proper lighting. had to do a lot of second grading with mask tracking and keying. I also gave it a shot to Resolve 9 this time and try to grade with it for the half of the footages. Since node based grading is the new thing for me that cost me lots of trial and error. I'm not sure RAW shooting will be get popular in wedding industry but I think it's another area that you can separate from the peers to get ahead.

I'm not able to remember my own phone number, or my girlfriend's birthday - but I never forget a picture - I seem to have (after all those years of editing) a very good brain for visual stuff.

So while shooting, it almost does an automatic rough edit (I n´know it sounds strange).
I try to edit as soon as possible after the shooting, while it is still fresh.
I dump all my cards to my Raid, and scrub through the clips. As soon as I see the part I want (i.e. remember it from shooting) I "in-out" it and throw it at the timeline. Rough cut done.
Than I look for music and pace my cut accordingly - some rearranging and fine tuning and that's picture lock.
Slap some titles on it and do the grading - done.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you direct the second shooter ( or other shooters) to get the footage you have in your mind so that you don't have to go through all the footages from them?

I'm not sure RAW shooting will be get popular in wedding industry but I think it's another area that you can separate from the peers to get ahead.

I don't believe in that, raw is ok in controlled shoots with a script, if I had to shoot raw that would result in 1 to 2 terabyte on footage alone and then starts the cumbersome workflow. A BMC camera is not something you would like to use at a wedding to shoot Raw with, prores maybe but even then it's not the type of camera to cover these type of run and gun events.

Hey John,

A practice I've seen some companies do is to:

1) Pay a little extra to your shooters and to have them rough cut their own footage and prepare a clean timeline for you. This can sometimes also be beneficial for the shooter because they can review their own footage and see what mistakes they made. If they end up with a lot of bad shots that will require them to spend more time cleaning up, they will most likely learn to shoot better next time and get more things right in camera.

2) Hire a freelance or part-time editor to only work on the rough cut and sync part and give you a clean timeline so you only need to work on putting the pieces together for your film

3) Hire someone to work on the entire edit from A-Z and you only act as a director who provides feedback and revision so they can modify the piece until you are satisfied.

All of the above suggestions will obviously save you a lot of time but will obviously require some monetary investment from your end.

As for directing shooters, it can depend a lot on the skill level and trust you have for your shooters. Some of them require little to no direction and will give you very solid footage and some will require a little more guidance. It also depends on how long they have been working with you and how familiar they are with your style. But in general, if you already have a little plan or vision in your mind, it is always good to brief your team prior to the event so everyone has an idea of what they should aim for and try to achieve.

Hope this helps,

Long

I don't believe in that, raw is ok in controlled shoots with a script, if I had to shoot raw that would result in 1 to 2 terabyte on footage alone and then starts the cumbersome workflow. A BMC camera is not something you would like to use at a wedding to shoot Raw with, prores maybe but even then it's not the type of camera to cover these type of run and gun events.

I agree with that. I don't mean to shoot the whole wedding with RAW. BMCC is not ready for that. But I think, when in Bride Prep or First meet, I can shoot with it for beauty shot, like posing her next to the window with natural light so that I can retain some highlight information. You can also get CU or ECU on Bride's face since it's resolution capabilities is just amazing. I guess 20 - 30 min footage will be good to be used in the edit.

Hey John,

A practice I've seen some companies do is to:

1) Pay a little extra to your shooters and to have them rough cut their own footage and prepare a clean timeline for you. This can sometimes also be beneficial for the shooter because they can review their own footage and see what mistakes they made. If they end up with a lot of bad shots that will require them to spend more time cleaning up, they will most likely learn to shoot better next time and get more things right in camera.

2) Hire a freelance or part-time editor to only work on the rough cut and sync part and give you a clean timeline so you only need to work on putting the pieces together for your film

3) Hire someone to work on the entire edit from A-Z and you only act as a director who provides feedback and revision so they can modify the piece until you are satisfied.

All of the above suggestions will obviously save you a lot of time but will obviously require some monetary investment from your end.

As for directing shooters, it can depend a lot on the skill level and trust you have for your shooters. Some of them require little to no direction and will give you very solid footage and some will require a little more guidance. It also depends on how long they have been working with you and how familiar they are with your style. But in general, if you already have a little plan or vision in your mind, it is always good to brief your team prior to the event so everyone has an idea of what they should aim for and try to achieve.

Hope this helps,

Long

HI, Long Thank you for your valuable and thoughtful information. I have my colleagues working for me for edit and second shooting full time. We both edit and shoot, but we might need to outsource the edit for the simple package that just need the standard editing since I'd like to invest little bit more time to develop different styles of film for the high-end package. Thanks for your suggestion!