shooting evidence handling for a law firm. Will be traveling to three different locations. Just me and a Z1 and tripod. I will be shooting this, and burning the tapes to DVD with about four copies. I am figuring 1 DVD
per two hours of tape, so about 8-10 dvds since they need four copies. This ends up about a 12hr day with all the travel.

Scott,
My day rate is for an 8 hour day-overtime is charged at the rate I describe in the proposal. Now I might cut a deal to include a certain amount of OT as part of the day rate (of course the rate then is increased to cover). As for the editing process, well, I guess it depends on how much time you think it'll entail. Lets say its an extra day, 8 hours, to load, edit, author and burn the DVDS. Why not just charge your normal day rate for that as well. SO if the job takes 1 day to shoot and 1 day to edit and burn...2 days...1 day at your normal day rate to edit and burn and 1 day at an increased rate for shooting (includes OT). I think that should cover you from a time standpoint and allow you to make a bit of profit.
HTHs
Don

my contact says they only want to pay between 50 and 70 per hour. I am bidding it at 80. No editing involved. I will transfer the tapes to my standalone burner via firewire, or s-video if I need to datacode them with
date and time. I figure about 20 hours total, plus materials.

Ahh, no edit and so a "quicky" DVD job. Well, that makes a difference. At $80 p/h on a 20 hour job thats $1600 so it kind of sounds like you'd be in the ballpark.
Good luck, I hope you ge the gig.
Don

Make sure you have a good contract that makes you responsible for NOTHING besides "best efforts".

Be clear on what court rules you need to follow, something like a timecode break or not keeping original tapes COULD invaldate the whole effort in some situations, depending on what you are doing.

You might also negotiate an "expert witness" rate now, in case you have to testify as to how the tapes/DVDs were made.