question about live DVDs for bands.

[Alfred Tomaszewski]

Can anyone give me the ball park price or a quote for a live DVD. to shoot: one or more shows, interviews, and extras. to edit: an intro, live shows, and extras. and author the DVD.

i heard the poison the well DVD "Tear From the Road" cost $25000 to produce.

any information or quotes on this subject would be very helpful.

[Rik Sanchez]

What kind of cameras, how many will you use? Also, do you own them or have to rent?

Will you have to go on tour with the band or is it all shot in one town?

Shooting two live shows at one club with 3 cameras is one thing, having to go on the road with them and bringing the cameramen along is another, then you have hotels, food, etc.. to factor in.

The more info we have the better we can help you.

[Alfred Tomaszewski]

Rik:

We have two vx2000s, a vx1000, and a gl1. We filmed 11 shows and it included much traveling. Almost the whole northeastern coast.

We will be editing about 33 songs (song doubles) for them to chose from, plus all the extras. we will also be authoring the dvd.

We are looking for a price to give them, we are looking for between $10,000-15,000. Does that seem like a reasonable price.

this will be a nationally released dvd.

[Corey MacGregor]

I'm actually about to start a project just like that as well. $10-15000 sounds like a reasonable price. I would start at fifteen and negotiate from there. My project unfortunately has a budget of $2000 so that's what i have to work with, but i'm gonna try to get a percentage of every sale kinda deal. Their dvd will also be sold nationally so even though i only get $2000 up front i'm hoping the percentage of sales will make me some more money.
What i'm doing is shooting a local show for the band with 5 gl2's and recording the audio with a protools 001 multitrack. Then going on tour with them for about 1 week and cutting that footage into the local show. Also a behind the scenes on tour segment will be edited from the "non show" footage that i get from the tour. The dvd will also include a bunch of extras like music videos, pictures, past interviews, ect...
I'd like to hear if you had any unexpected problems on tour that i might not have anticipated yet or any other advice you have to offer. thanks! oh yeah, the anti flag video rocked!

Corey

[Alfred Tomaszewski]

thank you for your kind words about the music video. no not much really went down that was unexpected except that you should ask the band for an "all access" lamanant because we recieved lots fo trouble from the venue when we wanted to film behind the barracades. it was difficult to explain to them that the band was paying for us to be there and when we had the pass no questions we asked. that is the only advice i can give. What band are you working with?

good luck with your project.

[Rik Sanchez]

Alfred,
that sounds like a good starting point, 15,000 Just make sure to have everything broken down so that way the band knows where all the money goes to:

Tapes=600
cameramen=300/day, etc...

we did a fashion show video for a big beauty college, they were asking why it costs so much and once I broke it all down and wrote out the whole budget listing how much each thing was, then they realize it wasn't so much money.

It also might be a good idea to start your price list, list your prices for a camera + cameraman/per day, other equipment you have, dvd authoring fee, editing fee, it will make it easier for the next gig, then the band will know roughly how much it will cost and you can shoot more or less according to their budget.

I'd hate to see you get in a position where you do a lot of work but they can't afford to pay the full price so you finish the work anyway and you end up putting in more time and effort for less money. Been there before, now I don't start shooting until the price has been set and I know I will make some money from the gig.

Definitely try to get a percentage of the sales, the lower the budget, the higher the percentage.

good luck.