creating estimate for filming conference

[Ed Stevens]

Our design firm has been selected to shoot a two day conference with multiple workshops throughout the two day period. We will also be required to set up 3 cameras in three rooms that will also have workshops throughout the day.

Although we're relatively new to filming we weren't sure about rates to charge or one flat fee. If anyone can offer feedback it would be very appreciated. Also, please let me know if you need more information from me in order to determine the cost.

Thanks in advance.

[Don Bloom]

Hmmm, seems like I just answered something similar.
Anyway, 3 cameras, how many people to run 'em? Any sound person needed? How about equipment other than cameras and tripods? Audio gear? What is the finished product going to be? Are you just giving them RAW tapes, are you going to burn the RAW footage to DVD are you going to do any editing? How much time is needed to do editing, how many copies if more than 1?
How many hours on the job per person?

These would be the first things I'd want to know if it was me doing the job.
Oh yeah, don't forget to figure in travel time both ways, load in and set up time, strike time and load out. It all adds up.

[Asvaldur Kristjansson]

On the same notes as Don: What will the end product be? Will you need to edit in allt the slides for DVD or make a multimedia CD. Do you have audio feed from the conference or do you need to handle the sound your self. Note, almost always there will be Q&A from the audience at the end of each speaker that you need to get.

[Noel Lising]

I recently did a 4 day shoot for a conference, this is how I billed my client:

Camera Rental- $ 150/day x 4
Cameraman Fee- $ 22.50 x 8 hours x 4
Tape Stock- Provided for
Laptop - $ 100/day ( Capturing video by encoder). End product is being posted online synched to PPT.

Audio provided by AV Company. I agree with Don there will be Q & A and in my experience some of the participants will not use the floor mic for questions. Ask the presenter to repeat the question posted if the participant does not use the mic. It will also be a safety net to inform the conference coordinator to REPEATEDLY announce that the session is being recorded and that they should use the Floor Microphone for questions.

Good luck.

[Ed Stevens]

Thanks for all the input. I don't know that there will be an audio feed so we'll need to make sure the camera and mic are close to the podiums.

The finished product will be handed off as a master dvd. May need to create separate clips for the web...? This will be the first time for us and the client to have this conference videotaped so a lot of this is new.

The conference is not far away in a neighboring city so the travel time is about a half hour.

[Don Bloom]

Ed,
If you don't get an audio feed you might want to consider placing your own mic on the podium back to the camera (wireless) OR even a stand alone recorder like the Zoom. I've done a lot of seminars and the last thing I would ever want to do is rely on a shotgun or hypercaroid to get the speakers audio.
Of course if you have a mixer you might supply and use that to run all the audio and that way you can pull a feed back to the camera. That is if the client is willing to pay for it, otherwise I would mic the podium myself back to the camera.