I still consider myself a beginner in many respects. When I do similar projects they pay me between $350 - $500, depending on a few variables;
1. Format of original footage (tape, SD Card, or hard drive)
2. Total time of footage that has to be edited (do they give you 4 hours of footage that has to be turned into a 30 second commercial or do they give you 20 minutes worth of footage?).
3. Finished Media, DVD, BluRay, or web format (High Definition for web or BluRay is always more expensive as it is generally more time consuming)
For the $350 -$500 I probably put in 30 hours of work, it isn't really worth it and I obviously don't do it for the money. I am learning that the more I do, the faster I get and, the rate per hour is increasing (not the gross pay however).
It used to take me 40+ hours to do a 5 minute video segment.
That is taking roughly 2 hours of interview video from 2 or 3 cameras, syncing them all up, editing down to 5 minutes and adding background music and B roll footage (another hour of video to sort through). After doing a few of these now the time spent is down to a little over 30 hours each. The rate was $450 per segment when it took me 40 hours and it is still $450 now that it takes me 30 hours but my hourly wage out of that has gone up
A professional production company would get $1000's to do a 30 second commercial, probably 10's of 1000's.
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