# Greenscreen Gig... what to charge?



## DGMPhotography (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey guys, 

Could use a little input. 

So here's the scenario: a photography company connects with kids' sports teams to create green screen images. They're looking to hire me to do the picture taking, possibly as a semi-regular gig, depending on the season, and to do the cutting for the green screen images. Here's their website: http://www.sportsportraits.net/Gallery.html

My current base price, as advertised, is $100 (plus fees) for a two-hour session, which would normally include basic editing like white balance, cropping, etc. But of course green screen is going to take a bit more time. She is looking for me to give her a lump price per team of 12-14 kids, with about 4 pictures per kid (with about 1-2 of them actually being chosen for green screen editing). Her estimate is 1 hour of shooting for this, plus however long it takes me to edit (which is usually about an hour per image for green screen). 

I've been thinking of raising my prices anyway, so now might be a good time. In your experience, what would you charge for this kind of work?

Thanks!


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## pixmedic (Jun 17, 2014)

we charge $200 for portraits. 1 person, up to 10 images on disk. prints al a carte. $50 per additional person. 
we don't do a lot of green screen work, usually black or white muslin, but we don't have a different price when we do use it. 

are you looking at one shot with 12-14 people, or individual shots of each of them?
'cause if its individual shots with 4 shots per kid...i kinda see that as taking a wee bit more than an hour to shoot...
4 shots per kid isn't  bad. 

if this were someone i was looking to give a "deal" too, i would quote it out around $2000. 
the problem with giving deals though, is that it  becomes the expected price later.


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## TheNevadanStig (Jun 17, 2014)

I wouldn't cut a deal at all IMO. You are doing the work so someone else can make money off your labor. I wouldn't price out anything until you get an idea of THEY are expecting to pocket out of this. Remember, none of the parents are going to even know who did the pictures, and this portrait company is going to be taking all of the credit. These are things that should be pretty valuable to you.


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## curtyoungblood (Jun 17, 2014)

This isn't the same thing as shooting 12-14 portrait sessions. In a 2 hour portrait session, you're going to really work with your client to get a variety of looks with different poses, backgrounds, and expressions. Your client is going to pick several photos that they really like. For this green screen work, you need to get a couple of shots of each kid so that you have a single image that is good enough. Once you've got a shot where the kid has his eyes open and looks happy, you move on. You don't want to change anything between sittings except for the kid. I think an hour for 12-14 kids is about right. If you take any longer than that, you're going to lose the kids to boredom. 

I would charge this at your hourly rate, considering both your processing time and your shooting time, but I do think you need to find a way to automate your editing, because an hour a photo will be way too much for something like this.


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## KmH (Jun 17, 2014)

Run Forrest! Run!

Having sportsportraits.net in the middle pretty much cuts you off from the major part of the money.


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## Derrel (Jun 17, 2014)

KmH said:


> Run Forrest! Run!
> 
> Having sportsportraits.net in the middle pretty much cuts you off from the major part of the money.



NO way these people will pay you what this is "worth"...they need a low-priced, hired gun with his own gear and lights to wear out. They want somebody CHEAP. I bet that for a 12- to 14-kid team they will expect your bid to come in at no more than $200-if indeed they will even go that high. 

RUN, FORREST RUN, INDEED. Good advice, unless you want to make $200 for 12 hours of work,no gas money, and ridiculous schedules.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 18, 2014)

Don't know how many teams but this seems like a lot of hours of work. Looking at their site I'd guess this will be low budget and it wouldn't surprise me if they're shopping around. 

Sites like ASMP have info. on pricing and determining cost of doing business - and figuring that out might be worthwhile for your own purposes but maybe not worth the time and effort for this prospective work. I might find out more info. before getting too much farther into this such as how many teams.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 18, 2014)

All fair points! To elaborate, I think I would be her go to photographer for stuff like this, like a working relationship. She had a photographer with her before, who took all those other shots, but he has now moved out of the area. She also wants me to give her an answer by tomorrow...... She sounded sincere, but perhaps she is also naïve? 

I almost want to see if I can contact her last photographer and ask him what the work was like, and what he charged..


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## curtyoungblood (Jun 18, 2014)

I agree with Derrel that these guys aren't going to pay you a whole lot to do this. I think he's right about the $200 number, but I think you can make a decent amount at that price if you can really optimize your workflow. If you think you can get this shot and edited in 2-3 hours, that's about 70-100 an hour. That would be way more than you're currently making on a portrait session. This is bulk photography that needs to be done quickly. If you feel that you can't get it done in that time frame, you don't need to be doing bulk photography.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 18, 2014)

curtyoungblood said:


> I agree with Derrel that these guys aren't going to pay you a whole lot to do this. I think he's right about the $200 number, but I think you can make a decent amount at that price if you can really optimize your workflow. If you think you can get this shot and edited in 2-3 hours, that's about 70-100 an hour. That would be way more than you're currently making on a portrait session. This is bulk photography that needs to be done quickly. If you feel that you can't get it done in that time frame, you don't need to be doing bulk photography.



Good point... so do you have any suggestions on how to optimize like this?


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## curtyoungblood (Jun 18, 2014)

What is your current strategy for removing green screen subjects? My first suggestion would be to make an action of doing that, and then apply it to a group of images as a batch action. If it doesn't work out that way, this seems like a good starting point: Automate Green-Screen Layouts in Photoshop CS4 « Layers Magazine

If that doesn't work or make sense, do a google search for green screen photography automation. 

The most important thing for success is consistency though. You want everything to be exactly the same in every single shot. The same exposure, the same framing, etc.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 18, 2014)

curtyoungblood said:


> What is your current strategy for removing green screen subjects? My first suggestion would be to make an action of doing that, and then apply it to a group of images as a batch action. If it doesn't work out that way, this seems like a good starting point: Automate Green-Screen Layouts in Photoshop CS4 « Layers Magazine
> 
> If that doesn't work or make sense, do a google search for green screen photography automation.
> 
> The most important thing for success is consistency though. You want everything to be exactly the same in every single shot. The same exposure, the same framing, etc.



Thanks for the advice!


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 18, 2014)

Alright, so there's an update.. she now says that they can do the green screen cutting out in-house, and they're hiring me just to take the pictures and do the regular editing, like with cropping and stuff. Which takes me back to my regular rate, however, I don't have the benefit of being able to use these photos for my portfolio, because it will just be a bunch of images with a green background on my end.. should I just raise my price to compensate?


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## pixmedic (Jun 18, 2014)




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## vintagesnaps (Jun 19, 2014)

So at your current rate wouldn't this be $50 per hour per team, so $200? + whatever you'd charge for editing? or do your rates include editing? If you're not offering packages and doing sales that doesn't seem like much per season, and I think might be considered work for hire (so may be why no portfolio use). I'd suggest taking a look on Sportsshooter but I think the working photographers who post on there do packages, etc.

What exactly is the name of this company, just Sports Portraits? with a Vistaprint website?? That's why I think this seems awfully low budget and she's looking for a cheap option, the site just isn't the quality I've seen in my area or what I've seen done by photographers doing their local youth sports. If you need to make money maybe this offer isn't your best option.


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## Vince.1551 (Jun 19, 2014)

Just ask for her budget and then tell her what you have to offer for that budget and negotiate from there.


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