Production budget considerations
Productions have a lot of moving parts and this can be a complicated process when looking for a professional to complete not only bidding but to produce a successful photo shoot. Having a ballpark budget in mind for the production is often helpful for an accurate quote, as the photographer can provide an appropriate bid to suit your budget instead of selecting all the top-tier associates and production professionals, only to lead to sticker shock on the client’s end. In some cases, the photographer will also not have access to important information such as the media buy to help with usage fees and licensing, so an overall budget will also aide in a custom proposal for the project. When searching for a photographer, the following aspects should be considered into the overall budget:
Crew
Depending on the individual shoot, you may have a large or small crew to successfully complete the project. Photographer, photographer assistants, wardrobe, hair and makeup artists, food stylists, set stylists, producers, and several other professionals are individuals that need to be considered into the budget, both for on-site work as well as pre and post production days (more on that later). Half-day, full-day and multi-day rates are typically used with these individuals, with a 5-hour half day minimum on commercial shoots. At Chad Chisholm Creative, a full-day is 10 hours.
Grip (Equipment)
Even “natural light” shoots will require some grip—from large bounce cards and diffusers, to strobes, camera stands, sandbags, booms, light modifiers and more. Architectural shoots with large spaces often require a lot of lighting equipment to highlight those dark corners or hallways that don’t necessarily have ambient light. Depending on the location or photographer, renting is often daily or weekly, so if there is a pre-light day or the production wraps after a certain hour, a rental item will need to be rented for a week, even if it’s only a one or two-day shoot.
Location
Some locations require location fees or special permitting with the city. It is often important to remember even if the location you’re shooting at is privately owned, the sidewalks or locations from which you’re photographing from usually are not. Some cities have free licensing but can take five to seven business days before a shoot to issue the license. Other cities require specific crew numbers and contact information, hours of the photo shoot and shoot details which have associated fees. It is a federal law that all commercial imagery within National Parks requires a permit, and can take up to two or three weeks to obtain. Drone operators all must be FAA licensed for commercial production and the location approved before production day, or a flight plan filed with the FAA and small plane or helicopter in touch with the local control tower.
Talent
Agency talent is always the best possible opportunity for a photo shoot requiring people as the subject. The talent is professional, so more deliverables (final, usable images) are available to the client and the talent is subject to answering to their agency. If a talent becomes unavailable last minute, their agent is responsible for providing a similar talent at the same rate for the shoot. Fees associated with professional talent are travel, hourly or daily rates as well as an agency booking fees and commercial usage.
Freelance talent is a less expensive option, where unsigned talent are able to negotiate their own terms, but are usually less experienced. They also are not required to have updated imagery in their portfolios or provide accurate, current photos of themselves before the shoot. Freelance talent are also not beholden to an agent so they a higher liability for a commercial production.
Staff or free talent are the cheapest talent option with the highest liability for unusable imagery, often not showing up to the shoot or having to be coached through the entire shoot on how to act in front of the camera.
Don’t know how to go about casting for the project? Chad Chisholm Creative will help curate the perfect talent through our agency connections with talent representatives in California, Las Vegas, Denver, Nashville, Austin, Miami, New York, and more. We are also often able to negotiate better rates with our longstanding history with these agencies.
Pre-production
Pre-planning a photoshoot will create the best production possible with the least amount of oversights. Pre-production meetings, or “pre-pro,” are an excellent opportunity to clarify deliverables and goals of the shoot, scheduling, location and light scout, and make the most of the most expensive time: time on set during the actual photo shoot. Clients, photographers and producers are typically the ones on pre-production meetings, with information being passed along to appropriate subcontractors or location employees to assure a successful photo shoot.
Post-production
After the photo shoot takes place, the photographer will upload, back up, and cull (cut down imagery to remove all unnecessary frames of light tests and adjustments, closed eyes, unusable imagery) for client selections. Once the client selects the imagery, retouching takes place and delivery of the digital assets to the client as well as archiving of the imagery. Retouching and post-production often has a per image fee associated with it, the more images that are selected for commercial use, the more retouching and licensing fees are charged to the client. More on usage in a bit.
Travel and accommodations
If the crew or talent are coming from out of town, out of state or from another country, travel costs are the responsibility of the client. This often includes airfare, a per diem for meals during a travel day, travel day rate (since the crew is taking time to travel to the destination and are unable to work that day for other clients), hotels, rental cars/shuttle service, parking and mileage (if there is a rental car). The other thing to consider is if grip is being transported from the origin location or being rented/obtained at the shoot location. Strobes, camera stands, tripods, and other photo shoot tools will often require special checked baggage or carryon requirements.
Craft services (food)
Feeding crew and talent is extremely important on set. With typically long days, having breakfast, snacks, lunch, and sometimes a crew dinner are important to keep everyone energized and on task. Dietary considerations need to be requested before the photo shoot to ensure all on set are being nutritionally taken care of. That’s not to say that every set needs a private chef or catering, but if there is a gluten free or vegetarian crew member or talent, they do need to have an adequate meal to sustain them throughout a long shoot day and should not be offered an insignificant meal as their option.
Contingency funds
Unexpected expenses come up: from having to postpone a photo shoot due to weather or having to pay overtime for a shoot that’s going long. A good rule of thumb is to have 10% of the entire budget set aside for contingency funds. Best case scenario: you don’t have to use them at all and then it is under budget, or you may have to dip into unused contingency funds for an expanded wardrobe spend; either way this buffer is always good to have in the budget.
Usage and licensing
Usage and licensing is extremely complicated and should be negotiated during initial contracting with the producer/photographer. Usage is on top of the Photographer Day Rate (their time on set). There are many things to keep in mind when negotiating usage, from how long is the term (is it a one- or two-year license, is the client seeking usage in perpetuity which is exponentially more expensive?), is there an option to renew? Talent is also a part of licensing: if their likeness is being used for commercial enterprise, the client pays for additional usage after the initial term (think of this in the film equivalent of royalties). Is the imagery being used only locally? Regionally? Nationally? Internationally? Print, social and web are typically included in initial usage, with things like billboards and broadcast negotiated separately. Usage is negotiated on the type and size of the client company (remember George Clooney was paid over $40 million to star in the Nespresso commercials, not a fee a small coffee shop would ever be able to afford or pay a local actor for, nor would they need to).
Depending on the media buy, the larger the usage, the larger the licensing fee typically is. It is a good idea to figure out where and how the images are being used, as well as what the media buy is for the imagery. If there is a $12,000 media buy, or $1,000/mo, in advertisement on Facebook annually and that’s all the images are being used for, the usage will be much lower cost on a sliding scale than a $5,000,000 national campaign media buy in print publications and regional billboards for both the image itself as well as the talent fees. An example of this would be $250/image for the image usage for a $5-50K tier media buy, 50 images in the campaign for $12,500/yr total. If doing a $250K media buy, the image increases to $500/image, so for the same 50 images would be $25,000/yr. There are several calculators available to producers and photographers to help decide on the licensing fees, it is important for the client to be prepared with their intent for the photos and budget for everyone to land on the final contracted usage agreement. Images being used outside of contracted usage can carry a fine up to $150,000 per image in copyright infringement fines.
Work-for-hire imagery is only available to clients who employ the photographers full-time with benefits, not freelancers. Work-for-hire images are the property of the client and the client owns the copyright, even if the photographer (who was a full-time employee) leaves the company. This is not the case with freelancers, the photographer always owns the copyright unless sold.
Unrestricted licensing in perpetuity is extremely expensive, so clients should only be purchasing this option if they truly want to use the imagery forever, versus paying for the usage and licensing for a long as they are actually using the imagery.
We hope this helps with coming up with a budget for your production. Even if you don’t use us, we believe rising tides lift all ships and that this fantastic, creative industry only continues to thrive and grow the more educated all participants are in the field, both on the client and contractor sides of the production!