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Thoughts on luxury service? Videographer who travels with you and makes a video of your experience

nmalinow

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Demand: Ex. Someone wealthy wants to record a video of their own or group’s experiences when going on a trip to Chile.



Idea: Hire a videographer to travel with you and capture your adventure with video/drone footage.



End Product: Professional video showcasing the experience.



Notes: The average wedding videographer costs $1800 for a night.



Costs would begin at around $3,000 depending on destination, length of vacation, and associated costs for videographer.



Obviously this would be a luxury experience, but if you have the money why not capture the moment?

You wouldn’t have to worry about taking pics or videos on vacation and could just completely enjoy the experience.

Big IFs I see are:
- Will they pay that much for the service?
- Do they want someone following them around with a camera who they don’t know? (Maybe solved with a couple Skype get to know me sessions beforehand)

Just throwing around the idea unsure of the demand for that in wealthier communities. I know travel videos are huge right now.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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I actually like the idea aside that competition is just a person with an iPhone.

- Will they pay that much for the service?

Yes, if we're talking about individuals with high 8 and 9 figures in net worth.
 

nmalinow

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This is actually already being done.

A Rich Family is Looking to Hire a Travel Photographer for $100,000+ Per Year
(posting expired by now)

I personally don't think that particular posting was worth it, but clearly there are high net worth people who want this kind of service. Now how to find them . . .
Wow that is crazy... great find! And yes, certainly it wouldn’t hurt knowing a bunch of rich people but unfortunately I do not :/ Just gotta be creative and network I guess!
 
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nmalinow

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I actually like the idea aside that competition is just a person with an iPhone.



Yes, if we're talking about individuals with high 8 and 9 figures in net worth.
Yeah the upside is they don’t have to be worried about constantly being on their phone or having it ready to take pics/videos, downside is $3k+ easy
 

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Partner up with travel agencies or concierge at the hotels. Let them know you will pay for quality leads. I'm pretty sure there are people doing this at Disney every day.
 

Roli

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Demand: Ex. Someone wealthy wants to record a video of their own or group’s experiences when going on a trip to Chile.



Idea: Hire a videographer to travel with you and capture your adventure with video/drone footage.



End Product: Professional video showcasing the experience.



Notes: The average wedding videographer costs $1800 for a night.



Costs would begin at around $3,000 depending on destination, length of vacation, and associated costs for videographer.



Obviously this would be a luxury experience, but if you have the money why not capture the moment?

You wouldn’t have to worry about taking pics or videos on vacation and could just completely enjoy the experience.

Big IFs I see are:
- Will they pay that much for the service?
- Do they want someone following them around with a camera who they don’t know? (Maybe solved with a couple Skype get to know me sessions beforehand)

Just throwing around the idea unsure of the demand for that in wealthier communities. I know travel videos are huge right now.

As someone who has been a videographer, here's my 2 cents.

$3000 might seem like a lot, however the amount of footage you will gather on a vacation will be gargantuan to say the least.

You mention wedding videographers at $1800 a pop, trust me most of those guys are poor because of the amount of time it takes to edit. Remember for every minute of video you shoot that's roughly twelve to twenty four minutes of editing, and that's if you're fast.

So 60 minutes of footage will take between 12-24 hours to edit. ($3000 / 24 hour edit + 1 hour shoot = $120 p/h (not including travel and prep time))

All in all I'm not saying don't do it, you just need to be aware of how you can really stitch yourself up when it comes to getting properly paid for all your hard work.

These are the parameters that I personally would work with:

1. Hourly rate:
Work out how much you want to be paid per hour and factor into that the hiring of other people. So let's say you want to be paid $100 an hour, you have to charge $200 - $300 an hour minimum. This will allow you to factor in the overtime that every shoot suffers from. Just as importantly it will allow you to scale and hire people in the future, otherwise you are just creating a job around yourself from which you will never escape.


2. Output 10 mins:
For your suggested minimum fee ten minutes feels about right, because if you calculate you have about 15 hours for the total job time and three of those hours are filming, that leaves you about five hours to edit, which considering you will spend more than 3 hours watching that footage, and about 2-4 hours editing is actually quite tight.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review = $375 (not including travel time/client meetings etc.))

3. Revisions:
This one word alone strikes terror into editors' hearts around the globe. It is not uncommon for big time TV and film producers to say things such as; "That's good, but can you just change the beginning for me, oh and the middle, ah and while you're at it, the end."

These sorts of things are said by people in the industry who know how long it can take to change just a few seconds of footage. When you're dealing with a client who has no idea, the amount of revisions you could end up doing may well drive you insane. Put it this way, you feel a special kind of insanity when somebody insists you use a 3 second shot after you have beautifully spliced a ten minute sequence perfectly to the beat of some funky tune. Because you know that shot will throw the entire sequence out, oh and by the way, they don't want you to change a single other thing about it.

The problem is of course, that your film is a creative endeavour, and creativity is subjective, what you think looks really cool, may look average to your client.

So how to mitigate this would be to set out a very clear structure at the beginning. Spend time with your client working out exactly the look they're going for, and have a set number of revisions that you will do upfront (always be prepared to be flexible in this area). You would say something like one major revision and a bunch of small ones, maybe five or ten... Like I say you'll have to be fairly flexible with this one.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review + 1 hour client meetings/emails/calls + 2 hours revision = $272.22 p/h (not including travel time.))

4.Sound
Do not, under any circumstances offer to add any kind of speech or voices into the video. If you do, then you have to charge through the roof. Set the videos to music and be done.

Why?

Because if you have mountains of footage with no dialogue, you can scrub through it at x2, x3 or even x6 speed, which will dramatically speed up the editing process. You can also happily watch the footage backwards without interrupting your editing flow. This all changes if you have been foolish enough to capture important dialogue.

I can personally listen to dialogue at about 3 or 4 times speed either forwards or backwards and still get what they are saying, however that's only after listening to it once at normal speed, and it took me years to acquire this skill.

___

So there you go, it's not a bad idea you just have to make sure you charge enough and that you obtain good camera equipment and set a structure that will allow you to make money and scale the business.

Obviously those editing times are completely arbitrary, just remember the more footage you have, the bigger the editing headache.

Good luck, any more questions hit me up.
 
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nmalinow

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As someone who has been a videographer, here's my 2 cents.

$3000 might seem like a lot, however the amount of footage you will gather on a vacation will be gargantuan to say the least.

You mention wedding videographers at $1800 a pop, trust me most of those guys are poor because of the amount of time it takes to edit. Remember for every minute of video you shoot that's roughly twelve to twenty four minutes of editing, and that's if you're fast.

So 60 minutes of footage will take between 12-24 hours to edit. ($3000 / 24 hour edit + 1 hour shoot = $120 p/h (not including travel and prep time))

All in all I'm not saying don't do it, you just need to be aware of how you can really stitch yourself up when it comes to getting properly paid for all your hard work.

These are the parameters that I personally would work with:

1. Hourly rate:
Work out how much you want to be paid per hour and factor into that the hiring of other people. So let's say you want to be paid $100 an hour, you have to charge $200 - $300 an hour minimum. This will allow you to factor in the overtime that every shoot suffers from. Just as importantly it will allow you to scale and hire people in the future, otherwise you are just creating a job around yourself from which you will never escape.


2. Output 10 mins:
For your suggested minimum fee ten minutes feels about right, because if you calculate you have about 15 hours for the total job time and three of those hours are filming, that leaves you about five hours to edit, which considering you will spend more than 3 hours watching that footage, and about 2-4 hours editing is actually quite tight.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review = $375 (not including travel time/client meetings etc.))

3. Revisions:
This one word alone strikes terror into editors' hearts around the globe. It is not uncommon for big time TV and film producers to say things such as; "That's good, but can you just change the beginning for me, oh and the middle, ah and while you're at it, the end."

These sorts of things are said by people in the industry who know how long it can take to change just a few seconds of footage. When you're dealing with a client who has no idea, the amount of revisions you could end up doing may well drive you insane. Put it this way, you feel a special kind of insanity when somebody insists you use a 3 second shot after you have beautifully spliced a ten minute sequence perfectly to the beat of some funky tune. Because you know that shot will throw the entire sequence out, oh and by the way, they don't want you to change a single other thing about it.

The problem is of course, that your film is a creative endeavour, and creativity is subjective, what you think looks really cool, may look average to your client.

So how to mitigate this would be to set out a very clear structure at the beginning. Spend time with your client working out exactly the look they're going for, and have a set number of revisions that you will do upfront (always be prepared to be flexible in this area). You would say something like one major revision and a bunch of small ones, maybe five or ten... Like I say you'll have to be fairly flexible with this one.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review + 1 hour client meetings/emails/calls + 2 hours revision = $272.22 p/h (not including travel time.))

4.Sound
Do not, under any circumstances offer to add any kind of speech or voices into the video. If you do, then you have to charge through the roof. Set the videos to music and be done.

Why?

Because if you have mountains of footage with no dialogue, you can scrub through it at x2, x3 or even x6 speed, which will dramatically speed up the editing process. You can also happily watch the footage backwards without interrupting your editing flow. This all changes if you have been foolish enough to capture important dialogue.

I can personally listen to dialogue at about 3 or 4 times speed either forwards or backwards and still get what they are saying, however that's only after listening to it once at normal speed, and it took me years to acquire this skill.

___

So there you go, it's not a bad idea you just have to make sure you charge enough and that you obtain good camera equipment and set a structure that will allow you to make money and scale the business.

Obviously those editing times are completely arbitrary, just remember the more footage you have, the bigger the editing headache.

Good luck, any more questions hit me up.
Wow. As someone who literally has no video experience but has always been interested in the field this is massively helpful. Thank you so much!!
 

Xolorr

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As someone who has experience with a similar situation, your real ticket here are travel influencers. I spent most of last year travelling as a photographer and videographer for a couple who make their living posting photos and videos of their lustworthy lifestyle on instagram.

My two cents would be to avoid this completely, and rather hit up villas and hotels and offer to do videos for them, although this is getting more and more saturated each day as everyone and their dog is in Greece or Bali trying to be an influencer. The second thing is it turns into a 9-5 very quickly. Remember when MJ told the story of not making your passion your day job? Travelling is tiring and you quickly become numb to the insane experiences around you.

I loved Bali, but while I was there all I wanted to do was to go home. I was dealing with a primadonna IG babe who photoshops all of her posts, and fights with her boyfriend everyday (while simultaneously posting about how much she loves him to her million followers) and working hard long hours for very little pay, and I became the back bone of their entire operation.

Want to try it? Go through the #travelblogger hashtag on Instagram, DM everyone over 500K with your film / photo portfolio, and offer to make them a free video in return for costs covered on a trip or something similar, and take it from there.
 

nmalinow

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Jun 6, 2019
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As someone who has been a videographer, here's my 2 cents.

$3000 might seem like a lot, however the amount of footage you will gather on a vacation will be gargantuan to say the least.

You mention wedding videographers at $1800 a pop, trust me most of those guys are poor because of the amount of time it takes to edit. Remember for every minute of video you shoot that's roughly twelve to twenty four minutes of editing, and that's if you're fast.

So 60 minutes of footage will take between 12-24 hours to edit. ($3000 / 24 hour edit + 1 hour shoot = $120 p/h (not including travel and prep time))

All in all I'm not saying don't do it, you just need to be aware of how you can really stitch yourself up when it comes to getting properly paid for all your hard work.

These are the parameters that I personally would work with:

1. Hourly rate:
Work out how much you want to be paid per hour and factor into that the hiring of other people. So let's say you want to be paid $100 an hour, you have to charge $200 - $300 an hour minimum. This will allow you to factor in the overtime that every shoot suffers from. Just as importantly it will allow you to scale and hire people in the future, otherwise you are just creating a job around yourself from which you will never escape.


2. Output 10 mins:
For your suggested minimum fee ten minutes feels about right, because if you calculate you have about 15 hours for the total job time and three of those hours are filming, that leaves you about five hours to edit, which considering you will spend more than 3 hours watching that footage, and about 2-4 hours editing is actually quite tight.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review = $375 (not including travel time/client meetings etc.))

3. Revisions:
This one word alone strikes terror into editors' hearts around the globe. It is not uncommon for big time TV and film producers to say things such as; "That's good, but can you just change the beginning for me, oh and the middle, ah and while you're at it, the end."

These sorts of things are said by people in the industry who know how long it can take to change just a few seconds of footage. When you're dealing with a client who has no idea, the amount of revisions you could end up doing may well drive you insane. Put it this way, you feel a special kind of insanity when somebody insists you use a 3 second shot after you have beautifully spliced a ten minute sequence perfectly to the beat of some funky tune. Because you know that shot will throw the entire sequence out, oh and by the way, they don't want you to change a single other thing about it.

The problem is of course, that your film is a creative endeavour, and creativity is subjective, what you think looks really cool, may look average to your client.

So how to mitigate this would be to set out a very clear structure at the beginning. Spend time with your client working out exactly the look they're going for, and have a set number of revisions that you will do upfront (always be prepared to be flexible in this area). You would say something like one major revision and a bunch of small ones, maybe five or ten... Like I say you'll have to be fairly flexible with this one.

($3000 / 3 hour shoot + 2 hour edit + 3 hour review + 1 hour client meetings/emails/calls + 2 hours revision = $272.22 p/h (not including travel time.))

4.Sound
Do not, under any circumstances offer to add any kind of speech or voices into the video. If you do, then you have to charge through the roof. Set the videos to music and be done.

Why?

Because if you have mountains of footage with no dialogue, you can scrub through it at x2, x3 or even x6 speed, which will dramatically speed up the editing process. You can also happily watch the footage backwards without interrupting your editing flow. This all changes if you have been foolish enough to capture important dialogue.

I can personally listen to dialogue at about 3 or 4 times speed either forwards or backwards and still get what they are saying, however that's only after listening to it once at normal speed, and it took me years to acquire this skill.

___

So there you go, it's not a bad idea you just have to make sure you charge enough and that you obtain good camera equipment and set a structure that will allow you to make money and scale the business.

Obviously those editing times are completely arbitrary, just remember the more footage you have, the bigger the editing headache.

Good luck, any more questions hit me up.
As someone with a marketing degree, what professional certification do I need to be considered a respectable videographer in this aspect specifically? Or, is it possible for me to simply take some online classes and develop the skills and a nice portfolio organically?
 
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nmalinow

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As someone who has experience with a similar situation, your real ticket here are travel influencers. I spent most of last year travelling as a photographer and videographer for a couple who make their living posting photos and videos of their lustworthy lifestyle on instagram.

My two cents would be to avoid this completely, and rather hit up villas and hotels and offer to do videos for them, although this is getting more and more saturated each day as everyone and their dog is in Greece or Bali trying to be an influencer. The second thing is it turns into a 9-5 very quickly. Remember when MJ told the story of not making your passion your day job? Travelling is tiring and you quickly become numb to the insane experiences around you.

I loved Bali, but while I was there all I wanted to do was to go home. I was dealing with a primadonna IG babe who photoshops all of her posts, and fights with her boyfriend everyday (while simultaneously posting about how much she loves him to her million followers) and working hard long hours for very little pay, and I became the back bone of their entire operation.

Want to try it? Go through the #travelblogger hashtag on Instagram, DM everyone over 500K with your film / photo portfolio, and offer to make them a free video in return for costs covered on a trip or something similar, and take it from there.
Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying. I wouldn't want to engage in trips that lasted that long certainly, and the people could range from great to horrible to be around. I agree there is a travel influencer market, but I am hopefully trying to find a niche within that wealthy travel market where it is not people who make blogging/influencer their life, but just want to capture the moment for themselves. Or, if they are young, for their image since that is important to so many people especially with wealth. In the end, operating as a side business take maybe 10 trips a year for 1-2 weeks each on average would be great.
 

Roli

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Wow. As someone who literally has no video experience but has always been interested in the field this is massively helpful. Thank you so much!!

My pleasure :)

As someone with a marketing degree, what professional certification do I need to be considered a respectable videographer in this aspect specifically? Or, is it possible for me to simply take some online classes and develop the skills and a nice portfolio organically?

Certification is not important, nobody cares what courses you have done, they only care about amazing looking footage.


Online courses will help for editing, you can pick up some free editing software at the Lightworks website, and check out a few tutorials on Youtube, I can point you to some good ones if you end up going that route.


As far as filming is concerned, you simply need to get a camera and go for it. Take a simple (real world) course or check out some Youtube tutorials.



The skills you will need:



Filming



- Understanding of camera controls



- How to frame and shoot still and moving subjects.



- Understanding of how camera accesories can enhance production values.



- Understanding of the editing process.



Editing



- Understanding of the basic concept of non linear editing (NLE)



- Ability to log clips



- Ability to edit in the timeline with basic effects (text, titles etc.)



- Understanding of basic colour correction and grading.



Okay so these are just some basic requirements off the top of my head, and you will learn these things in real world and online courses. To get to the point whereby you can charge for your services, you will have to really accelerate your learning by shooting and editing every single day.



In addition, you will start to view films, tv shows and clips on Youtube with your cameraman and editor's eye. Think about how certain shots were created, ponder how you would recreate the scene you've just watched.



Most importantly, because of the area you're looking to get into, you need to film one of your own trips and holidays. If you haven't got any vacations coming up soon, get together with a friend or two and tell them that you have a film project, and film your trip to a mall or something as if it were a short vacation.



After doing this for some time you will learn quite a few tricks and tips for making an interesting looking film, and of course you will gain confidence in your abilities.



Lastly, the thing you always want to go for, is maximum production value. By that I mean concentrating on anything that makes your film look more professional, be that getting good portable lighting kit. Or steadicam gimbles, or lens accessories, it's all good.



However your starting equipment should be basic, you must learn to get amazing shots with the bare minimum, then when you get a flashy new bit of kit, it will actually make a positive impact on your filmmaking.



Equipment (Starting)



- Fast computer with plenty of RAM (you can never have enough when it comes to video editing)



- Good prosumer camera (must have XLR mic inputs as a minimum. Changeable lenses is a bonus).



- Decent portable lighting kit for close work

- Gimble arm (for steadicam shooting).
 

George Appiah

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Or become a "rat" (as Ben often jokes about his video guy) and attach yourself to one rich and eccentric family (as opposed to going from gig to gig) that wants to show off their high living and family drama to the world on YouTube :hilarious:

See Ben Mallah's Life For Sale on the Koncrete channel on YouTube:

BEN BUYING A $10 MILLION HOTEL ONLINE.


BEN RESPONDING TO YOUTUBE FAN COMMENTS.
Danny (mentioned in the video) is Ben's "rat" -- aka videographer:)

 
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