Memorial Video Pricing

[DawnG]

Hi Everyone....hope you all had the BEST Christmas!  Now the fun is it to keep warm during this arctic freeze over most of the northern states!

I don't know if anyone will even have any idea about this....but I was considering approaching my local funeral homes offering my services to create memorial slide show videos for the families.  A lot of them already include this in their 'packages' and perhaps the local facilities already have someone who does it....but with the versatility of PTE I think I may have a bit more of a creative edge than some

The problem is I have no idea how to price it.  If I come in too low than I am cheating myself for the work involved.  Needless to say If I come in too high I will never even be considered.  Any ideas????

Thanks in advance!

Dawn

[goddi]

Greetings Dawn,

A friend of mine lost her husband a few years ago. All the images of their life together were in old prints. I offered to digitized some prints and put them into a digital show (PTE). Well, it turned out that she had about 300 prints in a shoe box and also wanted a printed book of the pictures to distribute to her family. So it turned out to be a much larger project. So, anyway, I scanned the 300 prints and put them into a 106 page Blurb book. For the memorial gathering, she also wanted a digital slideshow and, from these images, I made a 4 min 30 seconds show with 56 images.

She had many Blurb books printed for her family and the slideshow worked very well for the memorial gathering. I did it as a friend and did not expect any payment. But she insisted and gave me several hundred dollars for my efforts. So it really depends on the depth of the project. But combining a PTE slideshow with a printed book from such places as Blurb, I think it would be a welcomed offering. How much? That is a good question. But many people have only prints that need digitizing and you might expect more work and time is needed.

Perhaps, since you are considering approaching funeral homes, I am sure they would have suggestions and will require a portion of the price. And they might already be doing this service and you can provide an even better product using PTE. The price would vary depending whether images are already digital or you'd have to scan old prints and do a lot of post-processing and if they wanted a printed book. Lots of possibilities. Let us know how it goes.

Gary

[Ronniebootwest]

A very thoughtful idea Dawn, but you may find that the work and time involved will be a little too time consuming.

Ron.

[DawnG]

11 hours ago, goddi said:

Greetings Dawn,

A friend of mine lost her husband a few years ago. All the images of their life together were in old prints. I offered to digitized some prints and put them into a digital show (PTE). Well, it turned out that she had about 300 prints in a shoe box and also wanted a printed book of the pictures to distribute to her family. So it turned out to be a much larger project. So, anyway, I scanned the 300 prints and put them into a 106 page Blurb book. For the memorial gathering, she also wanted a digital slideshow and, from these images, I made a 4 min 30 seconds show with 56 images.

She had many Blurb books printed for her family and the slideshow worked very well for the memorial gathering. I did it as a friend and did not expect any payment. But she insisted and gave me several hundred dollars for my efforts. So it really depends on the depth of the project. But combining a PTE slideshow with a printed book from such places as Blurb, I think it would be a welcomed offering. How much? That is a good question. But many people have only prints that need digitizing and you might expect more work and time is needed.

Perhaps, since you are considering approaching funeral homes, I am sure they would have suggestions and will require a portion of the price. And they might already be doing this service and you can provide an even better product using PTE. The price would vary depending whether images are already digital or you'd have to scan old prints and do a lot of post-processing and if they wanted a printed book. Lots of possibilities. Let us know how it goes.

Gary

What a wonderful idea Gary.....I am sure it really meant a lot to her.  If she was willing to pay you several hundred dollars she must be a REAL friend!  I have never heard of blurb but you can bet I will surely check it out.  I know this will be a bit stressful work since it needs to be done in a day or two at at the most for a service.....but I think I can handle a couple a week if the pay makes it worthwhile.  Thank you so so much for your response and I will let you know what I experience with my approach

[DawnG]

5 hours ago, Ronniebootwest said:

A very thoughtful idea Dawn, but you may find that the work and time involved will be a little too time consuming.

Ron.

Ron I know it will be stressful.....somewhat prepared for that.  I have a small print scanner and slide converter connected to my computer to help reduce time involved.  Years ago we used to do this for a living. Only we had to shoot every photo by S-VHS camera on a camera stand, and with 2 video tapes both having 1/2 the photos, we would blend them using 2 play decks and a recording deck.  Talk about TIME consuming!  Luckily most of the time it was time sensitive like this project will be.....but around the holidays we had to rush through several orders and it was not fun.  All I can do is try it and see if I can handle it......

Dawn

[goddi]

1 hour ago, DawnG said:

What a wonderful idea Gary.....I am sure it really meant a lot to her.  If she was willing to pay you several hundred dollars she must be a REAL friend!  I have never heard of blurb but you can bet I will surely check it out.  I know this will be a bit stressful work since it needs to be done in a day or two at at the most for a service.....but I think I can handle a couple a week if the pay makes it worthwhile.  Thank you so so much for your response and I will let you know what I experience with my approach

Greetings Dawn,

Blurb is a photobook site. I like it because you can download the program to your PC and work on the project disconnected from the Blurb site. Then just upload our final project to Blurb for your customer to order how many they want whenever they want. So a combination of a PTE show and a book is good product to offer. No additional stuff to buy...just time. By the way, I used a simple, cheap Canon printer to scan the old prints, and it worked very well.

Here is Blurb:  http://www.blurb.com/photo-books

There is also Snapfish: https://www.snapfish.com/photo-gift/photo-book

But I prefer Blurb. Just adds to what you can offer. Really a lot of fun.

Gary

[DawnG]

2 hours ago, goddi said:

Greetings Dawn,

Blurb is a photobook site. I like it because you can download the program to your PC and work on the project disconnected from the Blurb site. Then just upload our final project to Blurb for your customer to order how many they want whenever they want. So a combination of a PTE show and a book is good product to offer. No additional stuff to buy...just time. By the way, I used a simple, cheap Canon printer to scan the old prints, and it worked very well.

Here is Blurb:  http://www.blurb.com/photo-books

There is also Snapfish: https://www.snapfish.com/photo-gift/photo-book

But I prefer Blurb. Just adds to what you can offer. Really a lot of fun.

Gary

I am so very intrigued with the photobook idea Gary......thank you so much for introducing me to it.  I know I will eventually figure it all out but could you please just give me an idea of how you work this?  Do you charge for your time to collect and digitize the photos and then upload the book for your customers to buy......or can you set the price from blurb for your books?  Just curious....

I am working on a sample slide show of my mother who I heartbreakingly lost almost 7 years ago. Most of the photos are old, needless to say, and some are blurry. I know in putting a book together like this from old photos that some will be less than ideal, but do you try to fix the ones with tears and spots?  I know I will probably find myself doing that just to make sure they are happy with them.....

Dawn

[goddi]

4 hours ago, DawnG said:

I am so very intrigued with the photobook idea Gary......thank you so much for introducing me to it.  I know I will eventually figure it all out but could you please just give me an idea of how you work this?  Do you charge for your time to collect and digitize the photos and then upload the book for your customers to buy......or can you set the price from blurb for your books?  Just curious....

I am working on a sample slide show of my mother who I heartbreakingly lost almost 7 years ago. Most of the photos are old, needless to say, and some are blurry. I know in putting a book together like this from old photos that some will be less than ideal, but do you try to fix the ones with tears and spots?  I know I will probably find myself doing that just to make sure they are happy with them.....

Dawn

Greetings Dawn,

When I started the book project for my friend, she gave me all the prints in a shoe box. I had to have her put them in the correct sequence that she wanted. After that, I had to digitize them. Time consuming, one by one. I also then ran each on through Photoshop to fix the ones that really needed fixing. But leaving some with cuts, spots and rips, etc. in some are good to show the age and character of the photos. Once you have all that, it is just putting them into the  Blurb photo program. Blurb has the program that you can use online. But I highly recommend downloading it to your PC and work with that one. I went back and forth with the friend several times to make sure it was what they wanted. She added some pictures and wanted some deleted. We finally came up with the finished product.

I uploaded it to Blurb. You have to choose (or should choose) the format before you actually start adding images to a book. They have different sizes and styles so that will make you assemble the images in the book to suit the final book's size. I don't know if you can easily just change the book's size after inputting all the images into a certain sized book. Going from large to small would cause problems, I'd guess.

She had me order the 20-30 books for her through Blurb. But once it is on Blurb, you can set it for anyone to purchase through Blurb. To make it simple, I'd just charge for the time for digitizing and creating the book and for a PTE show and let them just do the purchasing at Blurb's prices.

Not sure if this will work, but my book is still on  Blurb. I'm not sure how to show you my book. But try this link and they should be a way to Preview the book.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/6832049/67b12d5095349aa948570ee0cc8de0cbcba13bd0

Hope this works. But creating a book of your mother from the images you would use in a PTE show would be a great thing.

Gary

(Just edited with the link above that should show you the book I made with Blurb with the Preview button)

 

[JudyKay]

Much of my work is a labor of love.  Most people have little idea what a project is worth and probably wouldn't pay that much.  If you want to be paid fairly, decide your overhead, your expenses and how much profit you want and divide that by the hours it takes. If a complex project takes me 40+ hours (I am experienced and fairly quick) of photo processing, planning, storyline, themes, subtleties, and putting it all together, editing, editing, editing, cutting some more, letting it sit, getting opinions, editing and finally delivering the polished end result--then the cost would be 40X$50/hr /(far from riches) or $2000 USD. I think some projects are worth far more than that to the recipients. If you have a group of families willing to divide the cost among themselves, or a business that can justify the cost, then maybe you can get that kind of price.  Otherwise, consider it a labor of love. My work is for private humanitarian and various other documentary causes and my pay is indirect--but probably not close to commensurate for my labor.  I occasionally do odd shoots, weddings, engagements, business conferences.  Those can pay well, but honestly, I wouldn't do it for a living.  The ones I do are most extraordinary so they don't usually pay much.  But I am not doing it for me.  I am doing it for others and the payback for them is priceless.  

Private Beef:  Adobe Creative Cloud has been a mess.  I keep getting locked out while traveling in remote locations.  5 Times in the last couple weeks.    "Your Access Token Is Expired."  Adobe can fix it every time.  Thanks, Adobe!  Just a day late and a dollar short.  I love Adobe products but will happily abandon Adobe if something better comes along.  Thankfully, PicturestoExe is WONDERFUL!  Thanks, Igor!

 

[Lin Evans]

LOL - Judy,  I reasoned this situation with Adobe when they first began the subscription conversion and I stopped with Photoshop 6 extended. It does everything I need and there is no problem with "phone home."  Creative-Cloud is a relatively inexpensive solution for those unwilling or unable to pay the price for the older products and it does provide a predictable income stream for Adobe, but I've never bought into this paradigm and probably won't live long enough to have to change. 

As for the pricing structure - I completely agree with your assessment. It's difficult to get what one's service is worth these days where everyone deems themselves competent photographers and the most frequent question I'm asked when I produce a PTE show with a few special touches which can't be done with competitive products is "where can I buy the app for my iPhone so I can do this next week without learning or studying?"  I have to laugh and explain that there is no "app" which can create these type things - some creations are just not amenable to automation - push a button and out pops nearly a perfect show. Many people today are not impressed with what is being done because they are accustomed to "magic" and tend to think "anyone could do that, all they need is the app"  LOL 

Back in 1995 when I was making my living doing art gallery content photography, I spent $30,000 for my first digital camera (Kodak DCS-460). It paid for itself in a year because I had broken with the long photography tradition of owning the negative and charging each time a print was needed. I priced my services at $100 per hour or $800 per day and the gallery owned all rights to the work which was delivered on CD or other portable media. They got all that I could photograph in a day. Of course post processing took another day so actually my actual income was closer to $50 per hour. The actual time doing photography was what I charged for and the post processing was on me. This worked out to be a very good deal for my clients. When amortized over the number of prints and/or display images they used to help sell their products it was win/win. Of course this was all a commercial endeavor and I didn't have to deal with the "end user."  With doing work for funerals, my suggestion would be to consider approaching funeral homes and perhaps make a deal with them so as not to have to deal directly with the bereaved. Of course this means giving a portion to the funeral home but still might allow for a higher rate and no direct dealing with the client.

Best regards,

Lin  

[davegee]

Off topic?

If it were in a different Topic I would like to add my comments.

DG

[goddi]

3 hours ago, JudyKay said:

Much of my work is a labor of love.  Most people have little idea what a project is worth and probably wouldn't pay that much....

 

Greetings JudyKay, I agree. I have made PTE shows for friends, weddings, memorials, family gatherings, without charge. Just because I enjoy it. But recently I found a site from TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) which provides expeditions  for families who have of lost military veterans. I happened to come across their site that has images of one of their expeditions to Machu Picchu. I thought wouldn't it be better to have these images in a PTE show? I downloaded all the images, put in music and text, etc. Turned out quite nice, I thought. I contacted the TAPS organization with this example and said I'd be happy to do it to other expeditions. No charge, no strings. Just give it to each of the participants as a memento.

Never heard back from them. I then found the guide company that went along with the expedition and told them I'd  rather it not go to waste so if you can send it to the participants, please do. Got an email back that said they'd look into it. Never has been downloaded. So sometimes you can't even give it away free.

Gary

[Lin Evans]

Topics tend to stray because actually it's nearly impossible to directly answer the OP's question about pricing. Pricing depends on the market, competition, affluence of the audience, etc. It's like asking how much to charge for shooting a wedding. The price can vary from $200 or less to as much as $50,000 or more depending on the client and what is included. If the Queen were to pass away and one were to make a show the price would certainly be a great deal different than if you or I were to pass away. The expectations would differ greatly as well.

I would go ahead and add your comments because there is likely to be no consensus on Memorial Video Pricing....

Best regards,

Lin 

[DawnG]

59 minutes ago, Lin Evans said:

LOL - Judy,  I reasoned this situation with Adobe when they first began the subscription conversion and I stopped with Photoshop 6 extended. It does everything I need and there is no problem with "phone home."  Creative-Cloud is a relatively inexpensive solution for those unwilling or unable to pay the price for the older products and it does provide a predictable income stream for Adobe, but I've never bought into this paradigm and probably won't live long enough to have to change. 

As for the pricing structure - I completely agree with your assessment. It's difficult to get what one's service is worth these days where everyone deems themselves competent photographers and the most frequent question I'm asked when I produce a PTE show with a few special touches which can't be done with competitive products is "where can I buy the app for my iPhone so I can do this next week without learning or studying?"  I have to laugh and explain that there is no "app" which can create these type things - some creations are just not amenable to automation - push a button and out pops nearly a perfect show. Many people today are not impressed with what is being done because they are accustomed to "magic" and tend to think "anyone could do that, all they need is the app"  LOL 

Back in 1995 when I was making my living doing art gallery content photography, I spent $30,000 for my first digital camera (Kodak DCS-460). It paid for itself in a year because I had broken with the long photography tradition of owning the negative and charging each time a print was needed. I priced my services at $100 per hour or $800 per day and the gallery owned all rights to the work which was delivered on CD or other portable media. They got all that I could photograph in a day. Of course post processing took another day so actually my actual income was closer to $50 per hour. The actual time doing photography was what I charged for and the post processing was on me. This worked out to be a very good deal for my clients. When amortized over the number of prints and/or display images they used to help sell their products it was win/win. Of course this was all a commercial endeavor and I didn't have to deal with the "end user."  With doing work for funerals, my suggestion would be to consider approaching funeral homes and perhaps make a deal with them so as not to have to deal directly with the bereaved. Of course this means giving a portion to the funeral home but still might allow for a higher rate and no direct dealing with the client.

Best regards,

Lin  

Lin as always thank you for such a detailed response.....always a joy to read

I understand the brazen that think they can do what we do by flicking  a switch.  The 20+ years I professionally photographed weddings I ran into such dreamers who thought they could do the same as I did with no experience and a $200 camera.  I think they realized quickly enough that wasn't the case.

What a fantastic arrangement you had with the gallery. Wonderful business ethics will win you respect and contacts.

I am not sure how the funeral homes work these things but I am guessing I would just deal with them and not the families. My sister in law lost both her husband and mother, and was the main photo arranger for those slide shows. I understood she had to get them to the facility within a certain time frame and they took care of it being part of the 'package'.  But I will check with her on that.

Thanks so much for the insight....

Dawn

[DawnG]

19 hours ago, goddi said:

Greetings Dawn,

When I started the book project for my friend, she gave me all the prints in a shoe box. I had to have her put them in the correct sequence that she wanted. After that, I had to digitize them. Time consuming, one by one. I also then ran each on through Photoshop to fix the ones that really needed fixing. But leaving some with cuts, spots and rips, etc. in some are good to show the age and character of the photos. Once you have all that, it is just putting them into the  Blurb photo program. Blurb has the program that you can use online. But I highly recommend downloading it to your PC and work with that one. I went back and forth with the friend several times to make sure it was what they wanted. She added some pictures and wanted some deleted. We finally came up with the finished product.

I uploaded it to Blurb. You have to choose (or should choose) the format before you actually start adding images to a book. They have different sizes and styles so that will make you assemble the images in the book to suit the final book's size. I don't know if you can easily just change the book's size after inputting all the images into a certain sized book. Going from large to small would cause problems, I'd guess.

She had me order the 20-30 books for her through Blurb. But once it is on Blurb, you can set it for anyone to purchase through Blurb. To make it simple, I'd just charge for the time for digitizing and creating the book and for a PTE show and let them just do the purchasing at Blurb's prices.

Not sure if this will work, but my book is still on  Blurb. I'm not sure how to show you my book. But try this link and they should be a way to Preview the book.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2959525/6f14e136f00335f477eabec9747096e606dc0db0

Hope this works. But creating a book of your mother from the images you would use in a PTE show would be a great thing.

Gary

Added later...I can't seem to find the ability to 'Preview' my book with that  link.

 

Thanks Gary.....will look deeply into it.  Very interested in pursuing this....

[DawnG]

4 hours ago, JudyKay said:

Much of my work is a labor of love.  Most people have little idea what a project is worth and probably wouldn't pay that much.  If you want to be paid fairly, decide your overhead, your expenses and how much profit you want and divide that by the hours it takes. If a complex project takes me 40+ hours (I am experienced and fairly quick) of photo processing, planning, storyline, themes, subtleties, and putting it all together, editing, editing, editing, cutting some more, letting it sit, getting opinions, editing and finally delivering the polished end result--then the cost would be 40X$50/hr /(far from riches) or $2000 USD. I think some projects are worth far more than that to the recipients. If you have a group of families willing to divide the cost among themselves, or a business that can justify the cost, then maybe you can get that kind of price.  Otherwise, consider it a labor of love. My work is for private humanitarian and various other documentary causes and my pay is indirect--but probably not close to commensurate for my labor.  I occasionally do odd shoots, weddings, engagements, business conferences.  Those can pay well, but honestly, I wouldn't do it for a living.  The ones I do are most extraordinary so they don't usually pay much.  But I am not doing it for me.  I am doing it for others and the payback for them is priceless.  

Private Beef:  Adobe Creative Cloud has been a mess.  I keep getting locked out while traveling in remote locations.  5 Times in the last couple weeks.    "Your Access Token Is Expired."  Adobe can fix it every time.  Thanks, Adobe!  Just a day late and a dollar short.  I love Adobe products but will happily abandon Adobe if something better comes along.  Thankfully, PicturestoExe is WONDERFUL!  Thanks, Igor!

 

Thank you JudyKay for your input....truly appreciated.

I know I won't be wealthy doing this type of work but I just don't know where to start really.  I am wondering if $200 - 300 is too much to ask. I know my time is worth FAR more than that but it would be supplemental income and as you mentioned a labor of love doing something thoughtful for those who need comfort. I just wish I knew a jumping off point of where to start the negotiations....

[DawnG]

48 minutes ago, goddi said:

Greetings JudyKay, I agree. I have made PTE shows for friends, weddings, memorials, family gatherings, without charge. Just because I enjoy it. But recently I found a site from TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) which provides expeditions  for families who have of lost military veterans. I happened to come across their site that has images of one of their expeditions to Machu Picchu. I thought wouldn't it be better to have these images in a PTE show? I downloaded all the images, put in music and text, etc. Turned out quite nice, I thought. I contacted the TAPS organization with this example and said I'd be happy to do it to other expeditions. No charge, no strings. Just give it to each of the participants as a memento.

Never heard back from them. I then found the guide company that went along with the expedition and told them I'd  rather it not go to waste so if you can send it to the participants, please do. Got an email back that said they'd look into it. Never has been downloaded. So sometimes you can't even give it away free.

Gary

I know that feeling Goddi!  I also do custom pet portraits from someone's own photos....removing the pet from the original and blending them into a 'fantasy' scene. I have offered to do it for friends and neighbors.....and then having them for display....but most decline. WHY????  It's FREE!!  Sometimes it's more bother than it's worth.....and disappointing especially in your case.  Just a wonderful thoughtful gesture is ignored.  So sad.......