Is this expensive?

Hi,

I have been approached by a lady that does machinima and was told that my sim is awesome, it needs to be shown to the world, and that she would like to film the clip (3 minutes). I asked what role I would have, and she replied, control, production and sponsor. When I asked if 'sponsor' = money, she replied 'yes', and when I asked how much she said it would be a 4-week project at L$7000/week.

My question is, is this a reasonable sum to pay for a 3 minute clip, over the top, or cheap?

THAP

you can get cheaper, but you should ask to see samples whatever anyone quotes

As someone who has had her sims "shown to the world" via machinima, I would say it's not expensive if the person is talented, credible and actually has the resources to "show it to the world". I am a bit unnerved by her approaching you...if it's something you're really interested in doing, I'd suggest doing your homework on her. What has she done? Any references? How many edits would she allow? Sound included? The list goes on. It's a lot to pay yes, but worth it if it's done well.

The price itself doesn't sound unreasonable. But...

1. Ask to see some of her past projects.

2. Ask her how the video would be distributed. You can have a terrific little film, but it won't be "shown to the world" unless it IS...shown to the world.

After figuring in the production costs, and any costs for distribution/marketing, you'll have to decide if the potential increase in revenue for you is worth it.

Why do you want a video of your sim? And what do you want in that 3 min. video? For some objectives 28,000L might be reasonable. But you didn't notice that you needed a video until the lady told you. So I doubt that the price is reasonable for you.

Four weeks is absurd. And you should not take control unless you know how to make videos. If you hire somebody to make a video for you, they should find out what you want and take the responsibility for getting it done to your satisfaction. And what plans does the person have to promote it?

I would expect the person to have, for example, a channel on YouTube and an account on Blip.tv. And those sources should have good videos previously made by the person.

I dont make videos for hire, but if I did, I would probably offer something like this:
Channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/selbyevans
58 videos, 99,000 views
Account on Blip:
Thinkerer Melville
35 videos, 1386 views

Preliminary consulting: Walk through -- you tell what you want ~1 hour, 5000L
If you want to continue:
Storyboard: shot list with stills and outline, consideration of opttions and cost. 10,000L
Options include quit now, low cost, mid cost, high cost. Price is TBD, depending on effort needed. Probably at least 50,000L. Could be much more, depending on effort. Time fro production, less than a week.

You get all rights and .wmv file of final. I publish on YouTube and Blip. I also embed on my website in appropriate category.

This is just the plan I would use. I dont make videos for hire. But I do know people who do.
Thinkerer Melville

I agree with Thinkerer to share your work in second life with anyone you should know
something about them and the kind of work thy do.

You are in the right place to see who does what with machinma in SL. The right movie can do a lot for your business, the right movie is made by the right people, those with experience and ability to get a message across to your potential clients.

4 weeks is a long long time, in fact we could do a sim promo in around 5-6 hours. However, you aren't buying a lone ranger, nor will we charge by the week. We commit to a cost and we deliver what we are contracted to do.

As already posted, ask for references, a website or links to their work, see for yourself what they are capable of. What resources do they have to offer after they give you a link on YouCrude?

Our own website gets around 260,000 hits per month, not just from SL, but from Google, Yahoo, and AOL. We have 5 streaming servers offering 15.6tb bandwidth to our clients.

28KL$ is about what we would charge to make a sim promo, on average for a SL company/individual. Although we do contract upto 5,000 USD for some RL clients. Although you wont get one like these for 28k
http://www.wba-advertising.com/twilightzone/twilightzone.html
http://www.wba-advertising.com/costarica/costarica.html

If this person has no references, resources, or history, suggest that they do this promo for you, as part of their portfolio. If you really like what you see, and you get a 'release' copy, free from copyright, so that you can post it on blogs, websites and YouCrude etc, they will share in the credits. You MAY offer a nice bonus for work well done.