Pay for Color Correction?

[Paul Nordin]

Over the last few years I've been working my way into features that actually pay more than it costs me to shoot (thank the gods). I've never charged any of the productions I worked on for Color Correction, and have considered it a baked-in part of my fee for principal photograhy. However, I am starting to wonder if it's time to charge a fee for supervising the CC phase. Keep in mind, I am still in the low-budget indie world. I'm just curious how many of you charge for CC, and how you set your rate?

Cheers,

Paul Nordin

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I'm guessing in your case it would depend on the production's budget.

 

You should probably shop around and find out what others charge, then make up your own flat fee so these low budget projects can at least factor in the cost during pre-prod. And, I guess, if you really dig the project and they simply don't have that much to spend on CC, you could adjust your price to within their means.

 

:/

[Paul Nordin]

Yes, well of course the project's budget will determine everything: my day rate during principal, what gets deferred (if anything), percentage of net, etc. Keep in mind I am talking exclusively about feature work here. The criteria is different (at least to me) for other types of project like short films, music videos, and commercials. So the question remains. For those of you out there working low to low-mid budget features, are you adding a fee for CC in your DP contract, or considering it an included item baked into your day rate for Principal Photography? I guess I'm looking for some "best practices" advice, on what others are doing.