How much do car event videographers charge per day?

[shuebc]

How much do car event videographers charge per day?
Say someone just getting into this vs someone who’s been doing this for 3-4 years.

[Simpo Two]

Unless you have excellent contacts, I suspect £0 from the organisers and you're supposed to rake up a few quid from the competitors.

It's one of those things that everybody wants to do, and cheap tech has made it available to all, so the price drops accordingly. You'll need an excellent product and excellent sales skills to make headway I fear.

Edited by Simpo Two on Saturday 11th February 21:18

[StevieBee]

What sort of event are you talking about?

There are no (or very few) 'Car Event Videographers'. There are videographers that shoot car events and the prices they charge is very dependant upon the scale of the event.

At the top end of the scale, you may have an auction house running a concours event at some stately home somewhere and wish to capture the event as part of their ongoing marketing programmes. For this, you'd most likely run a two-man crew, pro-spec gear and top level editing. This would come in at around £5k - £8k. Maybe more.

For smaller events, a solo shooter might be commissioned to film the event for posterity, marketing (or the ego of the organiser). Providing they know what they're doing, have decent gear and good editing skills, then £500 - £600 a day can be expected. So, a day's filming plus editing you could expect to pay around £1k - £1.5k.

Track events are an entirely different beast. You need a camera on every corner, one in the pits (at least) and another in the paddock plus the tech to manage all those feeds. Haven't a clue what this would run to... £30k? or more.

But there are plenty of videographers and production companies out there already and focusing on car events as a specific genre is unlikely to be a viable business or even side-hustle opportunity. Hobby for beers might be possible but I'd go with Simpo on the suggestion of £0.... which actually means you'd be down on the deal as you need to buy the gear and get to the event.

HTH

[shuebc]

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

[Simpo Two]

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

Well at least you're buying the service and not trying to make a living from it

I think most people would simply fit Go-Pros etc to cars in various places and make it themselves. And some GVs/establishing shots from their phones. But it will help if you have a plan for how you want the video to be before you start, or you'll end up with 400 hours of random/repetitive footage to sort through.

[StevieBee]

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial

You may be better to think about photos rather than video.

There's a couple of lads in Essex / Suffolk that go out to known 'drivers roads' and snap decent cars as they drive past. They put the photos up and signpost them through car clubs and jungle drums and the drivers then buy the photos they like. They wouldn't charge anything to attend as they get their money on the sale of the photos. I'll try and dig out their info for you.

[MesoForm]

Jay Emm on Cars did a YouTube video where he went through the costs of making a video, including hiring a videographer. If I try and remember the number off the top oy head I'll get it wrong, but it's in here somewhere -

[SteveKTMer]

Simpo Two said:

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

Well at least you're buying the service and not trying to make a living from it

I think most people would simply fit Go-Pros etc to cars in various places and make it themselves. And some GVs/establishing shots from their phones. But it will help if you have a plan for how you want the video to be before you start, or you'll end up with 400 hours of random/repetitive footage to sort through.

That's the easy hole to fall into with a GoPro, spare SD cards and batteries and end up with 4 or 5 hours of boring footage a day. I still have the files ...

If anybody does this I'd suggest reading up on basic story telling - you've got to tell a story in maybe 15-20 mins. Also helps reduce the amount of footage you have to process afterwards.

[shuebc]

StevieBee said:

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial

You may be better to think about photos rather than video.

There's a couple of lads in Essex / Suffolk that go out to known 'drivers roads' and snap decent cars as they drive past. They put the photos up and signpost them through car clubs and jungle drums and the drivers then buy the photos they like. They wouldn't charge anything to attend as they get their money on the sale of the photos. I'll try and dig out their info for you.

Thanks

[shuebc]

Simpo Two said:

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

Well at least you're buying the service and not trying to make a living from it

I think most people would simply fit Go-Pros etc to cars in various places and make it themselves. And some GVs/establishing shots from their phones. But it will help if you have a plan for how you want the video to be before you start, or you'll end up with 400 hours of random/repetitive footage to sort through.

Yeh i already have the go pro thing - it was more to get some beautiful drone shots specifically. Just deciding whether I should just get a drone myself or get someone else to do it

[shuebc]

SteveKTMer said:

Simpo Two said:

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

Well at least you're buying the service and not trying to make a living from it

I think most people would simply fit Go-Pros etc to cars in various places and make it themselves. And some GVs/establishing shots from their phones. But it will help if you have a plan for how you want the video to be before you start, or you'll end up with 400 hours of random/repetitive footage to sort through.

That's the easy hole to fall into with a GoPro, spare SD cards and batteries and end up with 4 or 5 hours of boring footage a day. I still have the files ...

If anybody does this I'd suggest reading up on basic story telling - you've got to tell a story in maybe 15-20 mins. Also helps reduce the amount of footage you have to process afterwards.

Yeh i do the production aspect of it myself be it as a side gig - it was more specifically drone shots or shots from cars in motion from another car.

I actually did a test run on weekend and it was ok with the action 2 camera. Just need to change the position on the car and every 20 mins or so to get a range of diff angles.

But it’s the drone shots that make a short film look epic especially when driving through cool landscapes etc

[shuebc]

MesoForm said:

Jay Emm on Cars did a YouTube video where he went through the costs of making a video, including hiring a videographer. If I try and remember the number off the top oy head I'll get it wrong, but it's in here somewhere -

Thanks man, will give it a watch

[Simpo Two]

SteveKTMer said:

If anybody does this I'd suggest reading up on basic story telling - you've got to tell a story in maybe 15-20 mins. Also helps reduce the amount of footage you have to process afterwards.

Absolutely. (I used to produce and direct professional videos). The first thing is a script, or treatment. As you say, it needs to tell a story with beginning, middle and end. Then just shoot what you need.

shuebc said:

it was more specifically drone shots or shots from cars in motion from another car.

I actually did a test run on weekend and it was ok with the action 2 camera. Just need to change the position on the car and every 20 mins or so to get a range of diff angles.

But it’s the drone shots that make a short film look epic especially when driving through cool landscapes etc

I agree. There are amateur video makers with drones, but you'll need to direct them so they shoot what you want.

[kman]

shuebc said:

Yeh its for a driving tour I’m organising… nothing big and not a commercial / paid event, just wondering if there’s videographers out there who have a passion for cars, and what that average fee might be for footage only for a day. Yeh, I’ve been getting the same from another contact of mine… £350-500 for a full day shoot, which is probably not viable at level I’m looking for… but understandable fee wise.

For the type of thing you're looking to do (driving tour) that's probably about right with drone filming more on the upper end. It's not really event filming per se more of a travel/automotive documentary.