Storyboarding Pricing & More

QuietYell

Any thoughts on storyboard pricing & pricing structures?

Best to do per-frame, hour/day/week rate, or some other? Any standard or recommended pricing ranges here?

Any add-on costs or other cost considerations? (e.g. rough sketch vs. tighter line vs. b&w vs. color, additions for effects, video supers, call-out commentary, edits effecting multiple frames, etc.)

While we’re at it: Any pricing for animatics of storyboard (if requested, whether just a flip-book to more involved sprite movement)?

Any quantity of keyframes and/or in-between/total frames per 15sec/30sec/60sec/other that should be done?

Any contractual points to include or look out for? (I’m assuming that this is likely a work-for-hire type of contract)

Any other advice, tips, resources, etc.?

Details:

While I’ve done storyboards before, I haven’t had to price them (and it’s been several years since I’ve done them). Looking through Google, GAG’s Handbook, & discussing with a highly seasoned advertising ECD, but I wanted to see what others here thought on this subject.

I’d definitely like to hear thoughts on storyboards for a variety of uses (e.g. film, tv, game, commercial, promo video, etc.); though, the particular kind that I’d be pricing would be for roughly 3-min business-educational videos for employees/contractors/vendors of a large company (unsure of actual distribution numbers & private-vs-public nature of the end video product).

I believe script with visual direction would be provided; however, I am not sure at this very early stage as to how thorough that would be. (It was just put on my radar as a strong possibility, but no formal requests have been made yet.)

@Jake-Parker @Will-Terry @Lee-White I think that storyboarding may have been covered or hinted at some in one or more of the courses, but it would be great to have a course dedicated to storyboarding (across the different industries/uses too) sometime.

Will Terry

Hey Scott - I don't know - but I thought I'd let you know that it's on our list of videos we'd like to tackle this year. Because I don't work in that market I'm not much help in the pricing area. I'm hoping someone else with experience chimes in on this one.

QuietYell

@Will-Terry Thanks Will! That's awesome to hear about this being a potential upcoming video! Exciting!

Jake Parker

I haven't done storyboards very much, and not at all for freelance. Most of what I've done has been beat boards, which are a bit more detailed and rendered and identify specific story beats.

I typically charge a day rate. Which is a set amount of money for roughly 7-8 hours of work. I'll figure out how much work it will take to finish the job for the client and just bid out the project according to days, not something specific as frames.

As for what you should be delivering? I think the standard these days is to have animatics, with pretty loose animation, and some rough rendering when needed.

Here's an example of what the industry standard is for storyboarding in entertainment looks like:

http://anthonyholdenportfolio.blogspot.com/2014/08/blog-post_7.html

And here's some animatics
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQs5wD3DJzM/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/p/BThVqhGDhCv/?hl=en

Also standard software for storyboarding is: https://www.toonboom.com/products/storyboardpro

As for a storyboarding class, talking to a few guys who do storyboards for animation about doing a class for SVS. It probably would happen until the fall.

QuietYell

@Jake-Parker Oh I forgot about Toonboom! Thanks!

I've never heard the term "beat boards" but per your mentioning & a quick Google Search, I think I've seen them all the time on Pinterest & Instagram from concept artists. Also, I think you showed "Horton Hears A Who!" ones before, right?

Yeah, a day rate sounds better than the per frame that I've seen suggested online, particularly when changes are sure to come.

Those animatics were funny. I was just watching the animatics of Tangled this weekend in their dvd extras. I really enjoyed seeing the animatic options in light of what the final ended up being. Similar with other movie animatics I've seen.

Thank you so much for your response - Very helpful!