Rates when renting

[2000lux]

I might be looking at a few productions where I'll need to rent a camera. I have pretty much all the support equipment I'll need (lights, sound gear, tripod, etc). How do you price out your rates when you're renting? Do you add on the cost to your regular day rate, or do you subtract a bit from your rate so that it comes out to about the same amount?

[Hiding Under Here]

There's two ways to look at it, in my opinion.

First, you have a single rate. Let's say it's $1000/day (a nice round number) for ten hours for you and the camera package. You shop the camera rental deal and get the best price you can. Subtract the camera rental from the gross fee ($1000) and you have your net yield.

The other way to do it is to build up. Say you charge $500 for your services. Your gear package -- lights ($100), tripod ($50), audio ($75) -- is worth another $225. Using the $1000/day rate you have $275 headroom. Can you get the camera for that price? If not, you can be "fungible" (I like that word) with the other numbers to justify fitting the camera into your rate.

In the end, if you feel as though you aren't getting paid appropriately for you and your gear, you can always move the base price up.

As for the camera rental, rental houses are giving incredible rates just to keep them moving. Contact me if you need some recommendations of what might be the best place from which to rent.