How to bid on VFX jobs (and price them as a studio) Allan McKay Glassdoor

[@jama-techprodz3166]

great Alan. thank u

[@AllanMcKay]

You're welcome! I hope you find it valuable, thanks again

[@activemotionpictures]

AT 21:57 - A TD doing $1000 an hour. Ok, is this average? so it can go up? by the hour? I kind of find it hard to believe.

[@juhalanta456]

That's an apsolute BS number nobody ever does that.

[@AllanMcKay]

@@juhalanta456 A) it was $1000 per day B) mentioned multiple times these were hypothetical numbers to keep the math simple C) I've made $1000 an hour multiple times, I have a keynote and a few videos and Podcast episodes on exactly this topic. But again this was $1000 per day in the video, not per hour. But one thing I find interesting is when people shoot down ideas rather than actually wondering "how" since that's the mindset that's going to get you growth - in those situations. But again, in this case, the video was stating $1000 per day - which is a very real figure, if it wasn't I'd wonder why I've paid so many artists $1K per day ..

[@AllanMcKay]

Hit here - it was $1K per day in the video not per hour. As I mentioned, these were hypothetical numbers just to keep the math simple. But yes you can earn that it's usually supervisor rate rather than artist rate. However, in the video I'm discussing BILLING out artists at $1K per day, animators for $500 per day. You would then be paying the artist $500, $600 per day. Then a lot of the overhead (electricity, internet, producer, coordinators, etc) are all deducted from these numbers as well.

[@legrandcolin]

Still useful 3 years later, thanks a lot Allan for sharing this !

[@omni1691]

This is really great .. Please keep going.

[@AllanMcKay]

Thank you Omni! Will do! Actually giving a talk in Portugal this week on this topic

[@risnandarmultimedia5296]

This video must be viral and send to all of freelancer clients, they must stop offering unrealistic/low cheap prices to all 3d artists, yet they still offering $50 for complex jobs, these cost is realistic excluding original license for the software etc

[@alpapatel6747]

Thank you Alan.. I am following your tut since 2009 . Great. I need some work of VFX

[@AllanMcKay]

Thank you so much Alpa I'm honored! and keep at it brother! You'll get there!

[@alpapatel6747]

@@AllanMcKay Thank u so much for your reply.. May i know from where you hire vfx artist?

[@apmanti12]

cool, can you cover a part how you hire freelancers for your project - where do you look for them, how do you negotiate their rate, what you need to look out for etc? this would help me a lot. thnx allan, you are really amazing dude.

[@AllanMcKay]

This is a great idea, thank you I will definitely shed some light onto this

[@353productions]

Hey this is super helpful thank you, I can’t find the rest of the videos in this series? Did you put anymore out?

[@jahirhussain2484]

Omg! There's so much stuff in getting a studio and bidding on projects which i have never thought about till now. My dream is to open my own vfx studio someday and do cool projects but still i have to get my first job :) and i have a long way to go sir! I have gained more knowledge about this field by following your podcasts and youtube videos regularly. This video was very insightful on the business side of vfx sir ,thank you very much!

[@AllanMcKay]

That's so great Jahir! Please let me know any questions you have I will definitely try to help where I can

[@jahirhussain2484]

@@AllanMcKay Sure sir,Thanks!❤️

[@hellogoodbye7069]

Any idea when more of these business videos will come out? A real bid scenario and info on getting clients would be awesome.

[@genesis2934]

Hi Allan, my name is Antoine Cunningham. I don't know you, but I've been watching your (VIDs) for a while now and I just wanted to say that this one, in particular, was (Awesome)! And being an Industry Veteran as a (Character Animator) myself, I've worked for major companies such as (Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner-Bros, Game Studios), etc. From someone coming from the standpoint of, ("Now, I want to start my own studio"), I found this video to be very compelling and very insightful for a person like me who at this stage in their career is thinking about this industry from more of a (Business-Stand Point). Thank, you so much, Allan. Keep'em coming, Bro. P.S. Let's connected up at some point, Cheers.

[@AllanMcKay]

That's so great man! And yeah definitely - feel free to reach me via email - we can make it a goal for 2020

[@AB-mv1mb]

great video! gonna help me a lot in future

[@AllanMcKay]

awesome!

[@nikolaitatun]

Thanks Alan!

[@AllanMcKay]

you're welcome!

[@chilimbwe]

Thank you for the insight. Can't wait for the case studies.

[@AllanMcKay]

Cheers Chill, great to hear from you

[@noinaitz]

Hey Allen, thanks for the video. If you can talk about how to run a show and could be studio in a perspective of what to keep in-house, what to outsource, full time/part time. How to manage that.Thanks a lot.

[@AllanMcKay]

That's great Noina, I will definitely be doing this. Outsourcing in particular is a really interesting topic, because there's a lot of variables that go into what type of work can get outsourced in the pipeline, and also who they are going out to. Definitely lots of fun topics around this, so I will definitely cover more on this soon!

[@noisebiccys]

Excellent and concise. pretty ground breaking as I haven't seen this type of resource anyway where on the web.

[@ExacoMvm]

Great content! Also i wonder what kind of studio it has to be which pays $1000/day. I could retire after half year lol. Even in ILM i bet most lower/mid position artists gets mby 3-5K/month. Next video idea: Same topic but oriented for freelancers, maybe something about what we should charge ( some work examples maybe and how much they're worth ).

[@AllanMcKay]

Thanks for your input ILM depends which city. Living in SF you need a pretty high income. I was out with a few ILM people last night talking about rates actually, seems most would make 7-9k per month on average. ILM pays ok not amazing

[@ExacoMvm]

@@AllanMcKay Thanks for info, that's still pretty good imo for a decent living.

[@AllanMcKay]

@@ExacoMvm $1k a day is great pay it's definitely in the upper area. I think $300 per day and higher is great ($75k~ per year) But we all have to start somewhere, and you have to be strategic in how you get there. A lot of us sadly don't focus as much on our career, just on learning the software, and then we wonder why we're not where we want to be in our career. Putting energy into goals and a career strategy is everything Great questions btw!

[@ExacoMvm]

@@AllanMcKay Thanks for your reply, i think the right thing is balancing the road there and equally improving on both, because i see alot of freelancers on UpWork etc with "20years of experience" but their portfolio looks barely better than one of a 2-4week student. Which automatically removes them from "Fancy" projects such as 3D car commercial for BMW, popular smartphone brand trailer etc. I think i personally fall into the category where someone focus only on skills/software :/ Well it started as a hobby never planned to make any $ of it so it's kinda ok i guess, just gotta move on business strats now.

[@pointblankeloquence9578]

Thank you. Very valuable information.

[@sebastiandelbasto5820]

Great video man! keep it up. I'm preparing my first bid and proposal as an entry level producer of a small studio and find this great! Thanks a lot!

[@AllanMcKay]

That's great!

[@mariokolodziejczak5525]

Great video Allan . Could you make next one about in depth benefits of rendering on the cpu cloud vs local render cpu farm? Could you break it down on example case of expanding 25 node cpu local render farm to 50 -75nodes or render on the cloud instead and maintaining 25 nodes? Which solution would you pick and why? Which render cloud provider would you pick specifically for vray and mantra in Europe? Thanks

[@AllanMcKay]

Thanks Mario, yeah after reading the comments I will definitely touch on this, thank you!

[@Puru_VFX]

What is the Hollywood movies cost of 1 bid in VFX paint/prep shot ?

[@Ali-xc8iu]

Thanks Alan! This is so helpful.

[@AllanMcKay]

That's great man!

[@sajeelshukla]

Thank you Allan really insightful video. One thing I struggle with is render cost at the start of the project. Any tips how to guesstimate this as there are so many variables. There have been instances where our render costs in cloud rendering has been twice or even three times then the working cost of the project.

[@AllanMcKay]

Yeah cloud rendering can definitely get up there quickly - especially if people are firing out production quality renders all the time. I've always had a rule with my team that we do 1K renders until we're ready to go to final, and everything has to be progressive. And fire out renders only when they're at the point you need to see them, rather than playblasts. Even render in 10's (every 10th frame) to begin with. If artists are just burning cpu cycles for no reason, it's burning your money in the end. However, it's much better than paying artists to sit around watching renders, artist hours are much more expensive than CPU's Just there needs to be common sense at times too, and not just firing out unnecessary or unoptimized renders. If you start to penalize artists for firing out 4K renders or their sample settings cranked to high, people will start to take ownership and stop being careless But the more you take note of how much these jobs cost the more you can work it into the budget hope that helps!

[@sajeelshukla]

@@AllanMcKay thank you Allan nice insight and problem solving will impliment your guidelines for sure. Artists need to have a sense of responsiblity for sure. That way things could be calculated for sure. Once again thank you for sharing your thoughts and workflows

[@phillriley9688]

Hey Allan,Thanks a lot for this vid. Its really awesome how you standout from most and decide to tackle actual practical things pertinent to an artist trying to develop. Something you mentioned towards the end about a personal project like a short animation caught my attention. I was wondering if you could shed more light on this as i intend to work on an animated short film. But i think this may also apply for someone trying to develop a vfx reel where he/she is focused on the vfx and may need to hire an animator,camera grip,lighting artist or fx td. Thanks again,very informative!

[@AllanMcKay]

Hey Phill! That's so great and thank you! I believe what I was talking about is one of two things (I'm looping back to this a few weeks after making this video) Short films for students I always think if you're going to go the route of making a short film, do it as a film maker. Don't make a short film to try to get a job. You either cut a reel to get a job, or you make a short and try to leverage that around the film circuits. Nobody typically cares too much when reviewing your reel that you made a short, it's extremely black and white - "can you do the job, show me" I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I was talking about, but it's typically the topic around short films What I might have been talking about is studios making short films, Blur Studio being a great example of this - we did Gopher Broke, In The Rough, Rockfish and many others. Typically there's a few reasons around why to do this - mostly it's to get credentials (oscar nominated, oscar winner) if the owner is wanting to direct movies (like Blur's owner Tim- who went on to do Deadpool and Terminator) as well as prove on a smaller scale that you can make successful films. Or, if there's your own intellectual property that you're trying to get off the ground. As a way to shop it around and try to get it picked up. Other times it's to work out the kinks in a new pipeline (this is rare, but Sony Imageworks with ChubbChubbs back in 2003). Those are typical reasons - there are others. But in general if you're making a film, usually there should be a desired goal behind it. I have plenty of friends who have made short films, and then went on to direct feature films and become quite successful in Hollywood. Jeff Fowler is directing the new Sonic, Dave Wilson directing Vin Diesel's new film, Miller with Deadpool, Baker bros with Kin, Spierig brothers with Daybreakers and others, and many others. So it's a great way to shortcut your path into film making. But if I totally missed your question, please let me know and I'll take another crack :)

[@phillriley9688]

@@AllanMcKay thank for the reply. I think you explained it to an extent. From what I gather you were referring to large scale production rather than indie style stuff, right? Anything you give is welcome. I could find a way to scale down the figures. Thanks again.

[@anixcool]

Very informative. Thanks a lot..!!

[@AllanMcKay]

No problem buddy!

[@imtiazali6980]

Sir will you make a tut in 3ds max Harry Potter Spell effect plz

[@AllanMcKay]

Will do!

[@ansonyu3937]

thanks Allan, this is really informative and thanks for sharing the insight and experience. When will the next episode of the series coming out?

[@chrislandis6873]

Hi Allan, this is great! You're amazing. Wondering if you have done a lesson on doing the actual bid on a excel spread sheet so we can see format and layout. Also do you use Shotgun or FTrack? Shotgun has HORRIBLE video tutorials!!!

Hey Allan and THANK you very much for this kind of video, for me is more useful than your others covering simulations or effects (while they are great too) I have a question about bidding though..., normally you can bid for a job that is delimited and you know exactly what you will be doing. But Do you have any tips on how to deal with modifications, changes or fixes on the job? For example, you are about to finish the job, but then your client changes his mind and want something different in it, like changing a car for a truck. So you end up recreating much of the work done. In that situation you pass the final price you charge. Do you keep in mind those modifications when doing the bids? Do you bid with three modifications included or something like that? I ask that because you can bid for a job for half the price of other people, but just because your wishful thinking tells you there will be no modifications and everything will go smooth like cuting butter...

[@spectrestudios1127]

Hey Allan. Great content and a really clear breakdown of this topic. We're coming to the end of a really tough year for our studio. We bid on a number of jobs without success, our pricing was competitive but in many cases, we were approached in order to have a competing quote against their already chosen vendor. My question, if you can expand this out into a video. How can I proactively approach game publishers and production companies to build more potential job pipeline?

[@AllanMcKay]

Thanks for the message! I guess my first question is, do you have representation - either for your company or in addition in other countries? Sometime's the local market might be dry but others are booming Which country are you located in?

[@spectrestudios1127]

Hey Allan. We're located in Sydney and we don't have representation. Are there agents for our kind of work?

[@lorenzobrown2377]

Hi Allan I think you should cover How to get your first project as a freelancer. This would help my situation and others like me starting out. I don't want to create the wrong/bad impression at the start and be known for that.

[@Xaia]

Sorry I deleted the comment regarding mandays per specific asset for production by mistake, I was supposed to edit it ;). Anyway, would be great if you could shed some light on that topic for the community :) I am very curious how this is calculated for bigger productions.

[@AllanMcKay]

No problem and will do :)

[@AaronZOOM]

Good information, glad for this series, but I think your camera is moving around too much. Cutting to the unnecessary wide angle, or just constantly shifting and tracking you around is super distracting.

[@AllanMcKay]

Sorry Aaron!

[@ParhamSalamati]

Thanks for sharing this Allan, it's been put together well crafted! I'd say you're not only a great vfx sup, but also a very talented teacher!

[@AllanMcKay]

Thanks so much!!

[@juhalanta456]

I have seen strange pricing differences for game trailers cinematics bids some studios bid 160K for 2 min trailer some 200 k and some bid 50K this is all bids from mid size big studios why are they so low biding?

[@AllanMcKay]

That's a really great point - a lot of studios might underbid to get the job. Which is dangerous for them. I've seen studios close because of this (Syndicate because of Alice in wonderland is a great example). But sometimes it can be the reason they don't get the job. Some studios all submit bids ~250k and one comes in at 180k... it makes you wonder why they're completely off with their numbers, and if it's a sign that they aren't planning the project out to spec. So being the cheapest can sometimes be the reason you don't get the job. If there is a reason why you're considerably cheaper than others, it's good to communicate this - because sometimes it's something like "we plan to get all our tracking done by students" "we plan to outsource a lot of our work to another studio... who is not under NDA" Lots of red flags, so it's better to have a better understanding of why they're cheaper, or else it's easier to assume the worst

[@Gyanevlogs]

Hello sir talk about get startup vfx company.

[@AllanMcKay]

Definitely leading toward that - I've wanted to talk about this for many years :)

[@varunthapliyal8960]

Thanks bro You are like a VFX Priest.. 😂😂 Always give valuable advices....

[@AllanMcKay]

Cheers man I'm honored!

[@mattmatt8991]

Uhhh I live in like other universe man, in Poland You can only dream about that kind of quotes/salaries - but still we need to pay regular prices on software and plugins etc. :( Thanks for this Allan it's eye opening.

[@AllanMcKay]

Thanks Matt these aren't real numbers as I mention. Mostly just simplified for the sale of easy math. But I do know studios on Poland dealing with numbers like this - it just depends on who your client is. You're right domestically there aren't too many expensive projects but Europe does have very very high paying clients - much higher than the US, and you can still bid on uk and USA work. But if you're working on a local the commercial you're probably looking at 20-30k commercials rather than 1mil dollar an episode tv shows like Amazon and Netflix pay for VFX these days But it always comes down to what type of work and who you are going after. But it's always fun talking about this stuff. Thanks for sharing your insights Matt!

[@mattmatt8991]

@@AllanMcKay Hey Allan, thanks for reply. I did have some US, UK and FR clients, I was making 3D hi-poly cars for AmericanMuscle.com, now I started a studio and getting those clients from US or UK is quite hard thats why I wanted to ask You if got any advice how to get into other markets whitout spending fortune on GoogleAds ? Behance works but any other ideas ? Thanks in advance

[@rahulpawartube]

Thanks for your information... i am just curious, how come you ended up with 59 Minute 59 seconds video perfectly? Render cost LOL :)

[@AllanMcKay]

I KNOW! On my end it was exactly 1:00:00 maybe KZbin shaved off a second I had to triple check that thinking maybe I capped it somewhere - such a crazy coincidence haha

[@sheykaja5273]

Mecky can you make nebula tutorial

[@AllanMcKay]

Sure thing

[@sheykaja5273]

@@AllanMcKay thank you 😍

[@picosdrivethru]

Hey Alan, I dont get why you get paid so much more as a lighter than a modeler, i thought most specializations pay about the same, except maybe fx-tds and general tds, which are a bit more. I only ask because I really like modeling, but am more than capable to do more technical stuff... I just really don't like it. Am I basically doomed to be so vastly underpaid as a modeler?

[@Roozy_Persepolis]

2 very small questions Allan: 1 - do you take in consideration health cost and insurance and health benefits of your employees for that project? 2 - Can someone that has been a lighting and texture artist for the video game industry be able to switch to the film industry to work on 1 or 2 film projects?

[@AllanMcKay]

Health insurance is only for staff employees - and that typically is worked out into their salary (dental, sick days, vacation, all of that) when the job is first offered. So that sort of thing isn't really on a per-project basis but more annual projection of how much we're making that year, how that employee will contribute etc. As for games to film, yes definitely. I would hope that they are already looking into the film industry pipeline first, so that they have a good understanding. Rather than me/us having to teach them all of this on our dime. But if they're good and they demonstrate a lot of ability, especially for lighting, I would have no problem bringing them over.

[@Roozy_Persepolis]

@@AllanMcKay How about when you outsource or ask for commission work for an individual, is healthcare and benefits based on just that 1 person that is not an official employee?

[@LexGoyle]

As far as I know healthcare and benefits would be a burden placed on the freelancer. They're what we call in the US a 1099 contractor or independent contractor. If we use the video as the example the freelancer would be the "studio" and the client would be the studio doing the hiring. I'm not sure how an offer to an artist is calculated and I'm curious as to how that is done myself. However, when you're an independent contractor health insurance, dental care, retirement...whatever other benefits you're wanting to have all fall under your own overhead costs. The studio isn't likely to put themselves on the hook for the health insurance/benefits costs of a freelance artist especially when those tend to be incentives to draw in talent you want to keep on the payroll therefore, if my assumptions are correct, it's up to the freelancer to negotiate the wage accordingly in their 'bid' for the job. Naturally though Allan I'm sure has a better, well worded answer. lol

[@sthJuniorPK]

Allan: "... he was really good at selling drugs." Me: "Wait...what?" rewind** lol

[@AllanMcKay]

Haha actually asked editor to take that out but guess it slipped in haha

[@VincentG991]

Allan McKay I actually thought it was pretty funny!

[@sthJuniorPK]

@@AllanMcKay nah man! You gotta leave the good stuff in LOL

[@AllanMcKay]

@@VincentG991 Funny thing is I actually hired that guy (my best friend, and the only person who was really head strong about business) as my producer years later. He now works high up in sales at Microsoft. go figure.

[@VincentG991]

Allan McKay Hahahah! That’s freaking awesome! Hey I sell drugs too man! 😂😂😂

Have you cancel a running job because you thought your client was over asking for changes and you was eventually going to start loosing money?

[@jamiecfthedrummer]

This was incredibly helpful. Thanks for all you do!

[@cymary]

this is so awesome. thanks a lot Alan!

[@pratapmistry7659]

$500 dollar a day that"s a huge amount in Indian rupees....

[@VARUNKUMAR-sq9nz]

Almost 3500 rupees

[@pratapmistry7659]

@@VARUNKUMAR-sq9nz not 3500 its 35000..

[@AllanMcKay]

I've seen artists at Weta back in the day make $21,000 USD a week freelancing - but there wasn't much sleep going on

[@aki_gong6271]

Already a bit more than half way through and not really impressed. As resume so far, make the math on your artist cost, multiply by two, pass that amount as the bid to be safe. I wonder what comes on the next 20 minutes, maybe how much you can negotiate down in case client doesn't like those numbers? ;) Let's see!

[@metatrongroove2824]

CRUCIAL

[@AllanMcKay]

Great man!

[@waqarhasan6044]

Bro you talk way to long .... The real massage is still a Fog.

[@AllanMcKay]

Sorry you feel that way Waqar! Maybe my videos are not for you - I guess there's shorter videos out there, maybe try Vine or TikTok :)