The other day a friend referred a work prospect to me, a lengthy stint of voice recording.
It seems they were offering only a flat fee of 1,000 rmb. This wasn't really much of a fee, since it seemed the script was going to be rather hefty - probably the narration for a lengthy film documentary (or perhaps a series of 1-hour TV pieces). Solo recording usually pays 600 per hour, even for bog-standard work for the academic publishers; sometimes you can get 700 or 800; rather more for anything vaguely 'corporate' (or, ahem, professional). And this sounded as though it was going to take a minimum of 4 to 5 hours; perhaps substantially more, if it did have to be sync'ed to film.
But, you know, times are hard; I'm pretty desperate for cash right now. The guy giving me the introduction thought they were probably being cagey in their initial offer on the fee and might bump it up a bit. I thought I might give it a go for 2,000 - even though there was a distinct chance I'd be stuck in the studio for 8 or 10 hours, and it wouldn't seem like very good recompense at all.
Further problem: it seemed it was probably going to be some sort of Tibetan propaganda piece. I could just imagine: "See how happy the peasants are! See how spontaneously they launch into their quaint traditional dancing to express their happiness! See how proudly they fly the Chinese flag from their rooftops!"
My friend pressed me for a firm quote that might enable him to close a deal, wondered if I'd accept 1,500 or 2,000 as a flat fee, regardless of hours required. I told him: "I'd rather quote an hourly rate of 500 rmb. Or, if it's a propaganda piece, 10,000 rmb per hour."
2 comments:
Ha! Good for you!
But wouldn't you have been in an awkward spot if they'd come up with the 10K?
Indeed, Gary.
But I was pretty confident 10k per hour would be a 'safe' level.
As it turned out, 500 per hour was safe!!
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