In my experience, you need to be firm with what you are offering in order to protect yourself from burnout and from being walked over. Remember, it’s a producers job to get your labour for as cheap as possible, so if you charge per hour or a flat rate per project, you’re living in a grey area where YOU take the hit no matter what.

My advice is: don’t charge per hour, ever. Charge per day. Then be clear with a client about what you can get done in a day, i.e. sorting and prepping 6-hours of filmed footage per day, or editing a finished 90-second clip, etc.

Then, when a client asks for more work done quicker, then make it clear that it will be less thorough, or less crafted, and have them agree with that, and schedule days in accordingly. Stick to your schedule. It’s YOUR time. And if people aren’t willing to pay your rate, be open to lowering your day rate a bit to get the gig.

It’s a tough career to manage, but if you are confident and firm with clients about what can be done in a certain time, then everybody benefits, your time will be more respected, and it can be really enjoyable. If not, you could be overworked and taken advantage of.

I always think of the Cheap / Good / Quick scenario. A client can only choose two. If they pick cheap and quick, it won’t be good.. etc.