Why are Custom Commissioned Props so Expensive? The Answer is Below....

[markquested]

One of my little pet hates are people who believe that artists, musicains, film makers, prop makers, et al should sell their creations cheaply (or as in the case of people of a far-left political bent, for free!)

Whereas a seller can overprice, a purchaser can undervalue and unappreciate the time, money and effort put in to make a work of art.

So I always get a little suspicious of somebody's motives when complaining about a price.

There are a lot of things that I would like to buy but haven't the money or space for them. That's life and I do nit begrudge the manufacturer or retailler.

 

[ranallace]

No he dosent know wht he is talking about - my time is as valuable as anyone else's and to say my time has no value is a dick thing to say - sounds to me like he just wants it cheap .....

By "fair market value", do you mean cheap?

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but is your criticism more related to being unable to afford certain handcrafted prop replicas?

Is your want of being able to afford a prop replica the real reason for your complaint, rather than the propmaker wanting financial recompense?

 

[markquested]

No he dosent know wht he is talking about - my time is as valuable as anyone else's and to say my time has no value is a dick thing to say - sounds to me like he just wants it cheap .....

Just amended my post to the following...

One of my little pet hates are people who believe that artists, musicains, film makers, prop makers, et al should sell their creations cheaply (or as in the case of people of a far-left political bent, for free!)

Whereas a seller can overprice, a purchaser can undervalue and unappreciate the time, money and effort put in to make a work of art.So I always get a little suspicious of somebody's motives when complaining about a price.

There are a lot of things that I would like to buy but haven't the money or space for them. That's life and I do not begrudge the manufacturer or retailler.

 

[ranallace]

Amen !! Go tell it on the mountain !! LOL

Seriously it's a fact - my time is valuable - heck my mom said charge a thousand per copy like her small statues get - but I'd never sell any at that price , LOL

Difference is she's the famous artist and I'm just a hick Star Trek fan with some wood and a dream

 

[Killtime]

I used to work in sign writing/graphics. People would crack it because a "sticker" custom job would cost $150. They had no concept that it took a few hours to make it "their way" nor any respect for the fact that we placed it flawlessly on their car/window. One guy insisted on sitting with us for 5-6 hours for flames to get it just right but balked at the hourly rate.

I quoted a Subaru driver to "cover his car in green sticker bro cause it's cheaper than paint" over 5k given vinyl costs per metre and my time and skill to make it perfect.

People won't accept most things due to pre-conceptions based on what they see in Kmart or whatever and have no idea about how mass production works.

 

[Balakin]

My favourite argument is "If you want to earn money why don't You find a real job? I don't earn anything from my hobby so why should you?"
You know, real job like, cleaning the floor in a Tesco. And nothing against Tesco workers, but why would it be more real than working as a propmaker/musician/illustrator etc? Usually it's jealousy from people in ****ty jobs or just ignorance.
Usually people admire your skills but when it comes to the price, they won't believe that this thing would cost this much.
Bill in the video is right, you don't just pay for the piece of plastic or metal or whatever, you pay for years of experience and the guarantee of a professional that your item will be a quality piece and would be ready in time. But this has a cost because people need food, fuel in their car, have to go shopping sometimes, go to the doctor because they got sick and they have to cover these costs too.
It's just simple logic. If I want my car fixed I would pay a professional, who works on it the whole day and it is fixed by friday and I pay the cost. If I want to pay less I could ask a friend who will work on it whenever he has free time or when he wants and the car will be ready in a month and maybe it won't work properly because it was repaired by somebody who couldn't pay that much attention. (I had these kind of deals when I made music or videos and the conclusion was always that I should have payed more for somebody who can work on it full time).

 

[bookface]

I pose this question:

If I were to recieve a commission for a piece with the agreement that I never produce another (therefore its completely unique for that buyer) do I have the right to charge more for this privellage? Could I conceivably offer a discount if he/she agrees to let me sell copies?

Simply, yes. How much you charge for such a piece should be based on potential demand for the piece in the future. Say someone pays $1000 for said replica, including exclusivity rights (which to my mind, means that you do not EVER make another one, be it from moulds of the original piece, or scratchbuilding another). Your customer posts it to the RPF, prompting a storm of interest in such an awesome piece. You know that you could easily sell 20 of these things at $300 each if you had been allowed to take moulds.

Suddenly, that $1000 is looking like you've underpriced yourself.

Of course, this depends on a few things that essentially come down to your own judgement. Can you see the piece being popular? Is it really obscure and likely to elicit little interest from others? If you think the latter and you're wrong, then you just have to suck it up.

Then again, what happens when another propmaker sees the interest in this piece? They know you're hamstrung with an agreement never to produce another, so what's to stop them from making one and selling it to all the interested parties? Then you're losing out financially, and the original buyer is losing the exclusivity of the prop. No one wins.

You may be able to tell that I think agreeing to any 'exclusivity' clause in a commission is just a bad idea. At most, agree that you won't take moulds from the original piece, requiring you to build another one if you want to produce replicas.

 

[DtailedREPLICAS]

Great points bookface. You make perfect sense on that issue and its good advice for anyone I think. Ill certainly be taking it on board.

 

[racprops]

Back when I started doing props, the studios would have a clause that prevented us propmakers form making copies of our work.

Which is why we traded props to other makers. (We were prevent for making copies of OUR own work not others...)

I very quickly learned I was not doing as well with the studios as I should, but at lease THEY paid well for these props.

Fans didn't.

So I NEVER took on any commission jobs.

I always build a mold master of any prop and then made as many copies as I could sell. A master would allow mold after mold to be made.

Some of my masters are decades old.

This way I could afford to do the weeks of work making said mold master, because no one was willing to pay me for my work at what I felt my shop rate was, which even then was only $25.00 per hour.

Try to get you car repaired any where near that shop rate. Most car repair shops charge $75.00 to $200.00 per hour. (small repair shop VS big DEALERS)

For 90% of the time THIS is just replacing bad parts.

It is known as R&R work, remove and replace. I still do 80% of these repairs myself.

What is sad is many times you will find if asked these people work at a job where they earn $10.00 to $30.00 per hour and if pressed and if they work where they can figure out what their work is worth to their customers it is triple their hourly rate. (Jobs that charge the customer, what they are told to charge...)

Yet they don't like to pay you even the same rate.

My 2 cents.

Rich

 

[DtailedREPLICAS]

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Its all about the hours. More than skill, or status, its the pure time involved in production, from start to finish.

Customers are happy to pay for the cost of a finished piece in terms of the materials (sometimes not even then) but when it actually comes time for you to get some money for the time you put in.....

'HOW MUCH! I DONT THINK SO! I could make 3 myself for that price!'

Go right ahead.

 

[phez]

Customers are happy to pay for the cost of a finished piece in terms of the materials (sometimes not even then) but when it actually comes time for you to get some money for the time you put in.....

'HOW MUCH! I DONT THINK SO! I could make 3 myself for that price!'

Maybe have two prices?

1. Compleated Prop
2. Generic Prop Kit containing
   1. Block of wood
   2. piece of metal round stock
   3. 2 part resin kit
   4. etc...

It is sort weird that work that you do on a hobby like this is undervalued the way it is. I "work" a ton of hours a week and I put a premium on the time I actually get to spend working on the hobby. It very quickly goes from fun hobby to a lot of work and stress once you have put yourself in a production run. I have a few people that I do work for regularly. I try to charge a reasonable price and put 110% into the job.

I think as a whole people have gotten used to the definition of a successful business as doing the job for absolutely the cheapest price by reducing quality to the bear minimum that someone will stay accept (but will still complain when what they bought falls apart). In peoples minds the value of hand done work is now priced to compete with automated production equipment.

Not everything that is made (especially the kind of stuff that is made here on the RPF) fits into that category.

Can I use this as my signature :lol

she's the famous artist and I'm just a hick Star Trek fan with some wood and a dream.

 

[13doctorwho]

It's kind of funny to me. Custom ANYTHING is very expensive. Custom costumes, custom furniture, custom framing, custom paintings, custom printing, to name a few, are all very expensive. Custom means you want something specifically designed/built to your requirements. If a person spends a lot of time making a one off of anything for a customer (that no one else may want) it's going to be expensive.

Your paying extra to get what you want. There are people that spend a fortune for custom bookshelves to get them perfectly fitted to their space (and their taste), and then there are people that by mass produced particle board some assembly required bookshelves at Walmart. In the end you get what you pay for. Props/Sculptures/3D models are no different.

 

[BRDencklau]

Howdy, all. I "know" Sean from the forums and I know this video from punished props quite well. I have to chime in as I feel this pertains to me fairly well.

I am both a hobbyist and a professional. I am a hobbyist by scope and a professional in the manner in which I conduct my business. I feel like some people only equate payment with professionalism. It is the manner in which you present yourself to your work and in most cases, your clients.

I openly and happily call myself a hobbyist purely because I make for the sake of making. I too built some awesome toys and had enough interest to decide to make "low cost" replicas available. Had I not received the interest, I would have still sank the hinders of hours and dollars in to my "hobby." But ours not really a hobby to me. Its my passion. Its my poison and my medicine.

In regards to pricing, I take material cost and hourly investment per replica as well as a small amount factored in to help offset the cost of the R&D. I do not factor the hours designing or producing the original, as it was made for personal enjoyment. (and to show off to my buddies) I also do not factor the hours spent building the molds or trial casting.

You gotta pay to play.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

 

[Beer_Money_Props]

You gotta pay to play.

A-Frakking-men. :thumbsup

 

[ranallace]

amen to that -

 

[Killtime]

Agreed.

The most common question I've had at con's is the question about how long it took make a suit and then the disbelief at the time/cost involved. Which usually has someone with a foam suit (mine are fibreglass ect) chiming in about how it took them three days to make theirs. If they were nice about it, I usually won't tell them it looks like a three day suit (oh my) but many people are shocked when you tell them the costs of putting the gear together.

Once that's covered I can get a decent discussion out of them and reach an understanding.

 

[Luke0312]

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Its all about the hours. More than skill, or status, its the pure time involved in production, from start to finish.

Customers are happy to pay for the cost of a finished piece in terms of the materials (sometimes not even then) but when it actually comes time for you to get some money for the time you put in.....

'HOW MUCH! I DONT THINK SO! I could make 3 myself for that price!'

Go right ahead.

Preach it.

I was asked by someone recently about building a batman bookshelf (just google it if you haven't already seen them). They were shocked at the $250 price tag. I just gave a quick material list rundown and described some tooling needed to build them. Ended the convo with stating, "yea, that $250 is actually pretty cheap."

Without working in a manufacturing environment, regardless of size and type, it's hard to understand the work that goes into producing an item and how cost is offset with large productions runs and how if it is a single item or small number, that cost can't be offset.

 

[DtailedREPLICAS]

Maybe have two prices?

1. Compleated Prop
2. Generic Prop Kit containing
   1. Block of wood
   2. piece of metal round stock
   3. 2 part resin kit
   4. etc...

HAHAHA. Hilarious.

Anyway, what 13doctorwho says is completely true. Custom anything is expensive. Its kind of the definition when it comes to design and production. Why should prop making be any different?

I think people assume that because prop/replica making has a 'hobby feel' to it, that it isnt worth as much as anything else.

Do they forget that every movie made in history (every large budget movie at least) has a prop department (or just a prop guy) that gets paid purely to make things for the movie. How boring would Star Wars be without lightsabres and blasters?
Then look at the fact that most production props are actually pretty terrible in terms of detail and quality. After all theres 5 versions of everything, for each type of scene and some of them get used only once. Why bother putting too much effort into them? Right?
Replicas are (in my opinion) often far more detailed and of a much higher quality than the originals. So when you go a step further and make some thing more detailed and higher quality than what some guy gets paid a living to make everyday, and then only make one.....well, its going to cost a reasonable amount now isnt it.

Its costs money to make anything, it cost alot to make anything that is unlikely to be made again. Thats just how it is.

I agree (basically) with what Brian (BRDencklau) is saying as well. It shoudlnt matter how big you are as to how much you appear to be worth. Unfortunately though, thats the business world of today.

In regards to not factoring in the cost of making the original, I can see what youre saying. I could be making far more money doing something else, but I (like you, and hopefully most other people here) get personal satisfaction from making stuff. So for the privellage of doing something you love, you get less cash at the end of the day. I can live with that.

However, when it comes to making a custom, one off piece, well that is the original, and you should be getting paid for that.

Cost of time designing
Cost of time developing how it will be constructed
Cost of time finishing and refining the master

Regardless of whether you mould and then cast this or simply paint the master, youve invested a great deal of time into producing something and you should get paid something extra for the effort, on top of the nominal fee for a casting that has been painted.

 

[BRDencklau]

So true: the impermanence of the movie industry. I know for a fact that every single thing I have made (or helped make) for a movie has been thrown away directly after filming. Mind you we mostly make workable components and set pieces.

I was shocked. But my guy, Bruce, was like, "yeah. We just call in a couple 20 yard dumpsters and the whole thing gets junked."

=-O

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[DtailedREPLICAS]

Geez. What a waste. Tricky not to take it personally. Afterall, it was your hands that lovingly crafted what is now the equivalent of an old tuna tin.