Hello all! I am coming to you to gather great ideas and thoughts about the ever evolving world of equipment rental. I think many of us own much of what we like to use often. For example, i own several monitors, Teradek systems, Wireless FF, and a bunch of other camera dept AKS. I have purchased the stuff i use (and have requested of me) all the time, it just made more sense to get the kit rental on top of my day rate for the stuff I was literally renting for every job.
I fully understand that specifics will be impacted by location, items, etc. but I feel that most principles of approach can and will work just about anywhere you may be.
What are the traditional going rate guidelines for pricing personal gear that you have seen in your area? For me, I have always heard that you should price gear between 5-10% of purchase price.
For those of you that have a fair amount of personal gear that you like to rent out on jobs, how have you seen the industry change in regards to Production picking up your gear as opposed to going solely through a rental house? I like to get my gear on as many shows as possible, but I find that it has become harder and harder to get a fair kit rate out of productions, because major rental houses have the ability to really undercut rates and give much of the smaller gear to the job for next to nothing if not "free".
Lets hear it, I like to check in every once in a while and get the good, bad, and ugly on topics like this. Thanks all.
Good Topic! I personally own a 702, 1303, CineRT and full Preston kit.
Pricing: Most of the ACs and rental houses in my region are open to discuss about pricing which leads us to "partner up" instead of eating each other by lowering down the prices. As with the producers, they basically ask us to match the rental houses prices and discounts.
As for the politics of renting owned aks: I feel like a communal agreement is possible by not stepping on everybody's toe. If your rental list is divided by 2 because you own everything I can understand that the house will try to cut you up. But if the stuff you rent if very personal (monitor, wireless ff) or stuff they don't usually own (CineRT is a good exemple) I don't see why they would try to low ball you.
Sure, most of the time when I get my personal kit on a job I have to match the rental house deal to get it to fly. That makes total sense from production's standpoint. Its good to hear that you have had experiences with rental houses that seem willing to play rather than try hard to cut you out.
I have the same - just my Personal Cpro+ kit, 503 and filter set. I worked it out as "roughly" about 60/70 day hires to recoup your initial investment (this is at full rental rate and no discounts for long term jobs). With longer jobs there is always a pressure to bring down the rental rate if you are competing against the kit houses 3 day weeks (UK standard) - but at the end of the day I would rather use my WLCS than a banged up rental.
When I started in this business, the standard rental rate was a 4 day week for most independent rental houses although Panavision had a standard 3 day week. That business model has completely disappeared with most rental houses charging about 1 or 1.5 days a week for long term rentals. I have even heard of rental houses giving the production a entirely free rental on pilots hoping to land the show upon a network buy of the series.
That being said, most of the time, I have to agree to make a deal with the rental house renting my personal gear and in turn billing the production company while taking a small 10% cut for the cost of billing the production company.
If I'm able to bill the production company directly, I always give a similar discount from what the rental house charges. I feel that it is only fair that the production company should not have to pay more to rent my personal gear and there is the burden of the production company having to cut an additional check to myself as an individual.
Fair observation, and in many cases I have typically had to do the same in order to get my personal gear to work. have you ever been in a position where the rental house is "gifting" the rental to production while you are trying to get your gear on the show? If so, how has that worked out? I have been on a couple gigs where that happened and it was very difficult to negotiate still getting paid for my equipment to some extent. its relatively much easier for a rental house to absorb the cost of a free shoot than it is for us owner/ops to do so.