Re: Blade II language: The price of conlanging

Matt Pearson wrote:

>Well, this is just to announce that my association with "Blade
>II" (the sequel to the Wesley Snipes movie of a couple years
>back) has ended.
(snips)  Too bad. but...

 >Faced with the daunting task of putting a monetary price on a
>conlanging project, I consulted some of my friends who are
>self-employed in various arts- and entertainment-related
>industries (e.g., graphic design), and who are thus used to
>negotiating fees for creative work.  They advised me to treat
>myself as a full-fledged professional/creative consultant, and to
>charge accordingly.  After all, they reasoned, creating an
>internally consistent language from scratch--and in such a way
>that it matches the vampire dialogue from the original "Blade"
>movie--is a highly developed skill, requiring considerable
>expertise.  The fact that I have a PhD in Linguistics and years
>of conlanging experience should count for *something*, they said.
>
>So I thought long and hard about how much time and effort the
>whole project would take, and what I what I considered the
>'value' of the end product to be.  After much debate, I arrived
>at a lump sum of $3,000.  I quoted my price to the producer and
>she was, to say the least, dumbfounded--even outraged--at my
>audacity:  She was expecting to pay no more than $500 for what
>she assumed would be just a couple hours' work.  We haggled for a
>bit, but once I realised that she was only prepared to go as high
>as $1,000, I said no thank you.  And that was that.
You did right IMO.  And it could well be, they'll be back to you, when they
can't find a hack in the writing dept. who has any idea...... Maybe your
price was a teeny bit high, but not too.  $1000, no way.  Good grief, what's
the budget of the picture?

I was in a similar situation the summer before my final year, busy writing
the diss. A very good college level inst. in Mexico wanted me for six months
to consult on a project to teach Spanish to a bunch of Indonesian execs and
workers.  Never mind why.....  (Amazingly, there were 2 qualified people at
UM, but the other one had obligations; I was more advanced anyway.)   On the
advice of the dept. chairman and others, I asked a fairly high price $6000
IIRC.  The Mexicans supposed I'd be willing to live as a student, for about
$100 or so a month.  So the six month deal didn't happen; I did go for an
enjoyable long weekend for a reasonable sum & was very well treated.
Ambivalent feelings too-- 6 mos. in Mexico would have been fun, and the
whole Spanish/Indonesian thing was hoot.  But it would have interrupted my
progress on the diss., such as it was, plus storing possessions etc etc.

Alas, the might-have-beens.