Re: Blade II language: The price of conlanging

Matt,

Hummmm,  I am a more than a bit surprised at some of the comments.  I am
just wondering if any of you actually have your own business - one where you
have to support yourself and your family, not a hobby business.

To give you an idea of such a value I spoke with a friend who produces local
commercials here in the Cincinnati, Ohio area.  His formula was:
- Price a full time job doing this would pay times 3
 - Then realizing as a consultant that your work will not be steady you will
need to spend about 50% of your time looking for work.  So, take that number
times 2.
- Also, the cost of material used, insurance, etc.  This should be about 10%

Now the numbers.
- Average professional makes about $24 per hour in this area.  A Ph.D..
would make about 3-4 times that, but let us take the average.

24 x 3 = 72 x 2 = 144
144 x .10 = 14.4
144 + 14 = 158

You should be getting about $158 per hour for your work.

Figure a 8 hr work day:  158 x 8 = $1264 per day.

I would guess that it would take at least  24 man hours of work to present
them with a basic dialogue if you do it right.  However, keep in mind that
directors and producers will want you to make all kinds of changes.  Will
they pay for this by the hour or should you roll it into the lump sum
figure.

At $3000 your price was a bargain for them.

If Snipes is in this move he alone will be making millions for his role.
The support people will be paid union or guild wages.  You might want to
check what they are being paid.  However, remember you have a Ph.D..  They
may not even have a HS Diploma.

This may be a hobby for some of us, but you are a professional linguist.

As a registered Interpreter for the Deaf I used to make $55 / hr back in the
70's and 80's.  People who translate languages for business purposes often
make much more.

Matt, don't sell yourself short.    My producer friend here said they would
probably be coming back to you if they are smart.

Also, I have been kind of wondering... Do you know what Prof. Fromkin was
paid for the first script?

Levi
=======================
Levi Caddell
levica@one.net



----- Original Message -----
From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: Blade II language: The price of conlanging


> What did they want from you? A fully fledged lg, a la Klingon,
> plus your time in training actors, dubbing, etc.? Or just half
> a dozen sentences compatible with the original film?
>
> $3K is, I think, about a month's gross salary for me & what
> you described doesn't sound like a month's work.
>
> It seems a shame to abandon the project, especially because no
> way will the producers be able to find anyone else able to do
> as good a job; they could contact me for a recommendation, but
> I'd tell them you're the best!
>
> I'd suggest pricing yourself at a rate equivalent to the rate
> you're paid as a professional linguist. Then get back in touch
> with the producers and offer to sell them $500 or $1000 worth
> of your time. The product they get is whatever you can achieve
> within the time they're willing to pay for. If they get less
> than they were expecting then that should show them that
> they underestimated what they were asking from you. Hopefully
> this arrangement would be more transparent & the producers
> could see they weren't being chiselled.
>
> (I don't think it makes sense to place a monetary value on
> the end product. The monetary value of things is what the market
> will bear, which, by the sound of things, is $1000, not $3000.)
>
> --And.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On
> > Behalf Of J Matthew Pearson
> > Sent: 08 February 2001 04:41
> > To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> > Subject: [CONLANG] Blade II language: The price of conlanging
> >
> >
> > 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.  As you may recall, I was being tapped by the
> > makers of the sequel to revive the Vampire language from the
> > first "Blade" movie, which was originally designed by Vicki
> > Fromkin, a professor emerita in my department, now deceased.  As
> > it turns out, the producer and I were unable to come to an
> > agreement on the price, and so I suggested they find someone
> > else.
> >
> > The whole thing has left me feeling very ambivalent.  I'll tell
> > you guys how I decided to proceed, and you can tell me if you
> > think I did the right thing or not:
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Now I don't know what to think.  On the one hand, I'm proud of
> > myself for having stood my ground, and for having the
> > self-respect (as a linguist *and* as a conlang artist) to charge
> > what I thought my product was really worth, rather than what the
> > market would bear.  But on the other hand, I'm disappointed at
> > having thrown away the opportunity to see "Vampire dialogue
> > created by Dr. Matthew Pearson" in the closing credits of a major
> > Hollywood movie.  I'm also wondering if I wasn't being a wee bit
> > arrogant in asking quite so much for what was really only a few
> > hours of work (and very entertaining work at that).
> >
> > So what do you guys think?  We all agree that conlanging is an
> > art, but was I right to charge as much as a portrait painter or
> > graphic artist might charge for a comparable amount of labour?
> > How do you put a price on conlangs, anyway?
> >
> > Matt.
> >
>
>