It IS the land of Vernors. I've now had to crack open a diet Vernors at the mention!
Transfer sessions have gone down since less film is shot, but still expensive. It's $250 an hour of time in studio, not film length, so if it takes 15 minutes to adjust color on a short then run it, it's a little under $100. There's a two hour minimum, plus the time it takes to transfer from their hard drive to mine is also $250 an hour. Some places are more- I get a great deal out here in the Metro Detroit area and can supervise. It's hard to average the real expense, because sometimes I get 20 minutes transferred in an hour, sometimes 1/2 hour if we're really fast, sometimes just a cartoon or two (one Nitrate print recently took 50 minutes or so to get 6 minutes of film...ouch!).
The fundraisers are done somewhat faster at times- but I still want them to at least look ok of course.
The Snafus were done out in DC area at an approved vendor for Telecine. The first Vendor I choose did a terrible job (I ended up suing them!) but the second did an absolutly fantastic job. Total costs for transfers on that set were well over $3,000 since I had to transfer whole 10 minute reels to get the Snafus (at $625 an hour of session time)- but worth it!
Soo....that's what I'm up against! Then, there's finding the material in the first place, paying a borrowing fee & often fedex, replication/ mastering and anything else. Sometimes I'll use more than one print or manage to upgrade during the project. It all varies.
