How Much Money Do FPV Pilots Make??

now to be honest i don't get to go to fly fpv as much as i'd like to but in the past year i have been able to do a handful of different fpv jobs i flew in cafes restaurants hotels museums and recently i also started collaborating with a few different athletes now some of you guys saw those clips and reached out to me asking me how much i charge for a shoot like that and how much you guys could charge and originally i didn't want to make a video on this because i didn't feel like i was the most qualified person to talk about it although i have this youtube channel i always try to make it very clear that i am not a seasoned professional but after looking around online i realize that it's not that easy to find good information on this and after talking to some people i do have a few insights i want to share that i think will help some of you guys out but i want to be clear everything that i talk about in this video is just my opinion now also tell you right away that all those jobs i did i actually did for free and i know some of you guys might find that surprising or disappointing but i actually had a really unique reason why i did them for free and why in some situations i even refused getting paid and i'll get into that shortly but to break it down in this video i want to talk about why i've been working for free whether i think it's a good idea to work for free in general and finally i want to share some info that i found on how much other people are charging and how much you guys could be getting paid to shoot fpv as well anyways let's get into it so until very recently i was actually in a very unique situation some of you guys may or may not know that last year i was actually living in south korea and working in education now one of the conditions of my work visa was that i could only be employed by my school and i wasn't allowed to make any extra cash on the side from any other jobs in korea but this is the time when i really started getting into fpv and i started this channel and i knew i was going back to canada soon so i want to start working on my reel so i could eventually get paid work after i came back here so since i legally couldn't get paid and there weren't really any other local fpv pilots i decided to offer my services for free now i definitely got a bit lucky all i did was write a single facebook post and a group for english speakers in the area and i definitely didn't expect a large company like hyatt hotels to respond to give him credit they did offer to pay me but i didn't want to get in trouble with the korean government so i declined the offer but i did end up accepting a free stay as well as a whole bunch of fancy meals in their restaurants which i'll get into a little bit later but that was my reason for working for free but what if you're not in a situation where it's illegal for you to get paid is it still okay to sometimes do free work and a lot of people are gonna have varying thoughts on this but again in my opinion there are some situations where working for free is okay and those scenarios will vary from person to person personally my way of thinking about it is if you're not getting paid for a job you should be getting something of equal value that is worth the time you're putting into it and that will mostly depend on your experience first if you're a complete beginner pretty much any jobs that you do will provide a lot of value to you especially if you don't already have any work to show the thing is in order to get clients you're going to want to have something to show them whether it's a link to your instagram page or even better a highlight reel that you can send them you want to be able to show people what you're capable of if you don't have any sample clips and you reach out to companies it's going to be very difficult to find one that's willing to pay you a fair wage if they don't know what kind of quality they can expect for the final product so in my opinion in this situation doing a few free gigs can get you amazing content that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get that you can then use to sell yourself to other clients now i feel like some people would disagree with me saying that by doing this you're devaluing creative work and possibly making it harder for the people actually trying to get paid for doing their job but in my opinion these companies are getting exactly what they're paying for or in this situation not paying for since you don't have the experience yet your work will most likely not be perfect you might totally mess something up and they might end up with a less polished product from an amateur drone pilot and honestly they can't be upset because they're not paying you for anything of course your goal should always be to create the best content possible and they might get extremely lucky with you and you might deliver a banger of a video but if this content is something that's really important in this company and quality is something they really care about then experience is something that they're going to value and actively look for and they're probably not going to hire joe schmoe who just walked up to them on the street so i personally do think that it's okay to do a few free jobs until you have some clips to show but the goal will always be to get paid as soon as possible now another time i think it's okay to do free work or even fund your own passion project is if you've realized that you've built yourself into a niche that you don't want to be in unfortunately if you have a ton of experience filming real estate but your ultimate dream is to film action sports for red bull your real estate experience will most likely not help you get there just like how some actors get typecasted for the same roles over and over if you want to work in a certain filmmaking niche unless you're already at the top of the game or known to be a jack of all trades you might have to show proof that you are more than just the real estate guy on one hand that's why i'm currently trying to get in touch with various athletes i find that work very fun to film and it's a niche that i'd like to get more jobs in but i don't have a lot of experience in but because there's a pool of fpv pilots who already have a lot of experience filming sports there's no reason for a potential client to reach out to me if all i film are landscapes and interiors so right now i'm trying to prove that i can do more than just that now i found this one to be really interesting but to get some more perspectives for this video i actually reached out to a whole bunch of experienced commercial pilots from different parts of the world to see how they feel about working for free and what blew me away was that almost everybody almost everyone's response boiled down to the exact same thing and it was that they have or would be willing to work for free or at a discount if they felt the opportunity would help them make a leap in their career in other words if they got the opportunity to work with their dream brand or a client that could propel them one step closer to their ultimate filmmaking goal they would be willing to do it for less or no pay personally i completely agree with that and i think i would do the same but i also think that you have to be extremely careful if you're considering taking a job for free because you think this might help me benefit me one day in the future but you're unsure and you're not that excited about it and overall it's going to take a lot of your time in my opinion don't do it when i was in college originally studying media i took a few unpaid internships because it was what everyone was doing and i thought it might help me get a career in the future but looking back on it none of those internships gave me any value i didn't really learn anything on the job and i didn't end up getting any other jobs afterwards either of course that doesn't mean that none of these opportunities would end up benefiting you in the future but in the very least a question i would ask myself is does this opportunity make me excited even when it comes to these youtube videos the ones that i'm most proud of now are the ones that i was most excited to film and i think that goes for most creative work if you're mostly doing it out of obligation once the work starts to pile up you might end up feeling frustrated or resentful which may not result in your best work and in the end may not be worth your time at all on the other hand if this is an opportunity to work with your dream brand and you're confident that this is what you need to get to that next level and you're excited about it then i would say that the value you're getting out of this is pretty high despite the fact that you're doing it for free once again though make sure that you feel confident that you're getting some value out of this and don't let these brands walk all over you i've heard stories of big brands sometimes making low offers or vague promises knowing that there's a lot of people that are eager to work with them so just don't let anyone take advantage of you in that way unfortunately the toughest part of all this is that every situation will be unique and nothing will ever be black and white so if i was considering doing a job for free first there are a few questions that i would ask myself to be a little bit more certain about the value that i'm getting first am i gonna have creative control is this gonna be an opportunity for me to showcase my creativity or am i bringing someone else's vision to life number two is this footage that i can use in my reel is this something that i'd be proud to show other potential clients and also is this footage something that this client is even comfortable with me using for my own personal use number three is this something that interests me excites me and is a part of a niche that i want to be working in again you don't want to put yourself in a box that you don't want to be in and four who am i filming this for and how is the footage going to be used for example when it comes to working with local athletes and talent like i've been doing if you approach them with the offer of content for their instagram in return for content for your instagram to me that's a fair exchange of value it's a collaboration and you're both getting the same exposure from working together if that same athlete approaches you and says hey i need some promo shots to advertise this class i'm putting together in that situation you are more bringing their idea to life and if that's the case you should be getting paid for it because in that situation you are more providing a service for them the value isn't equal you know actually another question i would ask myself is how much is this gonna cost me because if i'm doing free work but it's gonna cost me something out of my own pocket to do it that definitely lowers the value on my side if you're excited about the job but you're doing someone a favor maybe you could at least ask if they could cover some of your expenses or another thing you can ask is is there anything else of value that they could give me in return for example like i mentioned during the hotel shoot instead of getting paid i got to take my girlfriend there to stay for free and i also got a whole bunch of fancy dinners and drinks for me and a group of friends which all together probably cost a few thousand dollars was it as good as getting paid no but in a situation where i literally legally couldn't get paid that was definitely worth it for me alright so now the last thing to talk about is the big question that a lot of you guys want answered and that is how much are people actually charging to fly fpv and how much should you be charging and again this answer will vary on a lot of factors some including what country you live in how experienced you are the complexity of the shoot the gear required and insurance needed the current market in your area travel costs deliverables and post-production work how much time it's going to take you and what you're expected to come up with and how where and for how long the footage will be used by the client now there's a lot of stuff to think about and again i am not the best person to talk about this so my first recommendation would be to find some other pro pilots in your area reach out to them and see whether they might be willing to talk to you and help you uh in regards to pricing but i know you guys want some concrete info so i did compile some information that i found on some facebook posts which i will link below in case you want to read the whole thing as well as from some professional pilots that i reached out to personally all right so based on the information i found in the us and canada for those pilots who are only shooting with a gopro so either on a 5-inch drone cinewoop naked gopros whatever the average prices that i found were between eight hundred and fifteen hundred dollars just for the pilot's day rate so that's for showing up and shooting the footage doesn't include any travel costs gear rentals post production work or anything else this is just the pilot's fee across europe the numbers i saw are in a similar range where pilots are charging between 500 and 1500 us dollars for the day rate that being said the numbers that people are charging significantly go up if they're shooting with a cinelifter which makes sense it's added risk with the expensive cinema camera on there it requires a bit more skill so you can charge more and again this number will depend depending on your country but the average that i found people are charging between three thousand and seven thousand dollars plus depending on how in demand your skills are and again since these are just the pile of stay rates that's a pretty decent amount of money you can make i highly recommend you guys check out those facebook posts that i'll link down below there's some pretty notable pilots that i think you guys will recognize who share their perspectives on there as well but yeah hope you guys found this video helpful hope you guys learned something from it again these are just my opinions if you guys disagree with me on something or have some more insights to share please leave a comment down below i'll try to check all them out but as always i appreciate all you guys for watching and i'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: Matt Pochwat

Views: 52,635

Keywords: fpv, fpv cinematic drone, fpv drone, fpv beginner guide, drone business, fpv pilot jobs, cinematic fpv

Id: 34fDdSr-oF8

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022