Thank you. I have watched everything by Glazer (I heart the Director's Label Series). I do have lots of little ideas for commercials and ideas. I was considering shooting them and shopping them to the company for which they are for. Like, i have one I think would be good for Puma and I would send it to Puma. Would that be possible, or is it hard to get companies to watch your stuff?

Commercial shoots are an odd duck. I like to work them, cause they pay. Nobody ever asks for work in exchange for deferred pay and your name in the credits on a commercial. Commercials have their own "studio system" and this is generally how it looks. The Client (the product) is at the top, next is The Ad Agency (Which contains analysts, creative directors, writers, artists, etc.) The Producer/Director (of the actual shoot) The Crew (I'm down here ) In certain situations the producer/director may also be a part of the Ad Agency. But generally, the bigger the client, the larger the ad campaign the more people between the client and the director. If you want to sell commercial ideas to major companies with major projects then you need to be in the Agency side of the work. By the time it comes down to the director it's completely written and storyboarded and each frame is spoken for. The alternative is to work small. Local clients, local chains, people without 100 million dollar ad budgets. In this case, it's easy to get in. All you need is a camera, an idea and a way to sell your client on it. --Trey

What do you mean? The fee charged by the advertising agency to the client? The fee paid to the production company? The fee paid to a director? The fee paid to a DP? The fee paid to the actors? The fee paid to the crew? The fee a production company would charge?

That would depend on the experience and skill of the director. On a non-union commercial the fee can range from nothing (shooting on "spec" to several thousand dollars a day - and everything in between. Most advertising agencies hire DGA directors. The minimum is set by the Guild and there is no maximum - again it could be several thousand dollars a day. There really isn't an average.

Hey Mr. Cine7 I can answer for you from both the music video and commercial side --- in music videos, directors usually take 10% of the budget (ie: on a low-budget $40,000 music video, your rate would be around $4,000) --- and if you have a stake in the production company, you can take an even higher rate. However, sometimes you make less if you like the band or the song and there's little money. For commercials, directors rates vary with their experience. For a new commercial director, the daily rate can still start at between $5,000 - $8,000 a day depending on how much experience or buzz you have about you. It's not uncommon for top list directors to make between $25k-$100k a day depending on the production or client. Rarely are you asked to cut your rate. WPS

Good luck Mr. Cine 7 --- hope to see you on set one day! WPS

My company (www.xlntads.com) is a startup based in Philadelphia... and we work with independent studios and semi-pro/ amateur filmmakers to create advertising. It's not a guaranteed "job" per-se, but if you're good, then you stand a very good chance of coming out on top. Especially since we're just a startup and we don't have a TON of people who know about us yet.
Currently we have an assignment from slimfast up on the website... and we're hoping to launch another VERY big brand assignment later this week. if you've got any questions, feel free to hit me up (lja...@xlntads.com) or just go look at the assignment page.

good luck with your projects!

-Liza