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A friend I had done a spec commercial for in college reached out to me about doing another commercial with them for a television spot. We had a meeting and went over the general idea they wanted for the spot, and I wrote up a list of things we'd need from sponsors/brands/actors/etc before anything could be filmed to make sure everyone approved of us using their logo/gear in the commercial. I spent a few nights writing up several ideas for short tv spots and a long form brand identity video. They already had a quote (For a lot of money) just to get this thing aired on tv a few times during a live event, and I offered the better than friends and family discount of $1,200-$1600 to shoot the thing for him in a day depending on the amount of locations. That's 4K Red filming, editing, color correction, full deal. I email him the quote and the list of ideas and didn't hear back from him for a week. A week ago, I saw them post a call for Extras to be in a "High Profile" commercial shoot. So, somewhere in between all the Pre-Production work and the absurd lowball offer to film his commercial, they decided to work with someone else and didn't let me know. Maybe they thought I worked for free

never under bid a gig... it'll just screw you in the end... a high end commercial can cost from $50K to $1M for a 30 sec spot and sometime $4M for a 60 sec spot.