How do you put a price on animation?

This is all opinion on my part....I have done contract gigs where I have been paid a whopping sum, and others where I needed the job and just took what was offered....and attempted renegotiation later.

Its a slippery slope.
Look at your expenses and cost of living, and estimate if you can afford yourself. Or if you should farm out your eating and sleeping to someone in India.

(Just kidding.)
It depends sometimes on how much work you are doing and how much work they have and who is contracting with you.
If its a blind first time experience there is a chance you can price yourself out of a job. Look at what it costs to live your life and pay your bills and your insurance and invest as you do, and have a little for fun....and then bump it up a little if its a short short term gig and you see a big space with no work coming up, but not enough so you spook the potential employer.

You can always ask what their standard rate is for contractors and see if it matches what your expectations are. If they are trying to strike a bargain it may be because they were taken to the cleaners before and they are trying to make up the difference on you.

If they want to go with untrained stuent labor, they will usually have some really inconsistent stuff coming out the pipe on the back end.

If you really want some good info, just check out what the union wages are and go with that. The union is good for those scales and keep wage consistency.

And you could also sweeten the pot a little for yourself by cutting your inflated rate down and negotiating a completion bonus equivalent to the remaining projected amount. Of course that is harder to mitigate against if the people have no class.....but it still may get you in the job.....and "some pesos, is better than no pesos"

Also don't forget that cost of living for the area you are in is an important factor in your wage. LA, NY, SF, SeaTac......will be 15-30% higher than say Portland, or Sacramento or SLC.

Great question! This has been asked plenty of times here in the past, but I've noticed that no one ever really has the nerve to say what they charge.
Well, I've just redone my site and tried to put numbers to all of the services I offer. The prices are based on a $100/hour rate.

http://www.cartoonsolutions.com/pricing.html

I understand the risk associated with giving a price to jobs without getting the details, but it's a risk you gotta take. Sometimes you'll finish quickly and make more than expected, and other times it will take longer, but it averages itself out. I figure it's got to help potential clients out to give them some kind of numbers instead of them assuming that since it's not posted, it must be a lot, and therefore not worth looking into. Since putting up these prices, I've already found it useful to formulate a bid right over the phone with a client, the two of use looking at the pricing page and adding together the services he wanted.

Good Points B Man......

Its also best for people who are not used to hiring people with our skills to get an idea that this will not be a free fast perfect solution.....

It may be fast and perfect.....but it should be far from free. :)

BTW love the quirkier of your flash work.....
"sketch sketch sketch.....way way way!!!!"

TV stations can use DVDs for commercials?

yes, they can, that's how all of my commercials have aired.

Is it native DVD format or are you using it as storage for some other format to publish hi-res without worrying about space? Do you burn it yourself or get a 'house' to do it?

Well, I'm on an imac, so from Flash, I export out a quicktime movie (.mov). Then I open up the iDVD program on my computer, make a menu, import the file which I believe converts it into an mpeg at that point, and then I burn it from my computer. Plays on all DVD players.
I did have one client who prefered to have the .mov file instead because iDVD adds some slight compression when it converts it to mpeg.