5 Ways to Pay off your Rhino Slider ASAP

At Rhino, we take storytelling very seriously. That’s why we have poured everything into creating what we feel is the best compact slider system on the market. A core part of our mission to help creators tell their stories. As a part of that, we wanted to talk about five ways to pay off your new Rhino Slider ASAP.

Option One: Up your freelance rates to cover your costs

Any of our motion slider kits work great as a “second hand” for you on set. Set up your move on loop and focus on the talent over tech. This provides a dynamic second angle to cut to for corporate and doc interview work. Plus, in a world where crew sizes continue to be limited, it's great to have Arc II acts as an automated second hand. 

Not doing a lot of interview work at the moment? Take your product photography to the next level with motion control. Motion controlled footage is an amazing way to set your footage apart from the competition.

The increased production value can and should be valued. Up your rates to cover your costs.

Option Two: Rent your Rhino Slider out when not using it

Renting your gear can be a pretty polarizing subject but in our share economy, it’s never made more sense and you’ve never had more coverage. Platforms like ShareGrid make renting out your gear easy and stress free. They even have rental coverage options to provide peace of mind. For our Essentials kit, depending on your area, you should be able to rent it out for $75-125 per day.

Option Three: Control cashflow by paying with Affirm

If you haven’t used Affirm before, it’s quite possibly the easiest and best way to pay something off over time. It’s quick and easy to see if you qualify and checking your eligibility won’t affect your credit score. There are no hidden fees and you’ll know up front what you’ll owe each month. Best of all, it’s automatically set up on autopay so you don’t have to do a thing once it’s approved. You can also dial in your communication preferences and get both email and text messages before the auto payment draws so you can double check that your cash flow is in a good spot.

Option Four: Film unique motion controlled footage and sell it on stock platforms

These days, there are a lot of great platforms for creators to distribute their work via stock libraries. Storyblocks (this is not sponsored btw) is very popular amongst many creators and businesses as an affordable yet quality solution to stock. You can apply to become a contributor here. 

We understand that this may be more of a long term play, BUT it has potential to keep paying out for years to come. Plus, if the footage you're listing was already paid for by a client, it's like you're getting paid twice. Just be sure to have language in your client contracts that clearly states your ownership of the raw footage with the option to freely distribute it. Getting distributions from stock platforms is a great way for independent creators to diversify their revenue streams. 

Option Five: Have “work” pay for it
Work for an in-house content team or agency? Have the company buy it. There are lots of ways you can go about this option, I’ve personally had experiences with several of them. Here are a few:

1. Build it into the budgets.
This can happen a few different ways in either the annual budget planning or a per project budget depending on how the company you work for handles their accounting processes. You can strategize this and have the numbers do the heavy lifting for you in those budget talks. Here’s an example:

You create two videos a month that each take 2-3 days to film. That’s 5 production days a month on average. To rent a slider kit with motion control you’re looking to spend ~$100/day or $500/mo. On top of that you have the costs of setting up the rental—which is subject to availability—and the pickup/drop-off. Within 6 months you’ve more than covered the cost of Rhino’s most expensive package, the Ultimate Slider Bundle.

2. Purchase it personally with a rent-back agreement.
This is a little more personal risk but it provides you with more flexibility and revenue opportunities. So you’ve laid out the numbers we just talked about and your boss still isn’t bought in. Present the same information with this twist: you purchase the gear and rent it to your work on an as-needed basis. Feel like there may be an ethical dilemma or bias? This is easy to solve. Make sure you have written agreements in place, send formal invoices for rentals, and provide a discount (25% off my standard rental rate seems to do the trick). This way you can say:

• I’m helping the company save time and money on every rental
• I use the gear or other projects which not only enhances my creativity but my workflow speed
• It’s used less than rental house gear so it’s in better condition and I know all the ins-an-outs of the kit

Bonus option: Take advantage of Rhino’s Switch & Save program

Have an old slider that’s just collecting dust? We’ll take it off your hands and pay you $500. We’ll even send you a pre-paid label (US only). All of the details for the Switch & Save program can be found here. 

Through this program we’ve helped hundreds of people switch to Rhino, so you should take advantage of it too.

Conclusion

No matter which option you choose, you’ll find that once you have a Rhino Slider and Arc II added to your kit that your production value instantly jumps both in final content and perception. I’ve showed up to interviews with RED’s, expensive lenses, lighting, etc. but what always catches the eyes and intrigue of clients is the B cam on a simple loop move. Seeing tech work by itself has a way of putting a smile on any face.

Have you found other ways to pay off gear creatively? Share them in the comments below.

Partner with Rhino

Do you have a YouTube channel with over ~20k subscribers in the filmmaking space? We’ll hook you up with a slider kit in exchange for a ~10 minute review. On top of that, we’ll give you a 20% commission from sales on your affiliate link. Learn more here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Petersen is a new addition to the Rhino team, even though he's been engaged with the Rhino story for years. Fun fact, he was Rhino's first intern and worked on various industrial design projects. In addition to his love for design, he has a deep passion for film. He has over a decade of freelance experience working behind the camera. Most recently, he headed up the #YourStoryMatters campaign and directed the final film, Grounded.