I'm going to photograph a band how does the pay work?

I'm a photographer and a guy from a famous band called me and wants me to take photos of his band playing and a shoot of girls for a calendar. My question is he wants to pay me as he goes like for insistance, If i do the calendar the 12 girls get paid first off of the # of calendars that sell i come second and then the band. Like is this how these photographers get paid. I want to do but want to make sure im making enuf money please help!

That's up to you, but you should get paid - and not "when something sells". The girls get paid first? Howsthatagain? As if. Why would you care if they ever got paid?

Photography is a business - and 30 days invoice is typical for payment. Whether or not the "band" made money is not your problem. Whether they sell any calendars is not your problem. Charge fairly, get a written contract in advance, and then produce top notch work.

Say, what? Draw up a contract, stating your fees, when you get paid,(not IF something else happens) and their right to image usage. Personally, I would steer clear of this one, because sounds to me like your going to do a lot of hard work for nothing. I smell something rotten! Just my opinion!

First they pay all expenses ... model, hotel, gas, food, etc.

Shooting sessions usually are $300. Rights to use the images are billed per image per usage. All other rights you reserve.

The calender shoot again is about $300 per session and the clients (the band) pays for all the costs of production and you charge them a fee for usage.

You will need to shoot RAW images for the calenders and any images used for CD covers so you can supply TIFF images to the publishers. JPEG's are not usually used by publishers ...

The RAW images can be converted into TIFF image files or high resolution JPEG's if that is what the client needs.

What you charge needs to be enough to pay for your personal living expenses and enough to save for replacing your camera's every three to four years ... in my case, it costs me about $5,000 per body and of course in have to upgrade my computers as well. So you can see, fees have to be a lot higher than one might think at first.

you need to ask him what hes wants are.
1. then you need to know if those 12 girl are going to bring their clothes or you have to buy them.
2. are the shots of each of the girls will be at the same place with diffident backgrounds or all over the USA.
3. is he going to find girl for this or you will have too
4. what your time length on this project
5. the firm you will need and maybe need
6. will you have to do the printing and how many copies he will need
7.all the rent you will need
8. you can get some up fund up front or all
9. you need to add gas too your price too
10. just put all your expanse down and you time.
11. write up a contract and get a layer to help you .