Understanding production costs
Video production is a wildly diverse beast, with a lot of variable factors. For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to understand what video production will cost. That is why one of the first questions we like to ask potential clients is “what is your budget?”
Let’s take a look at a common scenario:
We receive an email that asks, “I’d like a roughly 1-minute-long video for my business, how much will that cost?” It seems like a simple question, but there can be a lot of differences from one video to another.
The first video below was shot in just a few hours, and edited in half a day. The brief was for unobtrusive BTS style coverage of a product photoshoot. Professional talent and location were already covered through the cost of the photoshoot. Therefore the direct video production costs were very low. Nonetheless, we delivered a video which the client was very happy with and which met their brief.
This second video, though only slightly longer, was an entirely different situation. It took a three-man crew six days to gather all the footage, and required a full week of editing. It also involved extensive travel costs in addition to the clients in house expenses for staff support, products, and services.
Both of these videos fit within the scope of the question we’re commonly asked (a video roughly one minute long). However, the difference in cost is thirty-fold or more due to the disparate requirements.
Finding the best solutions
This is why we like to ask early on what your budget is. By knowing what you’re able to spend, we can tell you what we can create within those constraints. Often business owners are concerned about revealing their budget, as they fear it leaves them open to exploitation. In actual fact, it allows us to offer the best possible solutions within your limitations. In a creative field like ours, it helps to have solid numbers to keep our visions firmly rooted in reality!
We’re always happy to answer questions about pricing, or to provide free quotes. If you’d like to know what we can do to maximise your video production budget, get in touch with us today!
