What Does it Cost to Produce Your Video Project?

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2022. From everyone at 100 Acre Films, we wish you all the best for the upcoming year. As the past couple of years have been…let’s say less than ideal…here’s hoping this year puts us closer to being back to a more normal world.

We get asked a lot of questions from our clients, even from our long-time ones, about various aspects of the production process.  With that in mind, we thought we’d take time this year to share some information and tips that should be useful to you in planning your video production projects. For this first installment, we’re going to dive into the often asked question ”What will it cost to produce my video?”

It’s Like Buying a Car

Think about the process of buying a car. You can get a base model car, one with no extras, but there are still choices to be made – what color exterior do you want? What color interior, and what kind of fabric for the seats? Or you can add extras – do you want air conditioning, sunroof, satellite radio, or maybe even heated seats? All of those decisions influence the cost. Producing a video, much like buying a car, is full of choices, and those choices influence how much the end project costs. Some production companies offer package pricing. Those often have limits associated with them to keep them within the budget. At 100 Acre Films, we don’t believe in package prices as we feel each project has its own set of unique requirements. And based on those, we create a custom quote precisely made for your project.

We Ask a Lot of Questions

When meeting with clients to discuss their projects, we ask a lot of questions. Those help us establish the scope of the project and determine a budget. Questions we might ask are:

– Do you have a script, or do you need one written?

– How many days will we need to shoot?

– Do we need to hire actors and/or pay any location fees? What is the location?

– Will a teleprompter be needed?

– If we’re shooting interviews, are we shooting with one camera or more?

– Do we need to hire a makeup artist?

– Any special equipment needed for stylized shots such as drone or Stedicam shots?

– How long do you expect the finished video to be?

– Do you need a voice over artist?

– Do you need motion graphics and/or 3D animation?

– Will we need any stock footage, foreign language subtitle versions, or alternate versions edited for social media?

That’s a lot of questions we know, but all of those answers are important. They help us see the full vision and scope of your video production, and allow us to have an idea of the crew, equipment needed, and time spent editing to see it become a reality. Some projects are as simple as a camera operator and an assistant and take a day to edit. Others require a crew of 8 or more, and require a week or more of editing.

What About the Extras?

When looking at some of the extras available for a new car, you may be thinking, “Heated seats sound nice, but I don’t really need those.” And the same is true for your video. We’ll be covering some of those “extras” in future posts to show how they can benefit your project, but know that not every project is going to need a drone, a makeup artist, motion graphics, or a Stedicam. Those are all great things to have, and depending on the project, they can really add production value and scale to your project.

Opening your video with a shot of your office building or complex from above can be really impressive. Using a Stedicam to get amazing tracking shots as your talent walks through a space adds a feeling of energy and momentum. Stylized text that’s animated to highlight points can add visual interest. But some smaller scale projects may not need these elements, or the project may not have the budget for them. And that’s okay! If you’re producing a simple training video, or an explainer video on how something works, some of these are probably not needed. And if it’s an internal company video, maybe that makeup artist isn’t a must. But just know, we can provide those things if needed.

So…What Does a Video Cost?

The best answer to this question is simply this – it’s the total cost of these things:

Any preproduction (script writing, location scouts, etc) + days filming and crew/cast required + time spent editing along with any additional requirements = total budget.

All of those costs are entirely dependent on the requirements for your unique video. Without knowing them, it’s impossible for us to give you a quote. But know that the quote you receive from us for your video production is going be the cost we bill you for – no surprises or added fees later. As long as the scope of the project doesn’t change from that quote, we bill exactly what we say we will.

We hope this has given you an idea of what goes into the cost of producing a video. As mentioned, in future posts we’ll dive deeper into topics such as why it’s advantageous to film interviews with two or more cameras, why it’s beneficial to have a makeup artist, things to consider when choosing a location, along with many others. Our hope is that you’ll have a better understanding of why we ask you the questions we do at the start, and to help you better plan for your productions by knowing more about the process. Next post we’ll cover what to expect on a production day.

Going into our 18^th year, 100 Acre Films is one of San Diego’s longest running video production companies.  We’ve helped companies large and small tell their stories and produce the videos they need to reach their employees, clients, or customers. We’d love to help you produce your next video.