A question that I frequently get asked by clients is “can you give me a rough quote on a video?”
Unfortunately this is never an easy answer for a production company to give, as it depends on a number of factors. I can assure you that by asking questions, we aren’t trying to be a pain in the a*se; we are trying to pull out key info that will allow us to give you a quote that matches your brief and expectation.
I thought it would be useful to be list a few points to consider when you are looking to speak to a production company about a video brief. There may well be additional questions; but this should give you a great starting point in the planning stages.
Length of filming time for the crew
Is it a multiple location shoot?
This is important if you are trying to keep costs down. A large part of the cost of a video is hiring the film crew, so if you can keep all the filming time and locations to a minimum this will help.
Will you require interviews?
Depending on who the video is for, it’s normally best to have no more than 4 – 5 interviews. It is also important to work with an experienced producer who will be able to extract key sound bites from the interviews that can be integrated into the edit.
The amount of edit time
This is something that the production company will be able to advise you on, and is something that will affect cost. As with the number of interviews, days and locations, the number of edits will have an impact on cost.
However you can also benefit from economies of scale here as well. If you plan for multiple video activity and can capture all of your footage across a few days you can then edit it into a series of videos which will bring the overall cost down.
How many different edits are required?
I’m sure you are quickly becoming familiar with the ‘multi-channel story telling’ phrase. If you are planning to push the video content out to broadcasters, websites (editorial & specialist), social media site and bloggers then you need the right style to suit the platform and their audience.
Who is the audience?
This can dictate if graphics, animation, voiceover, music, grading etc need to be considered.
Of course we are always happy to run through all of these areas on the phone or in a meeting when clients are planning editorial or creative video, but I thought it would be good to show people why we can’t always give a rough cost straightaway!
Post by Alex Waite, Marketing Manager @ TNR Communications
