Asking how much it cost to make a video is very similar to asking how much it costs to make a house. It depends! Does it have 3 bedrooms or 4? Does it have 2 bathrooms or 3? What is the cost of land in the area? Does it have a pool? Are you using granat in the kitchen? Marble in the bathroom? What about the garage? Videos are like that too. Will you use actors? Do you need to develop a script or are you going to improvise? Are you shooting in a studio? Do you have to travel to get there?
The ultimate costs can range enormously. With expectations come price. Some videos can be made very, very cheaply. It can be as simple as shooting a speaker, making a clean fade in and out, maybe animate a logo and use some music to sting in and out — then BAM! You have yourself a corporate video. However, this may not be the best way to show off your company or get your message though.
“We look at your communication brief and work with your team to come up with a script and strategy that best accomplishes the goal of the video,” says Eric Wolfram, production director at WPRNY, “Then we make sure that production costs don’t exceed 70% of the overall budget to ensure that you get plenty of value.”
The old adage ‘you pay for what you get,’ can be true. You find people on Craigslist who will say they’re happy to give you a finished video for $500 or $1000 dollars. Sometimes that works or that’s all that is needed. At other times, you spend the $500 and the time to get a result that doesn’t accomplish the goal.
Amateurs usually discover that it might be easy get a camera and to learn what to do to make a video. Learning the 10,000 things NOT to do, however, only comes with experience. So working experienced professionals might be what you want to get your project done right the first time and let the amateurs make mistakes on other people’s projects.
So how much does that cost? In most major markets, plan on paying no less than $1,500 for a basic communication video of a company event or keynote — this should pay for a professional camera operator, a production assistant, gear and a basic edit service. Beyond that, just as anything else, prices go up from there. Add in pre-production strategy, script development, animated graphics, 3-d spaces, multi-day shooting etc, and the prices can easily rise to $5K. Start adding actors, studios, multi-day or multi location shooting, special effects, creative service and prices start to rise considerably $10K, $30K, $100K and more.
At WPRNY we’re happy to discuss ways for you to get better quality video results at lower fixed and easy pricing — call 646-519-2451 for a no obligation estimate