Budgets
Priced per day or by the minute
Daily rates or costs per minute of the video’s duration can be help you understand the costs, but can also obscure the fact that other elements, not just time, affect the cost.
So when the production company provides a proposal this should take into account all aspects of the production, such as geographical distance between locations, animation and motion graphics, the complexity of editing, length of edited film, specialist equipment, materials, actors and voiceover artists, travel expenses and overheads incurred by the producer.
Vox-pops and simple conversational pieces filmed at one or two locations will be relatively low cost, as time and travelling are minimal. At the other end of the scale, if scenes need to be filmed in an elaborate way using cranes and jibs, many locations, props, costumes and any type of specialist equipment like lens filters the cost can quickly increase.
A company logo can be animated for a relatively low cost: around £60 to £200 per second. This is good value as just 3 to 6 seconds can be enough to get the viewer’s attention.
To get an idea of the scale of this price range, you can look at the websites of major TV channels that commission work from independent producers. The BBC for instance has a report or Tariff of how much a project should cost, and Channel 4 has their details also available. It should give a good indication of the volume of what broadcast standard work costs.
To get an idea of the scale of this price range, you can look at the websites of major TV channels that commission work from independent producers. The BBC for instance has a report or Tariff of how much a project should cost. You can locate the Channel four stipulations . Channel five and ITV also have respective tariff links. It should give a good indication of the volume of what full scale broadcast standard work costs to put things into perspective.
It’s all done in-house, with camcorders, so what are the benefits to have a separate company do it?
Video production is more than just about pointing a camera in the right direction and switching it on, it takes a certain amount of specialist expertise to plug into an audience and keep them watching and thinking. It’s really about hiring a creative package that can really engage an audience fully and get them to adhere to the points being made. Moving image is about making a first initial impression and creating an impact. Camerawork, directing and editing are artistic and journalistic skills that have to be learnt and harnessed effectively and this is where the production company comes in. A professional video like many other presentation media’s is always synomimous with a professional company. Poor quality images, that are badly edited together with a weak sound quality can immediately turn an audience off the message and loose their attention. A bad video can do more harm than good. Like many things, it really needs to be done properly.
