Capture Video – What’s A Ball Park Figure?

What’s A Ball Park Figure?

A question that regularly comes up in an initial consultation with a prospective client is “How much does it cost to do a two minute video?”

The answer is, what kind of video? They may have priced things by the minute way back in the old days of actual film, but today, with modern editing options, the length of the finished product doesn’t give any idea how much effort went into creating it. It isn’t about length, it’s about content.

If you have one person talking to one camera, that’s pretty easy and relatively inexpensive. Is a talking head all you need though? It might be, if there is a prepared statement to be read, or you’re presenting a personal image. If you have a lot more people, statistics, new equipment, or anything else that needs to be shown in a dynamic way, the complexity, and subsequently the cost, increases.

The function of your end product will really affect the pricing. How are you planning to use this video? Is it going to be on a huge HD monitor at a live event? Is it for broadcast or the web? Is it for internal use only? Capture Video can help you determine budget, but it is mainly based on how high end the video needs to be, how glossy.

The cost is also affected by the size of the production. How many cameras will be needed? How long is the shooting day? How many times will the crew need to set up or take down? For example, if you’d like a record of a major conference, does each room need a separate camera, camera operator, possibly even a sound mixer? Does everyone need to work the entire length of the conference day, or is the evening reception less important? If you’re shooting an advise video for your blog, you might only need one camera operator for a half day, or you might need a teleprompter with operator and a hair and makeup person, depending on how you want the end video to look.

So, when the question is, “how much for a video,” my first question back to you is going to be, “for what kind of a video?”

This was a full day HD video shoot, with one camera and operator, at multiple locations. Post production included some basic titles for opening and closing as well as lower thirds to identify interviewees.

Capture Video expresses your brand and supports your goals. Our video services cover every aspect of new media production, from concept to final cut on DVD, Blu-Ray or the Web.

We provide video productions services for Northern Virginia and the entire DC Metro area.