Planning a video shoot? How much should you pay?

How much should your business pay for video production services?

When it comes to hiring a firm to produce your business videos it’s hard to know what prices you should be expected to pay. We’ve outline some average costs for a variety of services below, hopefully to help you make a more informed decision hiring the right firm for your business.

Context

1. General Video Production Costs

2. Business Interviews

3. Business Event Videos

How much should general video production cost?

Before we dive into this topic, it’s important to discuss what should be considered general video production. For the vast majority of businesses this means a budge of under $5,000 and typically requires filming one of the following:

• • • How-To Videos – These cover the use of a product or service
    • Product Videos – Covers a new product or service
    • General Business Videos – Includes an overview of your business
    • Interviews for social media or website platforms
    • Real Estate Videos, commercial or residential
    • B-Roll for future video production purposes

While it is possible to run up a large budget for each of these types of videos, most businesses don’t want to, or have the funds to create such lavish videos.

As a general rule the industry standard for filming is around $1,600$ for the day. This typically includes the following:

• • • A single Videographer
    • One or Two High Quality Cameras
    • Stabilizers, and a general lighting and audio setup
    • A full day of filming from 9am – 5pm

There are exceptions to this rule, for example a real estate video walk through tour obviously shouldn’t cost $1,600, but if it takes the videographer roughly 1.5 hours to complete plus editing, you could expect to pay around $300 – 400 for that video. Following the same $1600/day cost structure.

It’s also important to understand that most firms charge a separate editing fee that can cost anywhere from $100 – $200 per hour with a minimum of 5 to 10 hours and do not include licensing for music or any type of motion graphics.

What are motion graphics?

Motion graphics are a simple way to draw attention to or make a video more interesting through the use of animated graphics. This can included, lower thirds for interviews, attention grabbing slides or animated company logos.

At Denver Video Services we typically include editing in our day rate or flat rate service fees. Meaning that if we film a short real estate video, we’ll also edit the final video and provide you with general music licensing included. If the project is a bit larger in terms of editing, we simply charge a flat rate fee of $399 that would include at least 2 revisions, and any reasonable edits to a final video needed.

Many may think this day rate is a bit high, especially with the proliferation of cell phones, however there can be a lot more than meets the eye when considering hiring a videographer for your business videos. There is typically a lot of planning that goes into each shoot. In the example of a general business videos, its important to have a clear and concise script written, with at least a rough outline of required shots. This can take days if not weeks to plans in some cases. But in some cases businesses don’t have the time to formulate such plans so having a videographer that knows what a good shot should look like and how to quickly capture it can make all the difference. This alone can justify the day rate cost. There are also other filming techniques that every videographer should understand, such as proper lighting for interview shots, where to position subjects to tell the best story in b-roll shots, and how to efficiently and quickly setup scenes.

Keep in mind that some firms may offer package deals that include a certain amount of filming time, along with a final video. So be sure to ask if they have something that might include everything you need in one price.

How much should business interviews cost?

Business interviews are an excellent source of rich, original content that speaks directly to your businesses services or products. They’re a great way to show expertise and build credibility with your customers. Putting yourself on camera and showing your customers who you are and what your business is about.

So how much should this service cost. In general you can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 – $1,600 per day for filming. The most effective way to film these types of videos is to schedule all of your interviews within the same day. As there can be a lot of time spent for setup and take down, so maximizing your efficiency to capture as much footage as possible is the best way to stay cost effective. 

However keep in mind that some firms will charge extra for editing the footage together. 

Typically each interview will have a series of up to 3 lights, 2 cameras and audio capture, so each interview will need to be color graded, and audio synced per camera. 

At Denver Video Services we typically include the post production for interviews in the day rate services, but this is something to keep in mind.

How much should a business event videos cost?

Business interviews Business events are a great place to capture all types of content for your business. Everything from full event coverage to interviews with key attendees and even photos of the event can provide a vast amount of content to keep your social media channels packed with new posts.

But how much can you expect to pay for a service like this. The answer depends on what you’re looking for. Events can be complicated to film depending on a few factors: 

How many speakers will be at the event?

If you have 3 speakers, speaking over 3 hours, one hour each, than this might mean that one camera for the speaker and potentially a wide camera for the audience could be plenty. As the speaker camera can capture each speaker individually, while the wide camera can capture the audience. It’s also important to consider audio capture, does the venue have an audio system we can tape into, or will you videographer need to provide additional audio coverage.

Lets say you have 2 speakers discussing at the same time. in a situation like this it’s best to have 2 cameras, one trained on each speaker, with a third camera as the audience capture.

We know this might be a lot to consider but a good videography firm can help you determine what might be best for your needs and budget. A

A good rule of thumb for event coverage pricing is to start at $150/h for 2 cameras with a minimum requirement of 4 hours. Then to add 100$/h for each additional camera/videographer that may be needed. 

For example if your event has a 4 panel speaker discussion who will then be asked questions by the audience after their discussion. You might be ok with a total of 3 cameras/videographers. 1 Camera to capture the wide panel, 1 camera to be trained on the speaker at the moment and 1 camera to capture the question from audience. Totaling $350/h, with a total cost of $1,400 for a 4 hour event. 

In most cases editing the event will also cost more, however for small to medium sized events Denver Video Services offers a flat rate editing fee which combines all the footage from the event into a single video. 

It’s important to ask for any specials a firm might be running. Some include a certain amount of cameras, crew, audio and lighting for a flat rate.