What Does It Cost To Make A Company Video?
The question of “What does it cost to make a company video” is one which needs to be made clearer before it can be answered.
Asking a question like that is like asking how much a car costs. What kind of car? What model? New or used? There are even more variations when it comes to company video production. Is it animation or “live” footage? How long is the video? What kind of filming is needed? Is there drone footage? Will the video be filmed in multiple locations? Are there actors needed?
What Types Of Company Videos Are There?
There a few main categories of company videos. These are :
- Marketing Videos
- Training Videos
- Conference Videos
- About Us videos
- Instructional videos
- How-To Videos
- Legal videos
What kinds of things can vary the price of a company video?
There are two main parts to a video. They are the video shoot and the video edit. They both can vary wildly in content and price. Starting with the shoot. The price variations include:
The Video Shoot:
- Location (How many and where?)
- Actors (Included or using company staff?)
- Types of shot (Using Jib, Drone, Slider and gimbal? )
- Is location sound needed?
- Is location lighting needed?
- How many cameras and operators?
The edit:
- Basic edit or complete edit
- Effects and graphics
- Animation
- Titles
- Music
- Voice over
- Colour grading
But How Much Does A Corporate Video Cost?
The simple answer is anywhere from R 10 000 ($700) to R 10 Million ($7 Million). Start using actors, drones and copyright music and you are on your way to the multiple million mark. If you decide however that the expense of millions is not in your budget then you can start to make changes. Can you use your company staff? Are you able to you use your company premises ? Importantly how will the video be used? When the video is only for online use for short term marketing then the video can be in HD 1080P. For videos intended for TV or Cinema use then 4K is the minimum. If the video is only to be used on social media the video may be reduced down to standard definition and even lower.
Before pricing around it makes sense to take stock of what you can provide for the filming. Will you or your staff be in the video? Do you have premises for the shoot such as your board room or factory area? Will you write the script yourself of have the video production create it for you? Do you want wardrobe or makeup artists? Is drone footage needed? Often having a discussion with the corporate videographer, you will quickly establish what you need and what you already have.
What Is Lowest Price I Can Pay For Company Video?
This too is not an easy question to answer. The reason is that it depends on who is doing it. Are you happy to use an inexperienced unskilled videogrpaher? Then you could probably get it for free. Many students will jump at the opportunity to do free work simply to build up their demo reel. But what you want is a professional video right? Then you have to accept that it will not be free or cheap. This of course depends on your view of cheap. To some people a video for R 100 000 ($7K) is cheap. To others though cheap is less than R 2 000 ($140). In real terms a company video done by a corporate video production company working at it’s lowest price range will be between R 10 000 and R 20 000.
This will of course vary not only by the content of the video shoot and edit but by the company too. There is no fixed price for video productions by corporate video production companies. That means that the very same video which might cost you R 10 000 at one company may cost R 50 000 at another.
How to get the lowest price for video production.
There is one very simple way to find the lowest price for a video production. It is also normally the safest way too. That is to create a list of the top 20 companies in your area. Then once you have established what your video needs are, simply email all of them and ask for a quote.
The video production companies and corporate videographers will send you a quote with samples. This way you can compare prices as well as quality of work. Once you have decided on a short list or 3 or 4 companies, begin chatting with them. This can be in person or via live Web chat services.
Some companies will not come out to you until they have established that they will be the one chosen to do the work. This may end up cutting out some of your choices. this is where having meetings online can make a big difference.
The great thing is that you can see the type of work you will be getting from them by looking at their samples. It does make sense thought to ask the video companies to provide complete videos and not just a mash up of cherry picked clips.
The video production company also needs to show that they have done similar types of video. It does not have to be exactly the same. That is almost impossible. But for example have they done a video for company social media marketing as opposed to wedding videos? Have they done videos similar to what you are looking for? While it is nice to see a video company sample that is exactly what you want, this is extremely rare. More likely you will find video companies who have done something similar or in the same category as what you are looking for.