Pricing out HD video production and now 4K Video Production can be kind of a tricky task especially in 2016. IF you Ask someone in the film/video industry for help on this...you’ll likely get the typical answer… "it depends" . Not a very helpful answer when you’re trying to plan on spending or on a budget. Most of all trying to figure out your personal or business video production costs. Now with 4K Ultra HD the variables are much higher and the post production (Video Editing) and Motion graphics arena has changed substantially. We also are filming on RED Camera and in some 6K Digital Cinema formats which makes the whole task much more complicated internally then it sounds. But we will try to break it down modestly for you as well.
So many production companies don’t advertise their prices but there is various reasoning behind it and most of it is actually for the benefit of the client or consumer. It drives me a little crazy when I can’t find pricing or payment information at a website, so I will at least try to give some ballpark figures. We’re also happy to prepare a simple quote for you anytime you or your business is planning a budget. While I’ve had plenty of clients and prospects thank me for that, I thought a more extensive blog post on how we break down our costs might be worthwhile explaining.
While you’ll probably still have to contact me or another director if you have specific questions, my hope is that this post will give you more insight into what goes into producing a regular HD video as well as a 4K video so you know where your money is going.
OUR “DAY RATE”
First things first, we don’t charge by the hour. We’re sometimes asked for a 1-hour video shoot; however, clients don’t see all of the pre and post-prodution activities that take place which usually includes multiple meetings, emails and phone conversations. Things like travel time to and from the shoot, color correcting the video in post-production (which is a major key), and converting the files into something they can use (encoding process). In short, video production takes a lot more than an hour and for 4K Production process its much more extensive.
4K PRODUCTION:
We charge by using day rate, $5,200/day for up to 1 camera, or sometimes a half-day rate of $3600 – $4800. Basically, we figure out how much time will be spent on a project (how many days), then we apply the day rate to come up with our total cost. That is just camera and cinematographer. Other variables to consider:
1. How Many Cameras?
2. Lighting?
3. Professional Audio?
4. Motion Graphics (logo) or specialty animation?
5. Pre Production Scripting, Editing and Hours with your business to efficiently portray your marketing message.
The most frequent question we get is how much does a 3-minute video cost… or a 2-minute video… or a 60-second video? Regardless of the video length, the answer is always… it depends… and here’s why.
Let’s use the 3-minute video as an example. The finished video might be 3-minutes, but each 3-minute video can vary greatly in how long it takes to produce. We’ve had 3-minute videos that took just a few days to produce costing about $6,000. We’ve also had a 3-minute video take nearly 2-4-weeks to complete costing over $15,000. It all depends on what has to be shot and how much time we’ll need in post-production. Most Videos are around the 2 min mark and take a Month of pre production, then a shoot day or two and then 30-45 days in post production video editing making it a 60-90 day process.
RED DIGITAL CINEMA CAMERAS (PROJECTS)
Red Camera Video Productions are basically the (Lamborghini) of productions. Commercials such as Nike, Under Armor, Geico, Doritos and Pepsi are all solid examples of the RED Look. You can just tell when you see a commercial or film done on RED because...well.....Its just the best. Its very distinguished and viewers know the high production value when they see it. These Productions are Next Level and really the highest platform for production. These require much more all around work, and if you are interested in these, high budget productions can be discussed as well. We have been working on RED platforms for 10 years and cater to the highest level of production as well.
A number of major films have now been shot on the Red system including The Martian, Guardians of the Galaxy, District 9, Book of Eli, Social Network, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Green Zone. Peter Jackson is an avowed fan of the system and is shooting the upcoming Hobbit movie with 48 of the Red Epic cameras.
Let me walk you through the process for how we breakdown our time to help you understand it better.