Video production costs, budgets
Getting what you pay for
 Often, the first question a producer is asked is how much a video will cost. To give a realistic answer, producers will usually be keen to get a sense of audience and objectives, desired editorial and technical quality, and the time and resources likely to be needed for the particular project.
 With many active suppliers available, offering everything from fully professional production through to wedding video and home movies, budget levels for corporate video production vary hugely - as do the editorial and technical standards of the work produced.
 A fast and simple record of events is always going to be cheaper than a project involving multiple locations, coverage over an extended time period, staged sequences, presenters, actors, extensive graphics, or special effects.
And full broadcast quality Digital Betacam or HD costs more than DVCAM, DVC Pro or Beta SP - though these can provide excellent DVD and VHS show copies.
 Typically, budgets for professional work range from the low thousands of pounds through to a few tens of thousands. Most corporate productions at present fall within the £1,500 to £50,000 range, though very simple projects can come in more cheaply, and for particularly prestigious or important campaigns large organisations sometimes spend well in excess of £100,000 on a video.
If the job's worth doing
Of course, nobody wants to waste resources. The danger in choosing the cheapest option, though, is that if you pay very little, you are quite likely to get very little. So you have to look for a balance, making sure that you get good value for money while still allocating enough resources for your producer to create an effective video.
 For a voluntary-sector audience, a rough and ready, no money wasted look can be just what's needed. When it's important to give a more polished impression of your organisation, or when faced by an audience perhaps initially resistant to your message, higher editorial and technical standards may be needed
Priced by the minute?
Cost-per-minute yardsticks are sometimes helpful, though they can be misleading: programme length is only one cost factor. The type and complexity of the programme, the number of different places where filming must take place (and where they are), the people, equipment and materials needed both in front of and behind the camera, the quality required, and producer overhead costs all play a part in determining the cost.
 On simple programmes filmed at one or few locations and mostly featuring either people talking or coverage of events or activities not organised by the producer, the cost-per-minute can be very low. When filming is needed on several sites, or significant props, settings, costumes, effects or graphics are needed, or staged drama or drama-doc is to be filmed, or national television presenters or celebrities are involved, then per-minute rates can head rapidly up.
 The bulk of current corporate productions fall somewhere between £500 and £4,000 per minute; different "bands" of production activity are emerging Major corporations and government departments commissioning high-end work for significant audiences are often paying in the £2,000 to £4,000 per minute range. At the budget professional end, minimum crewing, cheaper kit and creative use of resources are seeing numbers of productions in the £500 to £1,500 per minute range.
 * Foreign language versions can extend the usefulness of programmes for home distribution, and greatly enhance the value of programmes for overseas use. Good foreign language services can organise translation and recording of voice to picture with linguists and broadcasters well used to the specific demands of video. This can significantly enhance programme usefulness for relatively little extra cost.
For comparison, standard primetime television documentary is currently estimated to average around £3,000+ per minute, television drama around £10,000+ per minute, TV animation approaching £15,000 per minute, and national television commercials in excess of £100,000 per minute. For all of these types of programmes, too, there is an extremely wide range of budgets ("standard deviation"), from the cheap-and-simple programme destined for a local, "worthy" or digital channel slot to the luxury, national, mainstream "TV event" or series.
 Elaborate 3D animation at the top end can cost thousands of pounds per second of output (where complex modelling is required for very short scenes), though there is now a market for "budget" 3D at much cheaper rates, and the potential for using computer-game-inspired techniques to produce good 3D at low costs is attracting attention. A typical corporate logo, rendered as 3D and animated, might cost £50-£200 per moving second - often 2 to 5 seconds of movement is all that is used or needed.
For further input on current TV rates, check out the web presence of major UK commissioning channels. When buying from independent producers, the BBC has a "tariff" of target cost levels - their negotiating reference point for UK broadcast rights only - at http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/business/tariffs.shtml
Unfortunately the Channel 4 equivalent appears to be locked in to the back of a long Adobe Acrobat document at present, at this address on the http://www.channel4.com/corporate/4producers/ site. ITV - www.itv.com/about - reportedly also has a tariff, but this does not appear on the website at present. (If you know where it is, please let us know and we'll update!)
The budget
Try to specify an all-in, no-extras package: delivery of video to an agreed specification by an agreed date, with perhaps an agreed number of copies to follow again by a fixed date.
 The agreed specification may include a programme script or at least outline, a schedule for filming and editing, and a statement of technical standards to be met. Your supplier will probably want to be very clear about what is and is not included: requests for additional filming or other resources beyond what is agreed will result in discussions on additional costs.
Where the money goes
From the producer's perspective, a budget translates into resources allowable for a production: so many days' filming, so long for an edit, so much for graphics, actors, music.
 Endless interview material can be recorded in a day, though unless your target audience is fully committed to your subject and engaged with you in your purposes, they are likely to find that the resulting video makes heavy going. Most often, your video will work better if it includes more varied visuals. Being realistic, you can aim to film somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes of your finished programme per shooting day, depending on the type of material
Cost headings
The main cost elements in video production are time and equipment, transport and accommodation, and materials.
 People's time is often the biggest cost, and this can be tricky to plan for, as the preparation, shooting and editing processes can vary a great deal from production to production. How much time of how many people payable at what rates will be needed for your project? It may be worth asking.
Equipment costs are relatively defined, and are accounted for by camera, lights, sound, graphics and edit equipment as needed, hired by the hour or day.
Materials costs are sometimes minimal: video tape stock is not expensive. If specially built settings, and lots of props, costumes or special effects are needed, this item will escalate rapidly.
When the direct costs of the production have been calculated, it is normal to add in an allowance for unforeseen contingencies, and then to add on a markup to cover production company overheads and profit margins.
Project planning and estimating
 If you have a project in mind, do consider contacting Grapevine for ideas, approaches and cost estimates.
For further or alternative views on production costs, you could try these pages from corporate video and multimedia producers:
David Smith Prods (USA)
Mighty Media
Rossiter and Co
or trade associations and publicly funded bodies
Institute of Videography
IVCA
PACT
Next page >>
|
