How to figure out video production cost and budgets
How to Figure Out Your Video Production Costs and Budget When Hiring a Video Agency in Orange County, California
Hiring the right video production agency in Orange County, California, can elevate your brand with compelling storytelling and high-quality visuals. However, understanding how to figure out your video production costs and budget is essential to ensure you get the best return on your investment. Here’s a straightforward guide to help you navigate this process effectively.
1. Define Your Video Goals and Scope
Before discussing costs, clearly outline your project goals:
What type of video do you need? (e.g., promotional, product demo, brand story)
What is the intended length and format?
Where will the video be distributed? (social media, website, TV)
Knowing this helps agencies provide accurate estimates based on the scope.
2. Understand the Components of Video Production Costs
Video production costs typically break down into several key components:
Pre-Production: Concept development, scripting, storyboarding, location scouting, casting, and planning.
Production: Filming with equipment, crew, talent, and locations.
Post-Production: Editing, color grading, sound design, motion graphics, and revisions.
Additional Services: Animation, voiceover, music licensing, and special effects.
Each stage varies depending on the complexity of your project.
3. Research and Compare Local Agencies
Finding the best video company in Orange County means comparing offerings and pricing structures. Agencies like Hilo Motion Pictures specialize in cinematic 4K and provide customized video production services to fit your budget without compromising quality.
Similarly, Advantage Video Production offers top-tier video production with expertise in product video production services, especially useful if you’re looking for the best Amazon product video company.
4. Get Detailed Quotes and Ask for Inclusions
Request detailed quotes from at least 2-3 agencies. A thorough estimate should include:
Breakdown of all production phases
Number of shooting days
Estimated editing time and rounds of revisions
Licensing fees (music, graphics)
Deliverables and formats
Avoid agencies with vague pricing to prevent surprises.
5. Consider the Quality vs. Cost Trade-off
Low-cost video production can mean sacrificing quality, which directly affects your brand image. Investing in cinematic video production ensures you get a polished final product that resonates with your audience.
Top video production agencies in Orange County offer flexible packages to help you balance budget constraints with your vision, ensuring cinematic-quality output without overspending.
6. Factor in Additional Costs
Budget for potential extras such as:
Travel and accommodation (if shooting outside Newport Beach)
Talent and actors fees
Equipment rentals
Contingency funds for unexpected changes
7. Plan Your Budget Timeline
Video production often requires upfront deposits with progress payments as milestones are reached. Align your budget timeline with the agency’s payment terms to maintain a smooth workflow.
Final Thoughts
Determining your video production costs and budget requires clear communication and thorough research. By defining your needs, understanding cost components, and partnering with reliable companies like Hilo Motion Pictures or Advantage Video Production, you ensure a seamless production journey that brings your vision to life with excellence.
Whether you seek a video production company for corporate videos or a product video production services provider specializing in cinematic style video production, setting a realistic budget upfront helps achieve exceptional results without surprises.
Let me walk you through the process for how we breakdown our time to help you understand it better.
1. CONCEPT PLANNING
The first thing is simply getting on the same page with the client to make sure we’re producing what they need to meet their goals. At this point, we’ve likely already met with the client before preparing their video proposal, so this concept planning meeting typically only takes about 30-minutes to 1-hour and can be done in-person or over the phone. We do things like:
outline the approach to the video (Treatment Planning)
discuss with client the subject matter and raw video that must appear in the video
discuss how many on-camera interviews will be conducted; select interviewees and discuss plan for contacting and coordinating each person
Go over locations, Talent and any other on set variables we will need (this can get time consuming in the process) NOTE: Talent, locations and Sets all are additional costs that can be discussed up front.
2. PRE-PRODUCTION
Next, we start to assemble all the things we’ll need during the shoot. This can take anywhere from 1-2 hours. Preparations include:
Create the treatment or outline of the video including all talent, graphics, shots, scenes and scripts
create any necessary shot lists (based on the concept meeting)
prepare interview questions (based on the concept meeting)
prepare equipment (checking/testing the camera, lights, media cards, tripod)
NOTE: most of the time there is multiple cameras, lighting, electric (grip), full audio set ups, make up artists, directors, cinematographers, talent and producers on set. ITS ALOT:)
3. VIDEO SHOOT/FILMING
The day of the video shoot (SET) is the most obvious to people because we’re on-site so what we do is on display and you can actually see whats going on. This is a big part of the “it depends” aspect of things but also plays the biggest role in pricing sometimes. How many video shoots will be required to capture what we need for the video? How many days?
NOTE: Talent and location also charges daily as well.
It’s talked about and decided in advance when the video proposal is being prepared. Sometimes everything we need to shoot is in a single location and all available on the same day. Perfect.
On the other hand, sometimes there are multiple locations involved, someone critical to the video needs to be interviewed on a different day, et cetera. All of these things add-up.
As far as the shoot itself, here are some of the things we do:
cinematographer visits each site to shoot everything on the shot list. (location scouting)
cinematographer also shoots other raw video he/she finds relevant or beneficial
cinematographer interviews predetermined people
Most of Hilo Motion PIctures videos only require multiple cinematographers, but there are cases where additional resources are needed or requested. We have helped coordinate things like additional videographers, sound technicians, an live online streaming coordinator, a teleprompter operator, hair and makeup, et cetera. Adding professionals like these does increase the production’s cost.
4. POST-PRODUCTION
This is where a lot of the time gets spent that the client never gets to see. It’s the other “it depends” variable. How much time gets spent in post-production varies depending on the amount of raw video there is to sift through and how complicated the story is to tell. It could take anywhere from 2-5 days in most cases. Some of the things that need to be accomplished are:
Logging Raw 4K Video
review all the raw video that was shot
transcribe sound bites from interviews
Video Edit
edit video according to the approved script
relevant graphics are created
preview video is provided to client for viewing
minor changes are discussed by phone, changes requested by client are made
Motion Graphics and Animation
•This is one of the most time consuming and longest processes in the mix. Also the most expensive hourly so all motion graphics and animations are discussed before the Production including CGI if necessary.
Wrap
digital files are created
Taking into consideration each of those phases… concept planning, pre-production, video shoot, and post-production… most projects take 60-90 days to complete, costing about $15,000 – $60,000.
Price is always agreed to in advance with our clients, so they know what the cost is before production begins. We have had a few situations where a project takes longer than anticipated and the price has changed during the process. In all of those cases, the clients added shoots, or other components, and then agreed to an accordingly higher price. Communication is the best way to avoid any potential cost issues.
5. LOW-COST LOCAL PROMO VIDEOS
We do have a low-cost option for small business owners with tiny marketing budgets. We produce some really nice short videos for around $4,000-5,000.
Those videos are all about keeping a very strict production schedule. From beginning to end, the entire production needs to take us less than a day to create the video. We do that with a 1-hour video shoot, during which we ask a string of questions leading to answers that essentially create the script on its own, then we edit everything together.
Basically, these clients relinquish that control to us and trust we will deliver a video that’s on-message. Clients do not get a script to approve or a preview video that allows them to ask for changes in the final video.
This cuts down on a lot of the time it takes us in post-production. If a client wants editorial control in one of these low-cost videos, they can purchase it for an additional charge. We have never had that situation come-up, and our clients who have purchased our low-cost videos have been thrilled with the end result, and of course, the cost!
6. Videos For Crowdfunding Campaigns
This is one of my favorites because it breaks the mold of regular video production. Crowdfunding videos are a whole different ball game and alot of the time when you offer incentive packages for the production team, they may cut the rates down. As for me, I am always willing to knock some money off the crowdfunding production budget since most of these people are passionate start ups. I put together crowdfunding video packages that help young business owners launch their crowdfunding campaign a little easier.
BREAKING DOWN YOUR VIDEO PRODUCTION COST
Those basic steps for how the videos are produced should be pretty universal from company to company. Of course, every production company prices things in their own way, but that’s how we determine the cost of a video. I hope this at least gives you some understanding behind the process.
Here are some samples of price ranges:
1. RED DIGITAL CINEMA PRODUCTION:
PRICE RANGE: $30,000.00-$60,000
3. IN STUDIO PRODUCT PROMOTION VIDEO PRODUCTION:
PRICE RANGE: $9,000-$22,000
5. MULTIPLE DAYS-LOCATIONS-TALENT INCLUDING AERIALS AND TIME-LAPSE FILMING:
PRICE RANGE: $50,000-$150,000
