What to Consider When Creating Your Video Production Budget

Before you create your next video, you need to know how to create a video production budget. The cost of short video production can vary depending upon the length of your video, who your talent is, how elaborate or lavish you want your editing effects to be, and other factors.

It’s important to know what your corporate video production costs are and what you can afford to spend before you begin. This way, your final product can align with your budget, and your expectations are met. Here’s a video production pricing guide to help you out.

Developing Your Video Production Costs Breakdown

You will want to start with a corporate video production costs budget template. There are already a number of Excel templates online for this purpose, and there is almost certainly one that will suit your needs. These templates make it easy to create your budget. These templates list items that you may not have considered but should include in your total budget. 

To get an idea of your total budget, simply list all production items, their estimated costs, and how much you can afford to spend, and the software does the math for you. You should break your video production costs down into three areas: pre-production costs, production costs, and post-production costs.

Pre-Production

Pre-production activities for your video include scriptwriting, which is the script breakdown or creation of the actual blueprint for your video, the actions your performers will take, and the words they will say. It also includes storyboarding, which is a drawing of each scene to help guide production. The storyboard will help make your video come alive and give a structure and style to your video.

Another important aspect of pre-production is choosing your talent, which can take up a sizable portion of your film budget, depending on whom you select. If this is a business video and all activities are done by current, salaried employees of your company, pre-production costs will probably be negligible. However, if you are hiring professional actors, athletes, or stunt people, your pre-production recruitment costs will be higher.

Your pre-production forms the foundation of your video, so it is important that you take the time to consider what you hope to accomplish and the message you want to send. You need to start with a good concept to wind up with a good video.

Consider the following questions when planning for pre-production:

• Who is your target audience?
• What is the purpose of your video?
• What are the current issues that your audience may be facing?
• What message do you want to convey?
• What problem are you solving for your audience?
• What are your company’s values?
• What elements need to be featured in your film?
• What objections do you need to overcome to successfully market your product to the target audience?
• What type of product or service are you promoting?
• How long do you want your video to be?
• What type of emotion do you want to elicit in the viewer?
• What action do you want the viewer to take after watching the video?

Video Production

While you may have creatives in your organization who can write scripts, perform, and storyboard, it is less likely you will have existing employees skilled in video production crew jobs like camera operating and audio production. In addition to hiring a crew, you will also have to rent equipment, as well as a studio or on-site location. Other costs of production may include paying talent, craft services, and travel expenses. Many of these expenses have associated day rates and flat rates, even if you only use them for a short period of time. Additionally, the number of shooting days you have will directly impact these total costs.

Consider which of the following costs you may incur as part of your production budget:

• Production equipment, cameras, lenses, and film
• Crew
• Director
• Extras
• Cameraman
• Set, props, and equipment
• Teleprompter
• Studio filming
• Licenses and permits for filming
• Event-related equipment
• Catering
• Hair and makeup

These costs can add up and be a substantial part of your total budget, so try not to overlook them.

Post-Production

How much post-production fits into your film production budget estimate will depend on how elaborate you expect your editing to be. Post-production is where all the video and audio are put together to make a clean, polished, final product. This phase of the process often makes a difference between whether you have an amateurish-looking video or a high-quality video.

Costs here will include budgeting for:

• Video editing hours
• Video editing software license fee
• Any graphics, animation, voiceover work, or narration
• Creating transcripts or translations
• Editors
• Music and sound effects
• Digitizing, rendering, transferring, and uploading digital files

While you may be tempted to bypass some of these expenses, you don’t want to wind up with a final product that is incomplete.

How to Develop Your Corporate Video Production Price Estimate

Rather than allotting a specific dollar amount to each line item and trying to make it add up, an easier way to approach your video production budget is to decide what percentage of your total budget you want to devote to each line item. Work out your individual costs that way. This approach allows you to prioritize specific features of your video production so that you are ultimately satisfied with the video produced.

Cost to Hire a Video Production Company in Oklahoma City

Naturally, there will be a cost to hire a video production company in Oklahoma City or any other location across the country, but many businesses say the cost is well worth the addition to the budget for the value they receive.

In fact, doing it yourself may cause you to overpay for certain video production budget line items, take on more costs than you need to, or increase the budget for certain items due to errors. A reputable video production company knows others in the film industry and can often negotiate better prices than someone trying to create their first video. Additionally, they have members of their team who can tend to various aspects of the production so that you do not have to hire out each individual role. For these reasons, there’s a good chance that partnering with a video production company will save you money in your production budget. 

More importantly, though, you get the assistance of experts who will make sure you end up with a quality product and good video that you can be proud of. There’s no point in creating a corporate video if it is ineffective or amateurish. In fact, this can do more harm than good. The video you produce will reflect on your business, either in a good way or a bad way. A poor-quality video will make you look like you do not pay attention to the details and do not put effort into your final products. In contrast, an obviously professional video guided by experts can do wonders for your business and be well worth the cost.

If you are making your video in the Oklahoma City area, contact NextThought Studios, Oklahoma’s premier full-service video production company. NextThought Studios can guide you through every phase of the production process, from pre-production to production to post-production.

NextThought Studios has scriptwriters, storyboarders, camera operators, studio space and equipment, video editing software and editors, 3D motion graphic animators – essentially, everything you need to make a highly professional and effective video. We can work with your budget and help you decide how to best allot your resources.

To find out more about how we can help you with your next production or to get a free quote on your job, contact us today