Budgeting For Your Project |
Over the years, VideOccasions has been involved with projects ranging from $25 to $25,000 to produce. Ultimately, your needs and how you plan your project will determine cost.
It is very important that you discuss costs with us before beginning your project. We should be able to help you estimate your costs fairly accurately.
To help with estimating the cost of your project, consider these examples, which are intended solely to provide a ball park figure for your consideration.
1. A 10 Minute Photo Montage (still pictures to DVD or video tape)
Allowing another 45 minutes to an hour to put music with the pictures, and some time for titles and reviewing the project, you'll probably spend 4 to 5 hours and, at $75 per hour, $300 to $400 on your ten minute photo montage.
This is a pretty straight forward transfer from one medium to another. We charge a flat rate of $25 to do the transfer unless editing is required, at which point we change to a $75 per hour fee, billed in 15 minute increments in addition to the $25 flat rate.
For example: We begin to transfer your PowerPoint® presentation to DVD ($25), only to discover that several of the photos in the slide presentation must be resized and one of the music tracks isn't embedded in the correct location. We call and you authorize correcting the problems. The resizing and music work takes an additional 30 minutes ($37.50) and the entire job costs $62.50.
This breaks down into two parts: video taping the event and editing the tapes.
In this example, imagine that two friends have each recorded hour-long videos at the wedding of Bill and Tammy. Now the newly-weds would like to have a single DVD made of the wedding, with the addition of 10-15 still photographs from their honeymoon. They would also like to have music added to the DVD once it is finished, along with a title and a "credit roll" listing all the names of the people in the wedding party..
Bill and Tammy have done their homework. That is, they have logged their video; they have created an Edit Decision List which includes the text and location for each title and caption; and they have selected all the music which will accompany the production. |
From an editing point of view, the two sources increase the complexity of the edit considerably. The sound on these videos will have to be synchronized, and numerous decisions will have to be made regarding which source has the best shot at any given moment. This is editing at its most interesting -- and at its most time consuming.
Bill and Tammy have prepared well, have developed an excellent edit decision list and have selected and numbered all the still photos that will be used. Still, a project of this magnitude can be expected to take 8 to 10 hours to edit, at a cost of $600 to $800 or more, again depending on changes that have to be made and whether last minute material is added.
We are often called for "ball park figures" for video taping and editing a business presentation or large scale special event.
In this example, "Roger Goodman" will be giving a day-long seminar at a business fair. He would like two cameras on hand to record the event. He is aware that adding a second camera to tape an event more than doubles the overall cost, but feels that a second camera will be necessary to record audience participation in the seminar.
Much of his seminar will be accompanied by a PowerPoint® slide presentation. His plan is to edit the tapes of the seminar, cut in slides from the PowerPoint® presentation and distribute the finished product on DVD.
Video taping costs will be at least $1450 for the two camera shoot, more if circumstances require the services of a sound technician or special lighting.
The shoot, which will run from 9-12 and 1-4:30, will produce 10-12 hours of tape -- 5-6 hours from each camera. Even with Roger's cooperation in preparing an Edit Decision List it will take 20-30 hours to produce a rough-cut of the material -- $1600 to $2400 -- and several more hours to finish the edit and create a two hour DVD master.
A conservative estimate for this project would be $3000 to $4000 and could run as high as $4500 to $5000 if Roger makes extensive changes to the rough-cut.
Roger's boss suggests that this be handled as a single camera shoot, the estimated cost for which would be about $2000 to $2500.
VideOccasions is often called upon to document training on systems at large construction sites as well as in hospitals and other health care facilities. Fees for this kind of shooting and editing vary considerably from job to job, primarily depending on the spicifics of each.
A typical half-day of shooting on a construction site, where we would have a 4 hour minimum call, on a straight-forward project, would run about $650.00. This would include a camera operator and sound technician for four hours, minimal editing and 2 DVDs of the shoot. Additional time would be billed at $150 to $175 per hour.
At a hospital training session, a one camera shoot would cost about $250.00 for the first two hours, with additional hours billed at $80.00 per hour. Editing and DVD production might add an additional $150.00 to $200.00.
A Rule of Thumb -- Experience has shown that it always takes longer to do a project than you think it will, usually because you'll see creative possibilities as you work with your editor that you haven't seen before. |
Last modified 1/10/13