Budgeting for Custom Video Production

In this day and age, when virtually everyone's armed with a video camera (and, in many cases, a pretty nice one), it might be tempting to succumb to that little, budget-minded voice in your head. You know—the one working hard to convince you that with today's technology, you can entrust your company's video messaging to any pubescent with at least one hand free.

There may be occasions when that would be a good call, e.g. Instagram, but for the 99.9 percent of times when you want your video message to be watched (and engaged with, of course), you'll want to put it in the hands of a professional. Or, I should say, professionals. In order to produce a video that gives your company or organization the professional first impression you desire, you're going to have to work with more than one person. Think along the lines of the old "It takes a village" mantra. And this, my friends, is where custom video production comes in.

Depending how involved your video production is, you may need to budget for several crew members. They're the ones responsible for making you look good by setting up proper lighting, sound, framing and so forth.This becomes more complex–aka costly–if you're shooting on location instead of in a studio, where the lighting, sound, etc. is already more or less set up.

If you're hiring talent, that, of course, will add to your cost. Hey, actors need to eat too! And depending on experience and demand, some actors may work on a hamburger budget or command filet mignon-type pay. On top of that, there will be hair and makeup people to pay for keeping the talent looking their best.