How much does a video cost?

If you’re looking to commission a video for yourself or your client… then answering a few simple questions could make all the difference when trying to strike a balance between your budget and the creative approach you take.

We call it our 'Video Fact Find'. The more detail you can answer… the better understanding we'll have of your requirements and the better solution we can provide you with, in terms of ideas, approaches and expectations.

This really can help us to develop and get on quicker, with giving you some great ideas that are firmly grounded in the real world. From experience we have found that these few questions help our customers crystallise their own thoughts about what they want.


Who is your target audience?
Who are you aiming the video at, is vital for us to know. This helps us focus ideas and approaches to what is relevant to the viewer. Providing a breakdown of your target audience can be very useful.

How will the video be used? 
It’s important to know its primary use. This helps to shape the structure and the type of the video and helps us to focus on the ideal length. Videos work best when produced with a key destination in mind.

What product or service are you promoting?
Knowing your business, product or service is vital, if we are going to do our job well.  Give us the ‘elevator’ pitch and this should be enough to get us started. We are often on a sharp learning curve with a new business and this helps us to move along quicker.

If you had to title the video now, what would it be called?
Sounds simple and it is. This will help us both to focus on the video's objective.

What do you want the audience to do and feel after watching?
Essentially, what is the ‘call to action'? We need to engage an audience and inspire them to react… after watching your video what do we want your audience to do?

What are the top three key messages you want to communicate to your audience, in order of importance?
If I held 10 juggling balls in my hands and threw them at you in one go, it’s unlikely you’ll catch them all. Your audience is no different. Be focused at what you throw at them. By conveying these points one at a time, there is more chance they’ll get them all, and before you know it, they’ll be juggling!

So, let us know the top three messages. Then let’s make it relevant to your audience, so go on to explain why these points are important to them. Why would they want to know them?


Will this be a one-off video or the start of a series of videos? 
This can really make a difference to our creative and budget approach. It’s no good us suggesting an idea if it’s not financially sustainable if you wish to do more. If there are more, how many videos in the series? When would you like to roll them all out? Knowing this means we can be smarter with the ideas.

What types of imagery/shots/processes/scenery, springs to your mind (when you think of those key messages)?
You may have some ideas yourself, you may not; it doesn’t matter either way. But knowing what is available to work with makes a huge different to what we can bring to your video creatively. It can have a big impact on budget too.

Do you have any initial thoughts to the creative style that you feel best suits the message? 
Again, you may have some ideas yourself, you may not; it doesn’t matter either way, but knowing what you may be thinking can help us to see where you’re looking to pitch your video.

You may have a competitor video that you need to compete with. Knowing this can be a useful starting point for us. There are so many approaches, using different elements (live action, interviews, animation, drama etc) the more we know from you the better we can be to react.


If the video looks like it needs some interviews to help tell the story… who would they be?
How many people are key to talk to? Would they all cover the same points, or would they cover different aspects? Can they all be done on one day or are the interviewees spread over the UK?

Answering these questions helps us to anticipate the time required and investigate the best place for them to be interviewed. This can all make a difference to a budget.

Ideas on locations… where could the video be filmed? 
Often with interview-based videos, the location can make all the difference to the video. Either how it looks in the finished video or how practical it may be on the day to shoot. Knowing any locations that you feel would be appropriate as a backdrop, helps to 'paint a picture' of what is available. (Why not send us a few photos and the sizes of the rooms/locations).

What are the timescales or deadlines?
Knowing this is vital. It can impact budget but more often the creative approach we can look to take.

Who are the key stakeholders?
Knowing who we need to 'keep happy' helps us to look at the work-flow of a production and it can also impact on schedule.

What are you looking to invest on the video? 
There is no quick answer to how much will a video cost. Every one is different, although many follow similar patterns. Answering all the above helps us to answer that question, but we also need to have some understanding of what you realistically want to invest, and I say invest, as I assume you want some type of return from the video.

When we have and good idea of the objectives and the budget available… we can get to work on the ideas and then the magic happens!



Your responses will really help us to answer your question…
‘How much does a video cost?’, it’s just now, we’ll know how much that particular video costs.

I hope this helps, but if you wish to go one better, why not get in touch and let’s chat over a coffee.

Time v Creativity

Seen this video a few times... great simple message. I could think of a few people to show this too!
Highlights nicely how sometimes 'us' creatives, need a little more time than we are given to deliver the magic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgvx9OfZKJw&feature=youtu.be

It's quality Jim but not as we know it.

If Captain Kirk beamed down to Earth in 2011 he, and Spock, would be amazed at the amount of time modern humans spend in front of screens. Star Trek might have foretold our love of hand-held communication devices, but it didn't anticipate our craving for screens.

Screens are everywhere: on our phones, in our pockets, our laptops and PCs, our TVs and even in our cars. We suck up hours upon hours of moving images and even produce half of them and broadcast them on YouTube.

Quality has become the Jekyll and Hyde of the 21st Century: stellar HD on our LED screens - and home-made, jerky footage shot on our iPhones and uploaded onto the web.

The cost of HD cameras that can capture broadcast quality images has plummeted. That means anyone can pick up a camera and shoot professional video - right? Well, yes, but the importance of quality has, for a while, been downgraded, and that's a bad thing.

It's especially bad for business.

Business has always been a big user of video. It's one of the best way to get a message across to all kinds of stakeholders (internal and external) and has long been used as a way of reflecting corporate values and building engagement with staff, customers and other audiences.

So, it seemed logical to put together the need for corporate video with the explosion in accessible technology and cut out the middle-man. I mean, who feels sorry for a video producer who's making less money or none at all? It's the logic of business: cut costs and deliver more value.

Simple.

But it's not simple. I recently started a discussion about video production and it's current state on LinkedIn and the response was enormous. It seems that what I like to call the 'YouTube Moment' is passing. Many people out there are beginning to realise that quality matters. Quality communicates. It always has and it always will. And I don't just mean the quality of the actual image and sound on the screen, important as they are, what really makes a difference is the quality of the service, skills and experience of the people who get those images, put them together in a compelling way, and ensure that a message is communicated.

That’s real quality.

Many respondents on LinkedIn used simple and obvious analogies: I can go out and buy plumbing equipment but it doesn't mean I'm going 'to install a quality bathroom. I can buy a good printer but it doesn't mean I have the design expertise or materials to make business cards that inspire confidence in my customers.

When you really want to do business you call in a professional who knows how to make the most of their equipment, and who has the experience to stop you making costly (and embarrassing) mistakes.

The 'YouTube Moment' hit us about five or so years ago. People began to think that because YouTube, with its amateurish videos shot on high-spec technology, was so popular it was possible to circumvent production companies and their expensive camera crews and producers and writers and so on, and do it all in-house.

Often, it back-fired. What many did was the equivalent of handing out low-quality business-cards which just served to make them look cheap.

Production companies have realised that they need to work harder to deliver quality, add greater value and persuade clients that quality from concept to screen actually counts. I think that's starting to work. For my part, I'm selling my services much more on quality of service and ideas than technical points. And it's working.

When I look back I realise that, maybe, many video production didn't engage with their clients enough. They excluded clients from the production process. That made clients believe they were paying for 'smoke-and-mirrors' rather than talent and expertise.

I think we need to be much more transparent about what we do and how we do it, and SHOW clients how we achieve quality on their behalf. The client has to be part of the creative journey, and then they will see how their cash is being spent on making them, and their products and services, look brilliant.

If you would like to chat further, please get in touch. I’m here to make you or your company look good... whichever way we do it.

10 easy steps to help stimulate conversation of using video for your business (part 1)

Ok, so if you’re reading this (watching this) you're probably aware that you should be considering video or want to improve how you use it.

Here's a few pointers to get you started - it's far from definitive, but it should stimulate some constructive thinking, so that you can use video that gets watched, and encourages your audience to do something positive?

First - are you using video now? If you are, stop and take a close look at what you've got. 

Look at it from your audiences perspective what are they getting from it? Who are you aiming it at? Are you using it to it’s maximum, is it being used and deployed everywhere and anywhere appropriate. Take a close look and be honest. Does it represent you, your messages and your brand in the best way possible?

Second, think about your audience; who are they? Customers, employees, new recruits? Think about how you can target them so they pay attention to your message. What kind of messages do they want to hear? Think about the look and feel of each video - will it engage them? 

One way to do that is to think of the way YOU engage with videos that someone else has aimed at YOU. Does it work? How do you react? Does the message get through to you? If it does, think about why it does.

Third, understand the medium. It's not a waste of time surfing YouTube to see what's popular, what's not, and how other businesses use video. Gauge your responses and those of your colleagues: how quickly do you get bored? What looks twee? What looks amateurish? What looks too slick? What's just plain dull? Is it linked to other materials like brochures, white papers or other websites? Then compare notes and try to work out how you would like to look, to your audience.

Then, work to build on those insights by looking specifically at what your competitors are doing. Appraise it honestly and then work out how you can match or more importantly, exceed their efforts. This can form a great starting point if you are going to get the ‘professionals’ in, like us, fact finding acts as a great foundation to build upon. 

Next, to shoot or not to shoot? that is the question… The technology is cheaper and better than ever before: an excellent, inexpensive HD camcorder can be bought almost anywhere, and the editing software that that avaibale gives you the ability to make programmes that can be quite good.

‘User Generated Video’ is here to stay. It has its place. It may save money, get your message out there quicker and provide tangible results. But my advice on this is simple: If you’re going to broadcast your message to the world – make it count. That piece of video might be the only way your customers, or peers can judge you.

So… is it right for you and your brand to make it yourself? Discuss this in depth, and the pros and cons of doing getting the professionals in. 

Ok, well we are half way through, hopefully it's opened your mind a little more as to how to getting the ideas flowing in your busniness and amongst your colleagues.

If your looking for more ideas watch part 2 or take a look at what SugarSnap can offer.

More about Simon Burgess.

Nobody knows anything!

When the screenwriter of such classic movies as The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (not forgetting Marathan Man and The Princess Bride) declares that, for all his experience and talent, ‘nobody knows anything’* when it comes to making hit films andTV shows and any other artistic endeavour you’d care to mention, then we need to listen. William Goldman wasn’t saying that anyone could make a blockbuster, but that there was no science you could apply to guarantee a successful communication.

You had to be able to trust your instincts rather than focus groups, and work hard to putting quality up on the screen rather than what you think people want.

Nobody really knows what audiences want: if they did all films or TV programmes would be brilliant hits. They aren’t. Most aren’t any good at all. So, how do you ensure that you have the best chance of getting your message across so that the audience listens, remembers and appreciates what you had to say?

In my view it’s all about integrity.

It’s about being straight-forward about what you want to say, and thinking about the audience first, rather than your own narrow agenda. If you make the film or video – or any kind of communication, be it live or recorded – so that it works as an entity; so that it’s an honest piece of work – then people will respond.They always do.

That’s how I like to work.

*William Goldman: Adventures in the Screen Trade

Does video get people talking more than words do?

A colleague of mine - a writer - told me about a book he'd just read by a brain scientist. It showed how reading was actually 'an unnatural act' and that the fact that most of us end up learning to read at all is 'a miracle.'

I was surprised by that claim. But then I thought about it. For most of human history people communicated using their voices or pictures or even physical action. The great majority of people did not read.

But now, we all do. Only, I don't think our fundamental nature has changed. We like to SEE and HEAR messages rather than read them. That's why the moving image is all around us. We all like a nice, colourful picture with action in it!

What's that got to with how you can use video in your business?

A lot.

The revolution in communication that the Internet has unleashed is only just being understood properly. What some commentators are saying is that the Web has taken us away from a word-centered society to one in which the image has become more important again.

Simply, words are all very well, but images - especially moving ones - are back on top.

This same writer friend of mine - he does a LOT of reading! - but then, he's a writer! He told me about work carried out by the Software Usability Research Lab at Wichita State University. It showed that people don't actually 'read' web pages - they speed read them in a strange 'F' pattern. That means they read a headline, drop down the page, missing out most of the words beneath the headline, then scan across again to another bold headline - or set of bullets - and then scan down the margin to the end to find a pay-off, if there is one.

They register, and this is a staggering number, just 18% of the words on the page! So, out of every 100 words you publish on a webpage only 18 of them are likely to be read. That doesn't mean you stop using words - you've just got to use less of them.

What's also clear is that there's been an explosion of video content on the web… one of the most important communications platforms around. So, businesses has to think about how it tries to get their messages across using a tool that we are all hard wired to connect with.

Can anyone make a good video and are production companies on the way out?

The technology is cheaper and better than ever before: an excellent HD camcorder can be bought almost anywhere, and the editing software that comes with it gives you the ability to make programmes that look quite good.

You can share your video on the web – on an intranet, through social-networking sites or, of course, through the amazing medium of YouTube. Millions of people could, potentially, click on to your video and take your corporate message and share it with all their customers, work colleagues and friends.

Easy.

Production companies that offer broadcast professional services are dead. It’s over. We can all go home. Simple.

But is it so simple?

I don’t think so. I’m not saying that what some call ‘User Generated Video’, or UGV isn’t here to stay; it is. It has its place. It may save money, get your message out there quicker and provide tangible results. It can be useful.

If you take your people out of their normal jobs so that they can spend the time to shoot and put together a short film, you can use it in any way you like. It might look good, but it might not.

It’s important to remember though, that the vast majority of clips on YouTube don’t get many viewings. Most get only a few hundred. The clips that cause a global sensation are few and far between: the exceptions that prove the rule. And that rule is: YouTube has far too much content for it to be an effective medium of communication.

And when you see a clip on another platform – your website for instance – lack of quality can really show. And that’s when UGV can be dangerous. A badly made video can backfire. You or your company could look stupid. Or, you could find that an in-house joke undermines your brand.

Not so long ago German transport giant, Deutsche Bahn, was in take-over talks with UK-rail operator Arriva, when a video appeared on YouTube that ridiculed their negotiations. A clip from a movie about Hitler was ‘re-subtitled’ to make fun of their approach to the discussions. No one quite knows who made it, but it damaged the German company’s brand for a while.

So, UGV can be useful, but needs to be handled properly.

A recent report by Every Sense suggested that production companies were nervous about UGV, and didn’t quite know if it was a threat or an opportunity. They interviewed professional programme makers and found a range of views, and a host of worries, but concluded that video companies had to stress the value that they can bring to a communications project.

And that’s my main point. I don’t see UGV as a threat. It is an opportunity, both for clients and for production professionals. It’s another way I can help clients. People come to me because

I can solve their communications needs creatively and cost-effectively. It takes skill and experience to do that: just as in any other walk of life.

I can’t believe that a company would entrust a mission critical message – a message that is supposed to build their brand, attract paying customers, motivate or educate their staff – to someone who hasn’t made a video before, and does not have the experience or contacts to bring in the right talent to make it look good. If a company did that, they’d be taking a big risk with one of their most precious assets: their reputation.

UGV can be appropriate in many instances: internal communications and at or around specific events, for instance, but when it comes to selling or building a brand you can’t rely on what is, in all honesty, amateurism.

Production expertise and experience – the kind you get from companies like SugarSnap and others – add value to your message. You get more bang for your bucks; and you benefit from long experience to overcome obstacles and problems when they arise – as they sometimes do during a production. Above all you get objective and expert advice on how to shape the narrative and tell your story in a way that works for your message and your target audience.

That’s when the difference between a professional and an amateur really shows.

We all have an instinct for quality; we know when something has been professionally made, and we know when it hasn’t. We all watch TV (on a set and online) everyday and we don’t make allowances for lack of budget or expertise: if something looks bad it is bad. That’s it.

And now that your video is only a click away from BBC i-Player, I think the difference is more obvious.

My advice is simple: when you’re wondering whether to shoot or not to shoot – think of your objectives, your audience, your brand and what you want your audience to feel once they have watched it. If you’re going to broadcast your message to the world – make it look good.

That piece of video might be the only way your customers or peers can judge you.

If you would like to chat further, then give me a buzz. I’m here to make you or your company look good... whichever way we do it.

1 "There are ways of stopping you laughing; City Diary." Times [London, England] 24 Mar. 2010

2 “UGV Threat or Opportunity” Every Sense Ltd