THE COST OF MAKING VIDEOS: PART 2

By Michael Goldstein 

Continuing our peek behind the curtain of the costs of making videos, today we move on to the second consideration, and it’s a doozy…

Location: 

Filming in the Himalayas is expensive for obvious reasons.  Getting there for one.  Getting power for the lights might be tricky. Yeti repellant costs a small fortune on it’s own. But chances are, you don’t need to film in the Himalayas. You might just need a city park, or a coffee shop, or perhaps an office type setting. Filming at any location most likely has costs associated with it. Filming permits for public shoots, rental fees for facilities, liability insurance, just to name a few. 

More important than these fees, which vary from location to location, is the number of locations needed for filming a particular video.  Say you have in mind four different locations for a particular shoot.  Besides any fees that might be accrued from each of the above mentioned, each location is also a complete set up and breakdown for the production team. Not to mention travel time there and back, plus most professional video production companies will want to scout a location ahead of time, looking out for potential issues, like noise or lighting.

If your looking to keep your costs down, you will find that keeping the amount of locations on your shoot to a minimum will have a huge make a huge impact at the cost of production.  If you’re lucky, or have a clever writing team, you might find a single location that has all of your needs in one place. 

One last note on this, or perhaps it’s a warning. A green screen has its place in video production, but making your audience believe you are actually filming somewhere you’re not isn’t one of them.  (At least not for the price that you could have just gone to most actual locations.) Graphic intensive postproduction can add huge cost to your project, but more on that is for another post.