What makes your commercial production so expensive?

Even among industry professionals there’s often a disconnect on why things cost as much as they do. There are four major drivers to cost.

Crew Labor: It’s labor intensive to create national broadcast quality content. Someone has to competently run the camera, set up the lights, dress the sets, record the sound. Many of these people are highly skilled, require assistants and don’t come cheap. For many skill sets, prep days are even required.

Talent: Good actors and VO talent don’t work cheap. Put more than one of them on camera and the costs starts piling up. Add celebrity talent and your costs will skyrocket.

Technology: Technology has made some things easier but also caused expectations to rise. When you add things like motion control, compositing, drone or any sort other trick shots, cost savings from technology go out the window. In addition, today’s camera systems are infinitely more complicated than they were a decade ago. Operating them competently requires training on equipment most people can’t afford to own.

Post Production: Hardware requirements for simple editing have become cheaper and less complicated. At the same time, software has become more and more capable allowing more and more creative possibilities. These possibilities require highly skilled artists to make the effects look great. That means labor costs.

So how do you contain costs on your commercial production. Well, it starts with the concept and then ends with execution. There are a lot of ways simplify a shoot and do it cheaper. More on that later.

If you want to discuss your commercial production budget don’t hesitate to reach out to us.