There are two types of clients in the marketing world – the ones who work with production companies on a daily basis and the ones who rarely feel the need to use our services. The latter are often companies who experienced growth and feel it’s time to advertise themselves in way or clients that require a video in order to progress.
Usually these types of clients have rather small or nonexistent marketing departments.
Our goal with this article is to appeal specifically to future clients such as these and help them to better anticipate their capacity or to better plan their budget for the following year when they might require filming a video.
In the article below I will deem a TV ad, a corporate film and short video solutions to be the same thing because forming a price for all of them is done in a very similar manner.
We should start by saying that no video file has a fixed price. This is very difficult for people to understand because they’re used to a certain product always being more or less the same price and that the differences depend on the markup. There is no such thing in production.
The price of a particular video will be determined by:
Before we move on, perhaps it would be good to explain what a script is. When we’re familiar with what the client is selling and what they want to achieve with the video, a plot that will influence either partners or buyers is written. Imagine a client that manufactures and sells shoes. He is also a retailer and their goal is to present the product to the ultimate consumer.
The client knows his targeted customers are younger women between 25 and 45 years of age. That way the client has determined his purpose of action and age group, which is important while writing a script.
That same client will hire a copywriter or an agency to write a script or come directly to us. It is wise to ask the client about their budget but usually, they don’t have the slightest idea about how much the campaign is going to cost. In that case, we come up with a few versions of the script, which gives us options for different kinds of financial capacity.
Let’s go through two versions of a script written for the same client and we’ll demonstrate why the script is so important and how come there’s no unique price for a video project. Take notice of the fact that this is not the correct form of a script, but it will be enough to prove a point.
Script 1.
‘’We find ourselves inside of a store. We see that it’s raining outside and it’s cloudy. In the store we see a cheerful saleswoman, the store interior looks beautiful and the mood is the complete opposite of the weather outside. Suddenly, a young woman comes through the door. She is soaking wet. She is wearing a beige trench coat, soaked from the rain. She has ugly, worn out shoes on. The young woman becomes even more self-conscious when she notices how lovely the store looks. The saleswoman looks up and is a bit confused for a brief moment but immediately fixes her demeanour and smiles widely. She approaches the young woman and takes her by the hand. Suddenly the spotlight turns on and the saleswoman starts dancing with the girl in front of and behind the shelves. She shows her shoes. It seems like a musical from the fifties. The saleswoman playfully gestures to the girl to sit down, throws her shoes away and puts on beautiful new ones. The camera is focused on the shoes and as it moves away we see that the soaked girl is now dry, made up and nicely dressed. The saleswoman guides her to the door and opens it. Outside the sun is shining. The girls walk out with a spring in her step, turns around and waves.’’ – duration 30 sec
FINAL
Script 2.
‘’The camera is focused on a beautiful woman holding a pair of shoes in her hand. She utters the words: Shoes for every lady.’’ – duration of 10 sec
FINAL
In both cases, we have a shoe commercial but it’s obvious that the price is nowhere near the same.
Going by the first script, the client needs to be prepared for a number of expenses. Some of them are casting services, actors, renting a location, artificial rain, a lot of lighting, costumes, stage equipment, a professional camera and the crew, etc. Roughly speaking and without getting into detail, creating an ad based on this script wouldn’t be possible for a price less than 150.000,00 kn (approximately 21.000,00 €).
The second script is much more transparent. You can determine the price pretty much straight away – the casting, the actress, the cameraman and camera (in this case it can even be a semiprofessional camera that doesn’t require a big crew, some lighting, studio rental and editing. Filming this commercial could cost somewhere between 10-15.000,00 kn (approximately 1.500 – 2.000.00 €).
There is a huge difference in price between these two scripts and in both cases, we created a commercial.
Undoubtedly, the price guarantees better ad quality and placement among the ultimate consumers, but if your budget doesn’t allow you to film an expensive commercial, it is better to film some kind of advertisement rather than remain invisible.
We hope we have clarified the process of forming a price in production. For all other inquiries, we remain at your disposal and hope you’ll contact us without any hesitation.