What does A Video Cost?

Every once in a while, we'll get a call or a lead, we'll come in over our website. And the first question that folks will ask us, how much does it cost to make a video? I think most of us in the creative industry have heard this question. And so I want to talk about it a little bit and talk about why that question is a difficult question to answer and why it's not the right question to ask when you're looking for a storytelling partner. If you're asking how much video costs and your production company is able to tell you a pretty close price,(...) then you're never going to get what you paid for and you're not gonna get what you need. The real question should come from us saying, well, what are you trying to accomplish? Because a video is not just a deliverable. Video storytelling is a solution to a problem. So if I don't know what your problem is, there's no way for me to tell you what a video is going to cost because I don't know what kind of video you need. The range of cost for videos is astronomical. I mean, you could technically go make a video for free with your iPhone or you could spend a million dollars on a video. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, it really, that's going to dictate what you need and not the length of the video, not where the video is going. A website video is not always gonna cost the same as another website video or one brand story is gonna cost the same as another brand story or a brand anthem or a manifesto or customer testimonials and on and on and on and on. There isn't a way to make a one-to-one comparison of cost based just on what we're labeling the video. If you want to really utilize video storytelling to help you solve a problem, find a storytelling partner that you trust and they will help you arrive at a budget and scope of work that fits your capabilities and fits your needs. If you get a direct answer to how much a video is gonna cost without any other information, you might as well save your money. Don't spend it at all. You're gonna spend money on a video that is not going to be aimed at trying to solve your problem.

Why Your Brand Video Needs a Villain

I think of Lotso from Toy Story 3, Darth Vader from Star Wars, or Hans Gruber from Die Hard, maybe dating myself by these movie references. But the point is, those are great villains. They're excellent villains. And I think that we're all very well aware that a great villain makes for a great story. But it's something that we sort of forget or kind of get turned upside down when we start telling our brand story. And I think it's because sometimes we have ourselves in the wrong role in the story. If we're thinking about ourselves as the hero, then we're sort of looking at the people around us that are causing conflict, like our competitors, or maybe some issue in the marketplace that's a frustrating thing. And we're calling that the villain. And we're trying to make sense of the story we're telling for the customer, but we are using our villain instead of their villain, and it gets kind of complicated.

I think other organizations are just afraid to point at the villain. They sort of are afraid to point out the problem. They just want to offer solutions. They want to talk about solutions, but they don't want to set up why the solution is necessary in the first place. And so we get these kind of villainless stories, which aren't actually really stories at all. And so one of the things that we want to do with our clients is really help them understand who the villain is and the story that they're trying to tell. That oftentimes isn't like a group or an individual person, although it would be great if you could identify or personify your villain. It really oftentimes is an idea.

And so we need to think about our audience as the heroes, and then what is the problem that they're really facing? What's the villain in their story or who's the villain in their story? Oftentimes it's some like broader cultural issue or it's some issue that we have with just like our modern lives that ultimately becomes the villain in the story for our audience. Without the villain, you don't really have any stakes either. And I'll talk about stakes at another time, but I think it's really important for us to kind of make sure that we've got ourselves properly positioned in the story so that we can really identify the true villain in the story and make sure that villain is a villain that's compelling because if it's sort of benign, it's not gonna be a great villain. And therefore the story is gonna feel really muted and kind of just bland.

Why Your Brand Video Needs Stakes

I think one of the things that many people forget to inject into their brand storytelling are proper stakes. Something that's at risk for their audience, for the hero in their story. Because I think, and I honestly think a lot of times it's because we are afraid of being melodramatic. We don't want to say anything too big. We don't want to overstate like the solution that we're offering folks. But the fact of the matter is if there aren't any stakes then nobody cares. It's like well if I don't use your thing or I don't partner with you then what's going to happen? I just live my life and nothing's wrong. I'm totally fine. But if you can really establish real stakes, and sometimes the stakes are things you have to like really educate people on. They are not aware that there's going to be a problem. If you can establish really great stakes then suddenly your story has the tension that it needs to really motivate people and it drives people to act. This isn't, let me be clear, isn't fear-mongering. We don't want to like make people afraid for no reason. But we should be pointing out what happens when they are overcome by the villain in the story. What happens when your hero doesn't succeed? What is the state they're left in? These are very traditional storytelling ideas. This kind of hero's journey. And if they're not fighting against anything then it sort of becomes difficult to really establish tension and interest in the story overall.