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.