Video Production FAQ.

It depends on the type of video, but most of our work runs between $2,500 and $25,000 or more. Studio-based pieces like interviews and testimonials start around $2,500 and can climb toward $10,000. Brand films, the documentary-style stories we're known for, usually start closer to $8,000 and easily reach $25,000 or more. We sit between the freelancer charging a thousand bucks and the six-figure Super Bowl spot. The better question is what the right video is worth to you: if your ideal client sees it and hires you, what's that worth? Tell us a budget range and we'll point you to the right solution, even if that's another studio that fits your number better.

See the full breakdown of what drives video cost →

Six things, roughly in order of impact: how many days of filming, how many locations, crew size, how much of the edit is custom (animation, motion graphics, original music), how many deliverables you need from the same footage, and how fast you need it.

Notably absent from that list: video length. A 60-second brand film and a 3-minute brand film shot on the same day cost nearly the same, because the shoot is the expensive part. Asking for a shorter video almost never saves meaningful money.

Because they're often quoting different things. One company is quoting a crew showing up and filming what you tell them to. Another is quoting strategy, story development, direction, and a finished piece designed to accomplish a business outcome.

Both are legitimate. They are not comparable. When you're comparing bids, the questions that actually reveal the difference are: how many shoot days, how many people on set, how many rounds of revision, who owns the footage, and who's responsible for deciding what the video says.

Honestly, it depends entirely on whether you use it. A video that gets made is a cost. A video that gets used is an asset.

The projects that pay for themselves are the ones where somebody decided in advance where the video would live, who would see it, and what it should make them do. The ones that don't are the ones where a video got made because it felt like time for a video.

We built a free calculator that walks you through the math on your side — time saved, deals influenced, customer lifetime value — before you ever talk to us. No email required.

Run the numbers →

Most projects are split into a deposit at signing and a balance at delivery, with larger productions broken into three payments. If you need a different structure, ask — we'd rather find something that works than lose a good project over terms.

It's a two-hour strategy session that happens before any filming, and it produces a complete Storyline Blueprint — the document that says what the video is, who it's for, what it needs to make them feel, and what it needs to make them do.

It's $2,500, and it's credited toward your production if you move forward.

No. The Storyline Workshop is optional. If your concept is locked and your team is aligned, we can go straight to filming. But if there's any fuzziness about which video to make or what it should say, the workshop is the highest-leverage place to start.

It's tied to our Storyline Workshop. We run a two-hour, $2,500 workshop with your stakeholders before any filming, dig into the purpose of the video, and walk you through our storytelling process. If you finish and feel it was a waste of time, we refund the $2,500. It's a low-risk way to find out if we're the right fit before you commit to a full production.

We get your decision-makers in one room and ask uncomfortable questions. Why now? If this works, what does it actually change for you? If it works for your customer, what changes for them?

Most of the value isn't the answers. It's that your stakeholders hear each other's answers, often for the first time, and discover they'd been assuming three different things. Getting that resolved before a camera shows up is the single highest-leverage two hours in the whole project.

Most projects run 4 to 8 weeks from the kickoff call to final delivery, depending on scope. We can usually start production within a week or two of a signed contract, and we've pulled off same-week and even same-day edits when the moment called for it. The most common delay is feedback piling up on the client side, so we set clear deadlines for both teams to keep things moving.

Five stages: a conversation about what you're trying to accomplish, a Storyline Workshop or planning session, filming, editing with your feedback built in, and delivery in every format you need.

You're involved at the beginning and during revisions. You're deliberately not involved in the middle, because the part where we disappear and edit is the part you're paying for.

Anyone who has a say in the final video. That usually means whoever approves the creative and whoever approves the budget, plus the people whose story is being told. Getting those voices in the room early is what prevents the endless revision cycles later.

Most projects come with two rounds of revisions. The planning we do up front usually makes that more than enough. If you want more, we're glad to do them, and we'll give you the cost ahead of time so there are no surprises.

That's the most common thing we hear, and it's usually the sign of a good video rather than a problem.

The people who don't want to be on camera are frequently the ones worth filming, because their reluctance comes from caring how they come across. We interview rather than script. You're having a conversation with a person, not performing for a lens. Most people forget the camera's there about eight minutes in.

And the moments people are most self-conscious about — a pause, a voice catching, a stumble on the way to something true — are consistently the moments viewers remember.

Usually not, and usually you're better off without one. For documentary-style work we build an interview guide instead, then edit the real answers into a structure.

Scripts are the right call for explainers, product walkthroughs, and anything with precise technical or legal language. For anything where you want the viewer to believe a human being, a script is what makes it sound like an ad.

Solid colors, nothing with tight patterns or stripes (they strobe on camera), and avoid pure white and logos unless the logo is the point. Bring a backup option in a different color. Dress like the most put-together version of a normal day at your company — if you show up in something you'd never wear, it shows.

Pick the person who lights up when they talk about the work, not the person with the most senior title. Those are occasionally the same person and often aren't.

A VP reading approved messaging and a project manager who genuinely loves what she does will produce very different videos, and the second one is the one people watch to the end.

Yes, and at no extra charge. Every bit of footage that doesn't make the final cut is yours, delivered on a drive or in the cloud. It's some of the most valuable content you'll walk away with, since you can cut it into outtakes and short social clips long after we wrap. Most companies charge for this or don't offer it at all, so it's worth asking anyone you hire.

More than most companies plan for. A single well-organized shoot day can reasonably produce one flagship piece plus a set of shorter cuts for social, a handful of FAQ videos, and B-roll you'll use for a year.

The determining factor is whether you planned for it before the shoot. Repurposing is cheap when it's designed in and expensive when it's an afterthought.

Film horizontal, frame with vertical in mind. If we know the footage needs to work on Instagram and LinkedIn as well as your website, we compose so the subject can be cropped without losing the shot.

Filming natively vertical makes sense when the piece exists only for social and nowhere else.

You do. You get full usage rights to the finished piece and the raw footage. We ask to be able to show the work in our portfolio, and if a project is confidential we'll agree to that in writing before we start.

Every project includes properly licensed music, and the license is in your name for the platforms you'll actually use. If a project calls for original score or a specific commercial track, that's quoted separately — commercial tracks in particular can cost more than the rest of the production.

Start with a call. Tell us what you're working on, and we'll ask some questions and tell you honestly what we'd make in your shoes. No pressure and no pitch deck. If it's a fit, we'll talk about whether a Storyline Workshop makes sense or whether we can head straight into production.

Our studio is in metro Detroit, and we'll film wherever you need us. We've lugged our gear to Spain, St. Barts, Mexico, and Alaska, among other places. When travel doesn't make sense for budget or logistics, we bring in local crew we've vetted and trust.

All kinds. Over 20+ years we've made video for national brands, universities, law firms, manufacturers, nonprofits, associations, and growing businesses, including Disney, the University of Michigan, the American Cancer Society, and Clark Hill. The through-line isn't the industry. It's whether there's a real story worth telling.

Brand storytelling is our specialty, getting to the soul of a brand so people feel what you're about instead of just reading about it. We also create client transformation stories, social media commercials, explainer videos, culture and recruiting videos, online course and masterclass production, and the occasional outtake reel built to make people laugh.

Yes. We rent our cyc production studio for photo and video shoots, and we have a separate upstairs loft built for recording video podcasts. Both are available to agencies, photographers, production companies, and creators.

A testimonial is a customer saying you're good. A customer story is a customer describing what their life or business looked like before, what changed, and what it looks like now — and letting the viewer draw the conclusion.

The second one works dramatically better, for the same reason a movie is more persuasive than a movie review. We call ours Transformation Stories, and the shortcut to getting one is two questions: what was it like before, and what's it like now?

No. There are people who will film your event for a few hundred dollars, and for some jobs that's genuinely the right answer.

What we sell is the decision-making that happens before the camera turns on and the judgment that happens in the edit. If what you need is a camera operator and you already know exactly what you want, hire a good freelancer — you'll be happier and so will we.