What to look for when hiring a production company?
7 Things To Look For Before Hiring A Video Production Company In Tasmania.
By: Benjamin Freudenmann on 24th September 2022
1. What is a production company?
Production companies differ from company to company in the scope of work they can help your business accomplish. For example, some production companies help bring your creative vision to life by shooting and editing videos. Others guide you through the entire creative process, from coming up with an idea, to writing and shooting it, and finally delivering a shiny new video. There are also the ones in the middle that bring your vision and idea to life by helping with the creative process while still working with you.
Many businesses use production companies to create all sorts of videos, from customer testimonials to product videos, Commercials and marketing ads, video series, and more. At UPLIFT Studios, we’ve partnered with several companies over the years for projects like these; this can make sense particularly if your business doesn’t have an internal production or creative team. Partnering in this way can help you get the best production value for single projects or even on a continuous roll if you don’t plan or want a video + photo team part of the business.
Production companies are also useful if your creative team wants to do a project that’s beyond the scope of what you normally create in-house. For example, if you are looking at shooting a lifestyle high-end commercial with 6+ locations and 10+ talent, etc… for a gin distillery this is the time to search for a production company that specialises in lifestyle commercials. If you are based in Tasmania, Melbourne or Sunshine Coast definitely reach out to us at UPLIFT Studios as we specialise and focus on lifestyle ads. Reach out and make sure we are the right fit for you! A large aspect of our brand is to ensure the client knows what they can expect, which is one of the reasons I’m writing this blog.
2. Hiring a production company vs a videographer
This is a great question! When starting the process of finding whom you should hire for a specific job you should understand what the difference is between and production company and a videographer.
A video production company may be expected to provide a more impressive suite of deliverables during the pre-production, production and post-production processes while less is often expected of a videographer. This also often means that the production company is having staff or hiring specialists for the project to ensure every stage is done correctly. Meanwhile, the term videographer often means a single person. This person may be able to do a lot of the work himself…. but you need to be aware that one person isn’t a specialist in every role in a project.
Let’s start with the term production in the term video production company. What is it?
Production will involve various activities across pre-production (including helping with script writing, storyboarding, creative, and location scouting) production activities required on the day of filming including camera operation, lighting, sound or audio production etc) and post-production (editing, colour grading, VFX, subtitling and motion graphics etc).
A video production company will provide most of the above key aspects of video production in-house (under their own roof) and should be able to handle a wider variety of tasks. They will have individual people for certain roles and they will be able to deliver a higher end result.
Even though a very capable videographer could be connected enough and organised enough to quote and manage all of these production tasks on their own, it is the regularity of performing these tasks that is a defining distinction between a videographer and a video production company.
With these major differences, the other factor that must be considered is the cost. As a production company is hiring specialists for all the roles and doing more work in the pre-production, production and post-production stages the $$$ is definitely more than a single videographer.
3. Does cost equal quality? picking the right company based on your budget
Do you have a budget of $100,000+ for one 30-second edit of a dog food company? In that case, you will probably be looking into working with a high-end agency that has 20+ employees and has a full production company shooting with Arri Alexa cameras with a crew of 20 people. Hands down you will be happy with the final delivery but you need to decide if this is what is best for your company. On the other side, if you have a budget of $2,000 and need three videos 15sec, 30sec and a 2-3 minute edit your probably going to look at hiring a freelance videographer… Now there is nothing wrong with this but you need to know the difference and can’t expect the videographer to be able to deliver the same result.
Obviously looking at these two examples you will never expect the result to be the same… You simply can’t expect that the quality and production of these two will be anything similar. And if you have the money/budget to pay for a large production company and you need that level of production value. GO for it! You will not be disappointed and you will receive an amazing result!
Now, what if your budget ranges from $7,000 to $35,000 per campaign but you also expect 5 edits all different and you will want to get the best value for money out of the hire. This is where the middle production company stands out like ourselves Uplift Studios, we work with companies that have a range of $5,000 to $35,000 per campaign. Delivering the most about of value while still staying in the budget of a lot of clients. Middle production companies are trying to look like the $100,000+ companies while still being able to charge half of that. Giving you the best value for money result.
4. What to write in my video brief for a accurate quote
Take that same dog food commercial as above and let’s write a good example brief from a client. These are the briefs we received that ensure we already know what to expect when calling you or sending over a direct quote.
Hey Uplift Studios team,
I own Lyka Pet food based in Tasmania and I’m looking at shooting a lifestyle campaign for our new dog food flavour. I would love to get a quote on this project.
We are after:
– 2x 30-second commercial
– 3x 15-second social media ads (can be reels or posts)
I- Subject to adding a few extras in the future.
Work involves:
– Working with the creative/marketing team to finalise the idea and storyline.
– Create shot-list / storyboards
– Working with our team to come up with the script. This would just be a voice-over on the commercial talking about the food.
– Filming 4-5 groups of people using the dog food and having a happy day with their puppy/dog. I would want different homes, parks, beaches and talents for each location. We would love to hear your thoughts on ideas based around people’s better life with this new pet food.
– I would love to have a few motion graphics in the video to add something different.
Look forward to hearing your quote and ideas for this project!
Kind regards,
Client
This would be a great starting point for a brief. If you the client didn’t write down a budget anywhere the production company may ether email asking to give a call to talk more about the project and find out more about the budget or just send an email stating that from what you said the cost would be between x amount and x amount… Then ask if that ‘suit your budget’. This gives the client the opportunity to not waste their time if the budget is out of their scope. On the other hand, if you write we have a budget of $25,000 the production company may be able to directly send you a written quote or send you a treatment with an idea already for the brief. Most of the time the production company want to hear the budget before sending over the idea as some ideas wouldn’t be possible with some budgets.
5. are you ready to hire a production company?
Now, this is a difficult question that greatly depends on your marketing budget and if a video would benefit your brand. This should be discussed with your marketing team or your marketing agency to see how a video would be implemented in your company and what this video would be able to achieve. Although in my honest opinion with the world moving over to video from Instagram, tic tok, youtube and videos being needed on websites hiring a production company is basically a must. The only thing that should hold you back is knowing what to shoot and what you need to advertise.
6. when is the best time to shoot your ad
Now!! Why wait until you need that commercial or ad next week and you can’t find a single production company to work on short notice. Having time is great so why not hire a production company now even if he spends 3-4 weeks in the pre-production phase?
Obviously, certain months in the year have better weather which does play a massive part in selecting dates to film. In Tasmania, we have found that summer, from November to March, is when it’s the warmest and driest. Make sure you plan ahead, help your video production company and don’t send them an email in March asking to shoot a commercial and expect only the best weather with people wearing simmers… For example, if you are shooting a summer ad you could film it the year before.
7. Should I hire a production company from the mainland or one based in Tasmania
We may be a bit biased here as we are based in Tasmania but there are definitely times when hiring a production company from Melbourne or Australia-wide would suit you better! Here are some pros and cons of hiring from the mainland:
Pros:
- More higher-end production companies to pick from
- larger range to select from.
- Needing to film on the mainland, therefore, saving costs of flying production companies from here up.
Cons:
- Higher costs due to travel expenses, and accommodation.
- harder to reschedule if the weather doesn’t suit….
- unable to meet in person for jobs
- limited with travel restriction
- not promoting and funding the Tasmania economy.