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In this episode, video biographer and Family Legacy Video, Inc. president Steve Pender tackles the topic of pricing professional legacy videos.
LET’S PUT THINGS IN CONTEXT
Hour-long documentaries produced for outlets like the National Geographic and Discovery channels have budgets ranging from $125,000 on up. A single segment on 60 Minutes can cost $200,000. Family Legacy Video’s personal video biographies rival those network productions in quality and usually run longer than an hour – sometimes much longer. So even if a legacy video clocks in at $40,000, that’s a pretty good deal compared to what those broadcast and cable productions cost.
Not everybody can afford these prices, of course. But for those who can, it’s a great, great value.
SO WHAT AM I PAYING FOR?
Producers with years of expertise organizing and planning video biography projects. Skilled interviewers and seasoned and creative video editors. Experienced camera operators and lighting directors, audio technicians, and makeup artists devoted to making you look and sound your very best on screen. Family Legacy Video crew members are talented professionals who need to be compensated accordingly.
So people are on thing – gear is another. Professional cameras, lenses, lighting and audio equipment in our experienced hands yields fantastic results – but cost much more than consumer gear to purchase and maintain.
And then there’s travel. While Family Legacy Video is based in Tucson, a large chunk of our productions are shot outside Arizona. I’ve traveled to the east and west coasts, points between, even points beyond, like Hawaii. Travel incurs expenses like airfare, car rental, hotel rooms, meals, etc. It’s only fair to include these costs on top of the production expense – if not, Family Legacy Video could easily lose tons of money on each video. And yet, a lot of prospective clients seem to think this is somehow unfair, or they just want to save money by trying to find someone local to them, or they just don’t like the idea of paying for someone else’s travel expenses, as if our crew is taking a vacation at the client’s expense. Just to be clear, we travel as economically as possible, meaning we squeeze into coach airplane seats, we stay in moderately-priced hotels, and we don’t raid the mini-bars.
Finally, custom legacy videos are time-consuming efforts that can easily run into the hundreds of hours.
WRAPPING UP
It would be great if everyone could afford Family Legacy Video’s service – but the company needs to price productions at a level that compensates it fairly and allows it to stay in business. Whether you can afford to hire Family Legacy Video or you opt to go it yourself as a do-it-yourselfer, the key is not to wait – get started on your video biography now!
