At Violet Productions we are often approached by clients wanting to make the most of a small budget. We love working with smaller companies and are happy to talk to anyone about how to make their budget work for video needs. There is a lot that clients can do themselves to keep costs down and here are three money saving tips to consider when planning your video. LOCATION Choose a location to shoot your video that you don’t have to pay for! You don’t have to go to a studio or book a swanky location for interviews. Your office, home or factory can all work just fine, send us some pictures so we can plan how to make it look great. Our high end Sony FS7 cameras are great at blurring backgrounds and creating a filmic look. We also shoot at weekends at no extra cost if that helps. If possible choose a location that is quiet so that we don’t have to stop filming every 30 seconds, especially if we have a lot to get done in a day. If there is construction happening or you are near a fire station, under a flight path or next to a busy road or a school, then try and find another location as filming can take a lot longer if we have to keep stopping for noise issues. SOUND This is an area easily overlooked when planning who to use to shoot your video. There is simply no point in making a video if you cannot clearly hear what is being said. Look at what is included in your quote as many cheaper videographers don’t use professional broadcast quality microphones and whilst you can shoot good visuals on cheaper cameras or even on your smartphone, the sound quality is just not suitable for a professional video. Our cameramen are all experts in sound as well as visuals and are happy to offer advice if you want to film a simple interview, a round table discussion or have a full scale conference or event that needs to be covered. NUMBER OF SET UPS We help clients structure a shoot so that we get the most we can out of every single shoot day. We work very quickly and are experts at knowing how long things will take especially when shooting with contributors who are not TV professionals and need a little more time to get things right. We set up fast but when planning your content be aware that changes in locations can add on extra time. It usually takes about 20 minutes to pack up our equipment and about 30-40 minutes to set up and light again so try and think about using fewer locations to help yourself be cost effective and pack more into your shooting day. Get the most out of your video budget with Violet Productions