Our company has decided to produce a video this fall. I've been shooting video for a couple years with a Sony TRV10 but will be buying a Canon XL1S to improve our setup.

I guess the first thing we need to know is if this is a good idea? Can our video be produced by someone for release on VHS/CD-ROM or DVD? Can our video also be edited for a TV show?

Our company films wildlife and the outdoors mostly and there will be interviews with people.

Any ballpark numbers on what it would cost to have someone post edit our video for a VHS tape?

Sorry if this sounds goofy but we've never produced anything before.

Not enough details to provide even an accurate ballpark figure. Editing can be done on a project basis or by the hour of actual editing. Costs could range from several hundred dollars to $30,000, depending on production values.

Let me suggest you contact a couple of production companies and see what they would charge you for taping and editing. Depending on the quality you want, the cost to correct amateur video (I'm not trying to make you mad here, just advising you of the problem) could easily exceed the cost of having the entire piece produced professionaly.

As a rough estimate, you could always use $1000/finished minute. That ballpark figure has served me well over the years. If a client knows this going in, they won't be surprised with the bill, and they might even be happy if it comes in significantly lower than that.

I too used to estimate approx. $1000 per minute of final product, and that does not included special set decoration or costumes if required by the script, or helicopter shooting...

The estimates could vary widely, depending on whether you give them a box full of tapes with a request to create a program; or if you provide the same box of tapes with a detailed edit decision list.

Other factors: logging tapes, offline edit, online edit, graphics, sound editing, audio mixing, color grading, voiceovers, music, creative services. Each minute of video could take anywhere from 2 hours to several hours to edit depending on what kind of work is requested. And hourly fees can vary from $30/hour to well over $100/hour.

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions

Thanks for the replies. Time to make some phone calls.