Hi Jeff,

You're on the right track in that you need to take into account overhead and payroll, along with all the associated costs that go along with both. There just isn't a way to quantify profit without knowing all the details - its not just the cost of the product that leads to success and longevity.

As fun as it would be to go through other studio's books, unless the information is offered it's impossible to even estimate.

Like mentioned above, we don't know the overhead costs, but we also don't know what customers are paying. Most of the EventDV 25 list their prices as "Starting at $X" and that doesn't tell us anything. Just because pricing starts at X, it doesn't mean people aren't paying more.

Joel & Matt:

I don't mean to pry into any of these companies finances, I just want to learn more about what it takes to move a video business to a sustainable higher level in terms of the number of employees/partners and revenues.

If we had some numbers to look at, we might be able to establish some general information. I am a one man show, so I am curious about expanding or merging with another company and what it takes to make it work.

If any of the EDV 25 have any words of wisdom or lessons learned, I would like to hear their advice.

Jeff, I agree with you about the one man show, you just can't make the high end video with one shooter and a second camera operator, you can't take a chance to do creative shots when you are the only shooter, I will love to work with other videographers on a shoot and be creative and not worrying about the whole event on my shoulders.

Not to go off the subject, today on TV I saw two shows talking about how brides can save money for their wedding and not once video was mentioned, they talked about the dress,food,guests,photography..... video is not in the picture.

Michael, that is because video is probably not in the vendors list in the first place ;-)

You don't need to have a big crew to come up with a 'high end video'. Crew of two is more than enough for a more complete and cinematic production.

I used to be an one-man show for a few years. Last year, I've added a trustworthy 2nd shooter and multiple camera shooting technique into the mix and immediately saw a drastic change in the production value. Only time I felt that it would be nice have a 3rd person was for the times we did SDEs. Even for SDEs, if you have a tapeless workflow and both your crew members are fast editors, I think it will be manageable with the crew of two.

Hi Michael,

I don't think that is exactly what Jeff meant - that you can't make high end video by yourself. I've always shot alone and always plan on doing so. I may not charge 'bragging' prices but don't have to, and I consider my work to be high-end. Because I have no overhead (I work out of my home) and pay no one else to shoot I can keep my costs down. That helps when trying to stay busy in a down economy. Other companies that have employees or partners haven't been taking home a paycheck or are thinking of getting outside jobs to keep the company solvent. And lines of credit have dried up because the banks have raised their standards for lending. The result is that there's no money available to weather the lean times. I guess what I'm saying is that it is definitely possible to make a living doing this very well and doing it alone.

I consider my work "high end" and I basically am a one-man show with a semi-competent 2nd shooter. I would love to have a 2nd shooter that was really good, but I haven't had any luck with that yet. So I give them really basic and clear tasks and just assume that they still won't get it right all the time. It can be done, but a good 2nd shooter would be invaluable.

Last year did about half of the weddings by myself one camera, few times bringing the stedicam in the car, wearing it during a walk in the part session,

actually I prefer one camera in really tight timing wedding scenarios, the more camera people, the harder to create and maintain intimate contact, be with the couple close enough, be less visible, shoot a documentary style.

multicamera shooting is great imo, when created visual content relies on "external imagery" (which can be great), and not documentary look and feel with possible narrative structure (which I lean towards lately)

One thing I have to tell I is really hard to go 12 hours by yourself all day long, I'd prefer to have an assistant from the reception, banket time, around 5, 6 pm. Also last couple of weddings my assistant was very helpful with lights erlier on during preparation.
Off course not easy to maintain high level of alertness, creativity, physicality for 12 14 hours straight.

Sorry about the post, I am not in 25 list, but hope this info helps,
also, some of the videographers that on the list have their prices posted, off course it's harder to find the amount of wedding
done, unless you are IRS :))
CHeers!

I think it would be a tough job to achieve creative shot by one camera. With one cam, you have to make sure you covered the main event. There was not much free time for you to did a creative shot.

Our studio have 2 videographers. I am the 2nd Cam operator and my job is cover the event when Aaron, the main videographer did his creative shot or steadicam shot. My main job is edit the wedding video. So one of us focus on camera operation, framing and equipment and the other one focus on editing, color grading and music. I think that's how we can achieve a cinematic highlight with documentary coverage.

I really admire those one man band videographer who can produced a creative, cinematic wedding highlight without damaging their coverage of the story. I think only the smart and brave one who know the event and their camera can do it!

sorry (the video is temporarily unavailable)
 

side track a little bit. i just check josh green videos but error message (above) appear and have check with OLEG but no videos on VIMEO.... anybody

off topic,
Ricci, I have no videos on Vimeo, here in Russia, Vimeo stutters all the time, sometimes it takes a very long time to load a video completely, exposureroom and lately smugmug are my depository choices. (this for people who don't have too much time to load video, for quality, but please make your own conclusion on that)

thanks.
 

OLEG i have just checked your wedding videos on exposure room... love the videos...good luck to you....

Let me just clarify when I mentioned " high-end", it isnt the end product; what I mean is the AB Market who has the means to pay.

You have to include
 

From what I've seen through the years you have to include "Joel Peregrine" to that list. His work and his instructional DVD are "Top of the line".

Was Dave Perry ever on the list? I ask as he was THE one who changed the way we looked at wedding videos, long before we discovered StillMotion and Shadowplay. It was because of Dave we went for a Glidecam and never looked back (just forwards and at a shiny new Steadicam)