"Corporate video" covers about six different jobs that have almost nothing in common, which is why quotes for it vary so wildly and why so many companies end up buying the wrong one.
Here's the plain version.
The four things companies actually buy
1. The brand film
60-120 seconds. What you do, who you are, why anyone should care. Lives on your homepage, plays behind you at exhibitions, runs as paid social.
Usually a mix of interview audio and footage of the work happening. The commonest failure is trying to say everything - a brand film that covers five propositions communicates none of them. Pick one.
Typically one shoot day, plus edit.
2. Talking heads and interviews
Founders, staff, clients, to camera. The workhorse of corporate content because one well-run interview day produces months of material.
Two things decide whether these work, and neither is the camera. Audio - a lapel mic, a treated room, no air conditioning humming underneath. And questions, prepared in advance and asked in a way that gets people talking rather than reciting. Most bad talking heads are bad because someone was handed a script and asked to perform it.
Half or full day. Several finished pieces from one session.
3. Event and conference coverage
Conferences, launches, awards, internal events. Two deliverables: a highlight film for next year's marketing, and captured sessions if the content has a life beyond the room.
Multi-camera for anything on a stage. One camera on a panel discussion means you're cutting between people you didn't film.
Priced by day, plus edit.
4. Social content
Vertical, short, cut for a feed. Increasingly the first thing companies ask for and the last thing they plan for.
The efficient approach is to shoot it alongside everything else rather than commissioning it separately. If you're doing an interview day, you're already in the room with the right people - capturing vertical at the same time costs very little and gives you weeks of posts.
What drives the cost
Same three things as any film work:
Days on location. A single-location half day and a three-site shoot across London are different animals, mostly because of travel.
Crew size. One operator covers an interview well. A multi-camera conference stage needs more people, and that's not optional if you want usable footage.
The edit. Always the largest hidden cost. One brand film plus eight social cuts from the same footage is not one deliverable, it's nine, and each needs its own pass.
Anything with motion graphics, animated titles, licensed music or subtitling sits on top.
Where corporate video usually goes wrong
No brief. The shoot happens, everyone's pleased, and then nobody can agree what the film is supposed to make a viewer do. Decide that first - it determines every choice afterwards.
Too long. A three-minute brand film has roughly a third of the audience of a ninety-second one. Length is not thoroughness.
Filmed for the boardroom, not the viewer. Internal approval processes reward saying more. Audiences reward saying less. These pull in opposite directions and the audience should win.
No plan for using it. A brand film that lives on a homepage and nowhere else is a fraction of its own value. Before shooting, list where it's going: site, LinkedIn, paid, sales decks, recruitment, reception screen. That list shapes what gets shot and in what aspect ratio.
Working with one person
Most corporate video is quoted by agencies and delivered by freelancers. There's nothing wrong with that at scale - a multi-camera conference needs a team.
For most of what companies actually need, though, one experienced person who shoots and edits is faster, cheaper, and easier to deal with. There's one conversation instead of four, the person who heard your brief is the person cutting the film, and nothing gets lost in translation between the shoot and the edit.
That's how I work. Twenty years, Film Studies background, editor by instinct - I shoot and cut everything myself.
Also worth knowing
I offer Final Cut Pro training as well, which some in-house teams find more useful than another commissioned film. If you're producing a lot of social content, getting someone internal up to speed is often the better spend.
Tell me what you're trying to achieve and roughly when, and I'll come back with a plan and a quote built around it.