Editing:

Our editing system is a high-quality digital Final Cut Pro system with over 30 TB (Terabytes) of active storage and off-site backup storage facilities. The editing suite is located in Amherst, MA, off of Route 9 between Amherst and Belchertown. We are close to the famous Emily Dickinson Homestead and when the project needs arrises we frequently mine the talent pool of both students and professors at UMass, Amherst College, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke College.

Production Costs

Clients often wonder what contributes to the bottom line. Producing a video is a labor-intensive business: roughly 2/3rds of the cost is labor; 1/3 equipment and supplies. Asking how much a video costs is a bit like asking how much a car costs: the answer depends upon what kind of car you have in mind--a Corolla or a Mercedes? Rules of thumb don't help much except to give you an idea of range! In exceptional cases, for a few non-profit clients, we have produced programs for under $1000 per finished screen minute. An expensive program might run as high as $4,000 per screen minute. Production costs depend on the length and complexity of the production, the number of shooting locations, the production values and formats, the number and elegance of the graphics that need to be created, and so forth. Short programs usually cost more per minute than long programs. See a list of our clients.

Creating a video is traditionally described and budgeted as a 3-step process:

(1) Pre-production: Pre-production is what happens before the shooting starts. The producer works with you to develop a creative concept, then writes an initial treatment, which is a several pages-long description of the project, containing enough details of images, places, and content to give you a sense of the scope and style of the proposed production. When you agree on what is to be done, the producer schedules the shooting, coordinating staff and equipment with "talent."

(3) Production: this is the "shooting " phase of the project.

(3) Post production: this is the editing phase of the project.

See more about our approach.