09 Dec 22
So, you know the impact medical videos have on audience engagement in MedTech, and you’re keen to include them in your campaigns. The next question is: How much does medical video production cost? Creating video content is similar to buying a holiday or a car.
With so many options available, the price can vary drastically, depending on what’s included in the production.
The average price of a video series from Podymos is between £10,000 to £40,000+, depending on scope. In this article, we talk about what ‘scope’ means and what factors influence the cost. Note: All costs in this article are in British Pounds (GBP) £1 = USD1.18652. You can use a currency converter for reference while reading.
When we talk about ‘scope’ in videography, we’re referring to several factors, such as:
These are only some of the questions we’ll ask at Podymos to gain a good understanding of your project before we can provide a cost. We’ve outlined what is included in each below.
Filming a patient testimonial, equipment demonstration or surgical procedure can be done in many ways, so it’s important to think about the shots you would like to capture. This dictates the number of cameras needed – which is normally between 1-4.
Here’s a list of camera configurations that may be used.
| Camera Setup | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 camera | If only 1 angle needs to be captured at a time (e.g., for social media), this will be a good setup, however, longer footage can look flat as it’s difficult to make too many edits on one piece of video. |
| 2 cameras | 2 cameras provide ample coverage for most equipment demonstrations and interviews/patient testimonials. Often this includes one static camera and another on a robotic track to be used as B-roll. This gives much greater scope for editing. |
| 3 cameras + | When we use 3 cameras, it’s often to supplement a 2-camera system. This could be because you need extreme close-ups with a macro lens, or because you need more mobile shots for B-roll, which cannot be completed with larger cameras. |
There are usually two grades of lighting, normal and enhanced. When shooting smaller spaces (e.g. a talking head in a small office), normal lighting is often appropriate.
When filming in larger spaces, or close to windows, it’s necessary to use enhanced lighting to balance the lighting in the scene or light up the larger space. Here‘s an example of enhanced lighting.
Costs for lighting is typically between £200 and £450 per day..
B-Roll is any additional footage used to add context to your video.
For example, if you’re filming a testimonial and the patient expresses how they can now ride their horse again following treatment, adding a video clip of them with their horse would add significant emotional weight and contextual value to the video.
All B-roll to be captured needs to be planned before filming starts, as it can take up to 1.5 hours to set the cameras and lighting up in a new location, which realistically adds at least half a day to your shoot.
You’ll need to account for this in your timelines.
It’s critical that the time needed to set up each scene is planned upfront. It can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 1hr 30 mins+ to set up the cameras and lights for a new scene. People are always surprised by this until they see what’s involved.
Normally you can do a maximum of 3 set-ups in a day, however, it’s dependent on the amount of footage to be captured..
If there is too much footage to capture it’s often better to move the filming across another day, as rushing can lead to scenes being missed out, causing significant issues in the editing suite and potential refilming days.
To accurately estimate the number of days needed for filming and editing, a good understanding of your project is needed.
Filming typically takes longer than you might anticipate due to retakes needed as a result of nervous speakers or products misbehaving.
Here are some rough guidelines on timings:
At Podymos, a day of filming with full post-production ranges from £8,000 – £16,300..
This includes cameras, lenses, lighting and the full project team.
If your video requires a voiceover and subtitles, there are several things to consider.
Firstly, you’ll need to create a script before filming to ensure you know how much footage you need to capture for each scene. Spending a full day filming only to find out you haven’t got enough footage to cover the script is incredibly frustrating.
Secondly, who would you like to speak in your voiceover? Each voiceover artist will have different rates and buy-out fees (allowing you to use their voiceover in the future on either specified platforms or freely across all platforms).
The rough cost of a voiceover artist with their buyout fee (normally 100% of studio fee) and production is from £2,250 upwards..
If the filming location is more than 2 hours away from London, the team will most likely have to travel the day before and stay nearby for the project duration.
This needs to be considered in the budget as it will cause the overall cost to rise.
Do you need an actress or model in your video?
If you’re doing an equipment demonstration, you’ll need either a member of your team to be a model, so they can point to everything as needed, or you can hire a model who will do this for you. This is often a good option as they’re trained to make products look good and are used to the pressure of being filmed so won’t need as many takes. In this respect, they’re worth the cost.
Music has many functions in video. It adds emotional depth and improves the flow of the video to keep the audience engaged. You can have music created for your video but often you can use pre-recorded tracks from an audio platform and mix it to match the length of your video.
Purchase of the music track and production costs will add between £500 and £750 to the cost of your project..
One of the final things you need to think about is the number of outputs (alternative versions of the footage filmed) you would like from your filming session.
For instance, a 2-hour interview can be cut down into short clips for each question, a summary video and finally social media snippets in different sizes. All of these outputs will affect the editing time so need to be considered upfront.
Your agency or freelancer should be able to tell you the number of outputs needed based on your intentions for the video, but you can easily look up specs on sites such as SproutSocial.
Let’s talk about what a project manager will do for you if you chose to work with one.
Firstly, they will manage your video from start to finish, creating a storyboard and script, and mapping out your filming day. They will manage the filming crew and the equipment needed for the shoot as well as all aspects of post-production.
If you’d prefer to handle project management in-house, costs will probably be reduced by 20-30%, so if budget is a big concern this may be a good option.
At Podymos, we can support every aspect of your video project to save you time for other areas of your business.
We’re a full-service marketing agency that is dedicated to Medical Devices. We ensure your videos are on brand and compliant in compliance with local country regulations, as well as entirely not to mention relevant to your audience.
To find out how we can support your videography project, get in contact.
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