Freelance videographer, small studio or production company?
Three very different things get called 'video production' in New Zealand, at three very different prices, and the people selling them rarely explain the difference.
Below is what each one is, including the jobs where you should not hire me.
The three tiers
Bar length relative to $80,000 · finished project in NZD, not day rates · freelance crew day rates sit roughly $800–$2,500
What freelance covers
'Freelance' describes who is accountable for the job. It says nothing about how big the day can be.
If a job needs an actor, a motion graphics piece, a set dressed properly or a second and third camera for a few hours, that gets built into the quote and brought in for the day. What stays the same is who is running it: one point of contact from the first email to the final file.
A small studio carries that overhead on every job, whether the job needs it or not. Here it only shows up on the quote when the job calls for it.
How to work out which one you need
Four questions, and you will know.
If you know what you want made, you need someone to make it. If you need someone to work out what to make, you are paying for creative direction and that lives in the upper tiers.
One room, one camera, one thing at a time is freelance work. Three stages and a breakout programme needs a crew and someone coordinating it.
Your own staff and customers, freelance. Hired actors, a script and a location permit, studio or production company.
If a failed shoot costs you a rescheduled afternoon, a solo operator is fine. If it costs you a campaign launch date, pay for redundancy.
What each tier is charging you for
Everyone at every tier shoots on broadly similar gear, so camera quality explains very little of the gap between $2,500 and $25,000.
What you are paying for as you go up:
A crew covers more angles and more simultaneous action.
A producer chasing schedules, permits, talent and approvals so you do not have to.
Multiple concepts pitched, a dedicated writer or storyboard artist, several rounds before anyone commits to an idea. Talking through a single concept together already happens on a smaller job. What changes at the higher tiers is the size of the team doing that thinking and how long it takes.
Backup crew, backup gear, backup plan.
The more moving parts, the more you are paying for someone to have seen it go wrong before.
If your job has none of those needs, the extra spend buys you nothing you will see on screen.
Where I sit
Freelance, working mostly on events, corporate video, brand films and social content around Auckland. I shoot and edit myself, and bring in actors, graphics, a set or extra crew when a job calls for it.
Hire me when you want one person accountable for the whole thing, from a single operator with a camera through to a small crew built around what the day needs.
It stops making sense for a campaign running across several markets at once, or a job needing full-time account management over weeks. Broadcast-scale work with a full agency sign-off chain is a different kind of business, and pricing it under my rate would mean cutting corners somewhere you would not see until it mattered.
If your budget is under about $600, a student building a portfolio is probably the better fit, and there is no shame in that.
I would rather tell you that now than take a job I am the wrong fit for.
The tier nobody explains well
There is a gap between 'cheap and inexperienced' and 'agency and expensive' that most buyers do not know exists.
The $800 to $4,000 job, done properly by someone with experience, is a category of its own. Nobody advertises it, because the agencies price themselves out of it and the cheap end does not know how to describe itself.
What to ask, whoever you go with
Plenty of quotes cover an operator and then send the footage to someone who was not in the room.
'A highlights video' is not a spec. Two minutes plus three vertical cuts is.
Overtime should be a rate written on the quote.
The New Zealand default surprises most people, and it decides whether you can reuse the material next year. Short version here.
Most venues and corporate sites want a certificate before anyone is allowed on the floor.
Ask me any of those, including whether something on my quote is more than you need.