Most of our sound productions for film are pretty big deals...adequate budget-36 traditional tracks...the best players in the area (working on one to bring Rory to Lexington to complete). Finished budget for a Fortune 500 company is north of $1500.00 a minute for a finished simple production (one with no or limited animation, limited "sky" shots, 4 instrument score and limited locations).

Recently, however, for a non-profit I'm involved in, we gave ourselves 3 hours to use a $99.00 software package to do a three plus minute "near broadcast quality" video, including score, extra .30, .60. and .10, scripting, shooting, editing, recording and posting for as close to zero dollars as possible. We started the project 1/2 hour after receiving the editing software.


For the music, we used the large Boss looper...no conventional recording equipment at all. I wrote the script, the music and recorded piano (an NP-30-$299.00 unit-remember we're talking cheap-something fast a non-profit can afford) nylon string and percussion. My son did bass, mixing, final edit and posting.

I'm not going to post a link, because that would be a political statement which may be a little controversial here, but the group is Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, and you can Google the site if you want to check it out. There are 5 videos posted from us, all done the same way, with the same score. The first one is the one accessed out of the left reverse blue column...an interview with the group's founder, Bernie Vonderheide.

Incidentally, we did the site, with the help of our designer and I drew the logo-a drawing of my dear father-in-law just before he passed away.

What this lets us do is "cut through the clutter" on YouTube and give some of the 501(C)'s we support access to a more than acceptable, effective product in a short time for little or nothing.

Incidentally, the video was shot with a Cannon Rebel with HD capability, and the on-camera audio/VO was done on a Zoom-H2, thru an old Mix-Pad 9 mixer.

Total equipment cost, including camera, instruments, editing software, etc was around
$2,500.00 (we even used cheap instruments-an Ovation nylon string and a Mexican Fender bass). In-house video at the bottom of the production value scale previously required the use of an Avid editing suite
( $75-80,000), plus the cost of the conventional recording equipment (varies by project).

I'm proud of our top end stuff, but this makes mass communicating for worthy but poor organizations a real possibility.

And, that's a GOOD THING!


Russ


[This message has been edited by captain Russ (edited 11-11-2010).]