Before you send anything

How not to work with us.

Almost everything that goes wrong on a film is decided before anybody picks up a camera, and most of it is avoidable by somebody saying the awkward thing early. This is the awkward thing, written down once: who should not hire us, what we will not do, and what to ask before you commit to anyone.

If this page talks you out of it, it has done its job. That is cheaper for you than month two, and cheaper for us than a project neither side can finish well.

Don’t hire anybody yet.

Four situations where a production company is the wrong answer, whoever it is. Hiring one early is an efficient way to spend a great deal of money on a film nobody watches.

What you want is volume. Buy kit and train somebody — it's cheaper and it compounds.
You haven't decided what the film is for. No production company can decide that for you, and the good ones will say so on the call.
It's a one-off for an internal audience. A freelancer is the right answer and roughly a fifth of the price.
You're doing it because a competitor did. That's their brief, not yours.

If one of those is you, the guide is the more useful thing on this site than any of the prices: The first five films — twenty pages, free, no email.

Don’t buy the cheapest quote without knowing what it is made of.

A quote well under everybody else’s is not a bargain or a scam. It is a specification, and this is usually the specification.

One person doing all five jobs, which means the camera is unattended while they fix the sound.
No pre-production, so the script gets written on the day, in the room, by you.
One take of everything, because there is no time for a second.
No grade, no mix, library music, one round of changes.
No insurance, no second copy of the rushes, no backup plan.
No producer — so when the day overruns, that is your problem.

Sometimes that is exactly the right purchase. If it is, buy it deliberately rather than by accident, and ask for it in writing so both sides know what was agreed.

Five ways to make it go wrong with us.

None of these is about the filming. Every one of them is settled in the fortnight before, and every one is something we will push you on.

Nobody wrote a brief, so the film ends up being about everything.
The contributor wasn't prepped, and spends the day reading a script badly.
Nobody visited the location, and it turns out to be next door to a building site.
Approval arrives from someone who was in none of the conversations.
The film is delivered and there was never a plan for where it goes. This is the most common of the five and by far the most expensive, because it makes everything before it worth nothing.

What we will say no to.

Five things we turn down. They are here because finding them out in week three is worse for you than reading them now, and because a supplier who will not tell you where their no is has not got one.

Publish work we have not cleared

A film is not ours to show because we made it. Several jobs on our own drive stay off this site — some because the people in them agreed to be filmed by a client, not credited by a supplier; one because a crowd was filmed with no consent process we can point to; others because a third-party photographer's licence has not been confirmed. If your job has people in it, the same care applies to yours, and it is the reason you will sometimes wait for an answer.

Use your people as our credential

We have filmed fourteen speakers at one conference and a number of well-known faces for brands, and not one of them is named anywhere on this site. They agreed to appear in your campaign, not in our marketing. If what you want is a supplier who will post the shoot to their own feed on the day, we are the wrong one.

Quote you a trade rate you are not entitled to

Client prices are on the packages page; trade prices are on the agencies page. That split is deliberate, and the trade rate exists because an agency does work a direct client does not — it holds the relationship, writes the brief and carries the client. Asking for it as a direct buyer is asking to be sold something on terms somebody else earned, and the answer is no.

Compress a schedule past the point the work survives

Turnaround is a line item, and a shortened schedule is quotable up to a point. Past that point there is no price, because what you would be buying is a film with the thinking taken out — no pre-production, one take of everything, and an edit made at speed by somebody who has not slept. That is the cheap quote you did not want, sold at your budget.

Start without a name on the approval

One of the five ways a film goes wrong is approval arriving from somebody who was in none of the conversations. It is the most avoidable of the five and the most expensive to fix, because the fix is a re-edit. We will ask who signs it off before we start, and if the honest answer is that nobody knows yet, that is the thing to resolve rather than the thing to work around.

Ask us these. Ask everybody else them too.

Seven questions from our own guide. We will answer all seven, and most of the answers are already published on the questions page with the document they came from named beside them. Somebody who will not answer them is telling you something.

Can I see something you made for a company my size — not your biggest client?
Who is actually on the shoot, and are they your people or booked in on the day?
What's in the quote, and what's extra?
How many rounds of changes, and what happens after that?
Who owns the footage and the final film, and from when?
What happens if it rains, the contributor cancels, or we overrun?
Can I speak to a client from about two years ago?

See the prices Send us a brief anyway

The creative stays yours. The production becomes ours.

Send the brief you’re working on now — we’ll come back with an approach, a crew and a number.

Want a number first? The quote builder is linked on that page.

Send us a brief Book a production call