Most of the cost and most of the delay in a video project are decided before anyone quotes it. Not by the length, not by the camera, but by how clearly the brief answers six questions. They take about ten minutes to work through, and they are worth the same whether you brief us or somebody else.
1. Who is it for
One audience. Not four. A video aimed at customers, recruits, regulators, and the board at once will land with none of them. If there really are four audiences, that is four videos, and it is cheaper to know that now than to discover it in the edit.
2. What is the one thing it has to do
Say it in a sentence, out loud. "Get people to register before the deadline." "Make a graduate want to apply here." If the sentence needs an "and", the video is carrying more than it can.
3. Where will it run
This decides more than it looks like it does. Where a video plays sets its length, its shape, whether anyone will hear the sound, and how fast the point has to arrive. A film built for a conference room does not survive a feed, and cutting it down later is a new edit, not a trim.
4. What already exists
Footage from previous shoots, a photo library, brand guidelines, a script somebody already drafted, an old video everyone likes. Send it, even if you think it is unusable. Some of the strongest work we have made started as somebody's archive.
5. What is the real deadline, and what is it tied to
An event, a launch, a regulatory date, or a preference. These are not the same thing and they buy you different options. A date tied to a trade show is fixed. A date somebody picked because it felt right can usually move a week to buy back a much better film.
6. Who approves it
The single most underestimated line in any brief. Length changes the schedule a little. The number of approvers changes it a lot, especially when they see it for the first time at different stages. Name them up front, get them in at the script, and the review rounds stop turning into new briefs.
Then what
Bring those six and the first conversation is about the story instead of logistics, which is the part worth your time. If you want a number in the same sitting, the calculator will build one around your actual scope in about two minutes.