Video
Video Production Policy
Updated: 04/28/2021
In an ongoing effort to improve efficiency and communication between all parties involved, we have created the following policy to help guide departments through the process and expectations as they plan out their future video projects.
Purpose:
This purpose of this policy is to establish the roles and responsibilities of the production team, as well as the department with whom they serve. It is our goal to ensure that the process goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Role of Production Team:
- Equipment — our production team will be responsible for all necessary equipment, including backdrops (if requested), teleprompter (if requested), laptop (if needed for departments to addend remotely), lighting, sound and video equipment. There are no additional charges for equipment
- Transportation — our production team is conveniently located between East Bank and St. Paul campuses (Como & 29th Ave — right next to Fleet Services and Resuse), making it a short 5-minute commute to either campus. Our team has official vehicle passes, making parking on campus simple and efficient.
- Production — when production services are used for “talking head” shots or interviews, there needs to be a production team of at least two people (videographer and sound/production assitant). Printing Services handles all setup, lighting, sound and cameras for on-location recordings. B-roll is usually shot on a separate day, as to not require the additional sound person.
- Editing — after the interview, we provide departments with the full RAW interview videos for their archives. If a department wants to choose the interview segments to use in their video, we can also provide timestamp versions to assist with editing. For videos where we are producing the full video, we will create an opener, lower thirds, and end card (we do also have some ready-made options available as well.
- Changes — departments usually receive a first cut (quick edit of the narrative), then a fine cut (with refined narrative and b-roll placement), and then final cut (ready to use). We understand that more revisions are sometimes needed, but typically we are able to stay within these three cuts.
- Captioning — we do offer optional captioning services, which include open captioning or closed captioning. Closed captioning is provided as a separate file. Open captioning is burned into the video, which means it is always on.
Role of Requesting Department:
- Planning/Scripting — no one knows your content better than you do, so we always recommend the department controls the planning and overall message. However, we are happy to come along side you and provide guidance and recommendations.
- Scheduling — the requesting department is responsible for scheduling and coordinating any interviews with students, staff, faculty, alumni and guests. If multiple people are being recorded at the same location on the same day, we recommend creating a spreadsheet for interviewees to sign up for a time that works for them. Time is billable, so we recommend the department try to schedule people as close together as possible to reduce cost. Note: during Covid, we do ask for a few minutes in between each person to disinfect furniture and sanatize as needed.
- Location — the requesting department is responsible for reserving the location. If recording in a public area, the requesting department should notify the building manager and any affected departments. If recording in a hallway or area with regular traffic, we recommend posting “recording in progress” signs. You can download and print ahead of time, though the Printing Services production team should have them on hand as well. Printing Services does not typically provide chairs or props, so anything needed, such as a podium, additional chairs, etc, needs to be at the location or provided by the deparment, unless otherwise arranged.
- Interviews — though Printing Services is open to asking the questions if someone on your team is unable to be there, we do require the requesting department to provide the interview questions. If possible, it is always best to have someone from your team there to ask the questions and control the conversation. If someone on your team is unable to physically be there, we can bring a laptop or iPad to ask the questions via Zoom.
- Editing — to speed up the process, reduce costs and control the narrative, we give departments the opportunity to review the footage and choose timestamps of the important elements they'd like to include in their final video. Printing Services is able to do this for you, but most departments like having control of the content, as well as reducing the cost it would take us to weed through that content.
- Changes — at least two rounds of changes are usually needed. We ask that there is only one person from your team collecting/managing all of the changes to prevent contrasting requests from multiple parties.
- Captioning — for departments who want to caption videos themselves, an easy, cost-effective way to do this is to have YouTube create the automatic captions, then have someone from your team go in and fine-tweak the captions, fixing spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
Video Rights:
There are many ways departments can re-purpose interview footage, so we provide departments with all raw 4k foortage from each individual interview for their future use and archives. If you want ready-to-use video clips, editing costs will be a little extra. We can also provide all unedited b-roll recorded for your project, though we often pull some footage from other sources, such as our own internal video library of campus footage, the University Photo/Video Library, or stock video services.
Photo/Video Release:
Each department is responsible for obtaining the necessary photo releases of on-screen talent, if needed. You can find the University’s official Talent Release Form on the University Relations website. Releases are especially important when recording students, alumni and talent outside the University.
Cancellation Policy:
We understand that schedules change, which is why our cancellation policy is fairly straight forward. We do not have any cancellation fees, nor will a client be charged if a video assignment is cancelled before we leave the building. However, once we leave the building (typically 45- to 60-minutes prior to start time), the requesting department will be billed at our regular rate until we return to the building.
Service Cost:
To provide the most cost-effective service we can for departments, we do not have any cost or time minimums. Departments are billed for the exact time spent on the project, whether that be 20 minutes or 20 hours.
- Production Rate: $100/hr for the first person, and $40/hr for each additional person. A second person is usually required any time we are capturing audio (e.g. interview videos). Most b-roll only requires one person.
- Editing Rate: $100/hr
- No time or cost minimums.
- No equipment costs, unless additional equipment is requested that we do not provide.
- No mileage fees, though we do charge for time commuting to/from the location, as well as setup time.
- NEW: Though personlized video is billed at the same rate as regular video production, there is also a $.25 per record rendering fee. Cost example: if the template video takes 5 hours to create and there are 5000 records, the cost would be $500 ($100/hr x 5 hrs) + $1250 ($0.25 x 5000 entires) for a total of $1750 for 5000 personlized videos. Personlized videos will be available by unique link for 60 days. To keep the videos live beyond 60 days will require a $100/month fee due to the significant server space needed to host them.
Billing:
Estimates are provided once the scope and plan are finalized. An EFS account string is required before we can start a project, as it is needed to start a project ticket on our end. Please keep in mind that estimates will change if the scope of the project changes. Projects are billed through EFS after the project is completed.
If cost is being covered outside of the University (such as by a grant or an outside organization), we will need to set up an account prior to starting the project. Once the project is completed, the invoice will go through the University’s central billing system.
