How Long Does a Video Project Take?

The question we hear most at the start of a project is a fair one: how long will this take? For a typical finished piece of three to five minutes, the honest answer is six to ten weeks from kickoff to delivery. That range surprises people until they see where the time actually goes. Very little of it is waiting around. Most of it is decisions, scheduling, and the review rounds that make the final piece worth showing.

Here is how those weeks break down, phase by phase, and what speeds a project up or slows it down.

Planning and scripting: one to two weeks

Every project starts with planning. We meet, agree on the audience and the one thing the video needs to accomplish, and map out the story. For an interview-driven piece, this phase produces a script outline and a set of interview questions. For a scripted piece, it produces a full script.

This phase also covers logistics. Locations get scouted or reserved, interview subjects get scheduled, and any archive photos or past footage get requested. One to two weeks is realistic. If your organization needs several people to approve the direction before filming, build that approval time in here rather than discovering it later.

The shoot: one to two days, scheduled two to three weeks out

The filming itself is usually the shortest part of the whole project. A three to five minute piece with interviews and supporting footage typically needs one or two shoot days. Our standard shoot day rate is $2,800, and most projects at this size need one.

The wait is in the scheduling. Interview subjects have calendars, locations have availability windows, and both need to line up on the same day. Two to three weeks of lead time for a shoot day is normal, and worth it. A rushed schedule is how you end up filming your most important interview in a borrowed conference room with a loud air vent.

Assembly and rough cut: two to three weeks

After the shoot, we transcribe the interviews, select the strongest material, and build the story. The first version you see is the rough cut. It has the structure, the soundbites, and the story in place. Graphics may be preliminary, the mix is not final, and the color is not finished. That is deliberate. There is no point polishing a section that might move or come out.

Post production runs at $150 an hour at PMG, and a piece of this size usually takes 12 to 20 hours of editing spread across the assembly, rough cut, and fine cut stages. Two to three weeks from shoot day to a rough cut in your inbox is a realistic pace.

Review and fine cut: one to two weeks

This is where most schedules are won or lost. We build two revision rounds into every project as standard. You watch the rough cut, gather your comments in one pass, and send them together. We make the changes, finish the graphics, mix the sound, and grade the color. That produces the fine cut. A second, smaller round of comments covers anything remaining.

The math here depends on your side of the table. If comments come back in two or three days, this phase takes a week. If the video has to circulate through a committee that meets every other Tuesday, it takes a month. The edit itself rarely changes. The calendar does.

Delivery: two to three days

Delivery is quick once the fine cut is approved. We export the master file, add captions, and prepare any additional versions, such as a vertical cut for social media. Expect two to three days from final approval to files in hand.

What actually causes delays

Three things account for nearly every slipped schedule we have seen in 30 years of doing this work.

The first is approver turnaround, covered above. The second is archive material arriving late. If your video depends on historical photos, old event footage, or logos and brand files from another department, request them the week the project starts, not the week the edit begins. The third is interview scheduling. Founders, executives, and program participants are busy people, and their availability sets the shoot date more than our crew schedule ever does.

The fast end: three to four weeks

A focused project can turn around in three to four weeks. The conditions are consistent every time it happens. One person on the client side approves, and that person responds within a day or two. The assets are ready at kickoff. The interview subjects are available in the first two weeks. The scope stays fixed once filming starts. When those four things hold, we can move quickly without cutting corners, because the corners were never the slow part.

Planning back from an event date

When the video premieres at an event, the deadline is not negotiable, so we plan backward from it. Final files should land a full week before the event, not the day before. That buffer covers a playback test file, which we supply so the venue can confirm the video plays correctly on their screens and sound system before guests are in the room.

Here is how the backward plan looks on a real calendar, using an anniversary film set to premiere at a mid-December holiday event. Kickoff lands in late October. The organization's founders are interviewed together on one day in mid November, and the script is approved the same week. Post production runs through late November. The rough cut lands in early December, the fine cut follows within the week, and final delivery is set a full week before the event, which leaves five days to spare for testing. Total elapsed time: about seven weeks, with no heroics required from anyone.

Anniversary pieces like this one are a specialty of ours. You can see the approach in our work on a 50th anniversary video for SMPS and our ongoing work with the Washington Building Congress.

The short version

Six to ten weeks for a typical piece. One approver, assets ready early, and a delivery date set a week ahead of the premiere will put you at the fast end of that range every time.

If you are working toward a date that matters, a gala, a conference, an anniversary, we are glad to map the schedule backward from it with you before anything is signed. Call us at 703-490-0040 or visit puritano.com.