Video Editing on the Gold Coast: What It Costs and How to Brief It

There's no single sticker price for an edit, because "a video" can mean a 30-second social cut or a 40-minute conference recap. Pricing usually tracks one of three things: the length and complexity of the finished piece, the volume of raw footage someone has to sift through, or the number of fiddly extras like motion graphics and multi-language captions.

As a rough guide for SE Queensland work, expect pricing to move along these lines:

• A short event highlights reel (60–120 seconds, music-led, light captions) is the most affordable tier and usually quoted as a flat fee.
• A corporate long-form piece (interviews, b-roll, lower thirds, a tidy colour grade and audio mix) sits higher because there's more footage to log and more decisions per minute.
• Heavy motion graphics, animated titles, brand kits and bespoke sound design add cost on top, because they're built rather than cut.

We quote per project, not per hour, so you know the number before we start. The honest answer to "what will mine cost?" is that it depends on the three drivers above — send us the footage details and the deadline and we'll put a real figure to it rather than a guess.

Most of the cost in post-production is time, and most of that time is spent before the "creative" edit even starts. Knowing what moves the number lets you brief smarter and pay less for the same result.

Things that push the price up:

• Volume of raw footage. Six hours of multicam from an event takes far longer to log and sync than 40 minutes of single-camera interview, even if both deliver a two-minute video.
• Audio problems. Wind, room echo, a dodgy lapel mic or competing background noise all need cleanup. Good audio capture on the day saves real money in post.
• Revision rounds. Vague briefs lead to subjective back-and-forth. Two structured rounds is normal; ten is a sign the brief was never nailed down.
• Graphics and animation. Animated logos, kinetic captions and data visuals are built from scratch and priced accordingly.
• Multiple deliverables. A 16:9 master, a 9:16 vertical cut and a square version are three exports with three different framing decisions, not one file resized.

Things that bring it down: clean, well-labelled footage; a one-line brief per shot; a clear running order; and supplying your own logo, fonts and music licence rather than asking us to source them. The tidier the inputs, the less the edit costs.

A good brief is the cheapest insurance in post-production. You don't need to speak editor — you need to be clear about outcome, audience and constraints.

Before you hand over footage, write down:

• The goal. "Sponsor recap for LinkedIn" and "three-minute hero film for the homepage" are completely different edits from the same footage.
• Length and platform. Where will it live, and how long should it run? Instagram, YouTube and a trade-show loop all want different cuts.
• The must-haves. Specific speakers, the award moment, the product close-up — flag the non-negotiable shots so they never get left on the cutting room floor.
• Tone and references. One or two links to videos you like tells us more than three paragraphs of adjectives.
• Branding assets. Logo files, brand colours, approved fonts and any music you've already licensed.
• The hard deadline. When you genuinely need it, and what it's for.

Then package the footage properly: keep the original camera files (not screen recordings or re-compressed copies), label folders by camera or scene, and include any separate audio recordings. Footage that arrives organised gets edited faster and costs less, full stop. We'll handle the picture edit, colour grade, audio mix, captions and multi-format export from there.

Timelines depend on the build, but it helps to know the shape of a normal job. A short highlights reel can turn around in a few business days; a long-form corporate piece with graphics and several revision rounds runs longer. If you have a fixed launch date, tell us up front — rush turnarounds are possible, they just need to be planned, not sprung.

A typical post-production flow looks like this:

• Ingest and review — footage is backed up, logged and synced.
• First cut — structure and story locked, sent for your feedback.
• Revisions — usually two structured rounds, with notes timestamped so nothing gets lost.
• Finishing — colour grade, audio mix and cleanup, captions and motion graphics.
• Delivery — final files exported in the formats you need (16:9, vertical, square), plus captioned versions if requested.

We deliver in whatever formats your channels actually use, with captions and subtitles included where you need them. And because we run our own production and AV side as well, we can shoot and edit as one job — handy if your footage doesn't exist yet, or if part of it needs reshooting. We work across the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Byron Bay and the Sunshine Coast.