Pricing & budget

Cheap studio: what a low price hides

A €40-an-hour studio is tempting. Until you find out the operator, the extra cameras and the files cost extra, and the set looks like a student bedroom. Here is how to read a studio's price list.

The 6 lines to check

Before comparing two prices, check what they actually contain:

• Is a technician present during the session, or are you alone with the settings?
• How many cameras included, and which ones?
• Sound: broadcast microphones, or entry-level mics?
• Is the lighting adjusted for you, or fixed?
• Files: delivered instantly, or billed as an extra?
• The set: shown in real photos, or in renders?

Why Paris teams come down to film

A large share of our bookings come from Paris, and the reason is arithmetic rather than sunshine. A Paris studio of the same standard is rarely under €150 an hour, and rarely includes the crew. Ours starts at €90 excl. VAT for the first hour, crew included.

The flight is 1 hr 30, and the studios sit at 400 promenade des Anglais, directly opposite Nice airport: you land, you film, you fly back the same day. Teams book a half-day, shoot a full season of episodes in one go, and leave with the rushes on their own SSD.

Four different sets in the same building also means a season that does not look like it was shot in one room. That is usually what decides it: not the hourly rate, but the number of usable episodes per trip.

Count the cost per usable episode

The right metric is not the hourly price, it is the cost per publishable episode. A €40 session that produces an episode with dodgy sound, to redo or rescue in post, costs more than a €90 session where every take is usable. At Recordia, the €90 excl. VAT hour includes everything: 4 cinema cameras, 4 Shure mics, control room, teleprompter, instant rushes.

Where you should never cut corners

Sound. An average image is forgivable, bathroom acoustics make people leave in ten seconds. It is the first thing separating a professional studio from a decorated room, and it is invisible in photos: always ask for a video excerpt actually filmed on site, like the ones in our work.