Beacon launch film
Three investment levels against published production rates and real finished work.
| ~$20,000Small studio or freelance-led | ~$50,000Small studio with a full crew | ~$100,000Established production company | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoot days | One day, one location — if it is live action at all Est | 1–2 Est | 2–4, or 4–8 locations / a stage build Est |
| Crew | 5–15 across 6+ stages Published | 8–15 EstA DP, gaffer, key grip, sound mixer, a producer separate from the director, art/wardrobe, PAs. | 20–40 EstNamed director (not the DP), line producer, full G&E, art department, HMU, wardrobe, script supervisor. |
| On camera | 2–4 illustrated characters, or real people rather than cast talent Est | 3–6 people Est | 8–20 including background Est |
| Animation | One register, carried the whole way — custom illustration, or motion graphics over simplified UI, or locked-camera live action Est | Custom-illustrated 2D at $7,000–$20,000 per finished minute Rate publishedRoughly 60–90 seconds of character animation Est | Substantial custom 2D, or rotoscope over live action, at $8,000–$25,000 per finished minute Rate published |
| Music | Licensed track, $15–$80 PublishedCustom composition starts at $1,000. | Licensed at the higher tier, or a modest custom cue PublishedComposer rates run $650–$1,900 per finished minute — directional; no public rate card exists. | Boutique house original score, $3,000–$10,000 for web use Directional |
| Voiceover | One artist, $200–$500; $1,000+ for premium talent Published | No figure is assigned at either level by the research. | |
| Revisions | 2–3 rounds, staged. Each additional round $300–$1,500 Published | 2–3, with a defined change-order threshold Est | 3+, built into the schedule, with a strategy phase upstream Est |
| Deliverables | 16:9 master + 9:16 + 1:1 + two or three short cuts EstEach extra format runs $200–$800 if not in the original scope. | 1 hero + 2–3 full cutdowns + platform crops Est | Often 15–30 discrete assets Est |
| Turnaround | 6–10 weeks PublishedRush under ~2 weeks carries +25–50%, which puts a three-week $20,000 video at $25,000–$30,000. | No weeks-to-delivery figure exists in the research for either level. | |
On casting. These bands assume contracted talent. Using an employee or a real customer removes that line at any level, along with the buyout and residual questions behind it.
On technique. Mixing registers costs more than committing to one. Combining live action, custom character animation and 3D inside a single $20,000 piece is the most common way that budget produces a result reading as roughly $6,000.
Described, not rated. Almost no production company publishes project totals, so a figure tagged Est is inferred from runtime, technique, cast size and published credits — not from an invoice.
4 short spotsLive action
$15,000–$25,000 for the set Est
Locked-off top-down live action with real students across four activities. One shoot day at the school itself, one fixed camera setup, no paid talent, no set build — shot in a single winter morning around class schedules.
Watch:30 or less eachMultiple pieces
$18,000–$35,000 for the campaign Est
Product spots in simplified UI motion rather than pixel-accurate screen recording, plus live-action classroom vignettes with 2D overlays. The per-asset economics work because discovery, design system and music amortize across the set.
Watch1:20Illustrated animation
$18,000–$30,000 commercial equivalent EstMade pro bono; $0 to the client
Fully hand-built illustrated animation of a student's poem, carried by the student's own recorded voice. Entirely bespoke — no stock, no template, no UI screens. Made without client revision pressure or margin, which is part of why it looks like it does.
Watch0:542D character animation
$40,000–$75,000 Est
Fifty-four seconds of full character animation by Giant Ant — five animators plus a separate cleanup pass, storyboards, illustration, original music and SFX. No shoot, no cast; the entire cost lives in drawn frames.
Watch1:00Live action
$40,000–$75,000 for the spot Est
A lit and cast :60. It was cut from a larger shoot package the research reads at $75,000–$150,000, so the single-spot figure and the visible production are not one-to-one.
Watch0:15Live action
$40,000–$75,000 Est
A single location, lit and designed, with slow-motion and a practical debris burst. Fifteen seconds — the same range that bought 54 seconds of full character animation elsewhere in this row.
Watch1:00 (+ :30 cutdown)Live action + custom 2D
$75,000–$150,000 Est
A seamless blue cyclorama stage hire, a hero child actor, a second dressed "ON AIR" home-studio set, and fully custom frame-by-frame line art that tracks the performer. Real rotoscope hours, not a stock overlay pack. The closest example here to a live-action-plus-animation hybrid.
Watch0:302D animation
$75,000–$150,000 Est
Thirty seconds made by 35+ named people across BUCK, Part and Sum, and Notion — eight animators, nine designers, two copywriters, a six-person strategy team. The steepest cost-per-second in the research. That describes density, not outcome.
Watch3:38Live action + screen comps
$75,000–$150,000 Est
Six-plus child cast across multiple families and eight-plus locations — festoon-lit backyard, lantern-lit blanket fort, three gelled home interiors, forest, beach — with night-interior lighting packages and a forest tracking shot.
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