A handmade product has one marketing problem: the price. The customer sees a $180 bag next to a $40 bag and cannot see the twelve hours inside the first one. Video is how you show the twelve hours.
The Kansas City angle
Kansas City's maker economy is real and it is visible: First Fridays in the Crossroads, the antique and maker weekends in the West Bottoms, the holiday markets at Union Station and in Overland Park, and a wholesale scene that sells into shops across the Midwest. The makers who grow are the ones who can show their process to a buyer who is not in the room.
The Kansas City angle is that the workshop is usually in a building with a story of its own: a garment-district loft, a Northeast garage, a barn outside Lawrence. Put the building in the film.
A production run, not a portrait
Instead of a maker talking to camera about passion, we would film a real production run: a batch of twenty bags, a letterpress edition of two hundred cards, a week of knife grinding. Day one is the making, with the maker mic'd and talking while they work. Day two, if the package includes it, is the shipping, the market stall or the delivery to the shop that stocks them.
The edit is two minutes long and it is mostly hands. By the end the viewer knows why the thing costs what it costs, which is the only job the film had.
What to actually make
- A two-minute process film — a full batch from raw material to shipped, for the website and wholesale pitches.
- A wholesale line sheet video — each product in thirty seconds, shot on one background, for buyers.
- Market-day verticals — the stall, the crowd, the first sale, posted the same weekend.
- A workshop tour — the building and the tools, for the press and the maker-fair applications.
What it costs in Kansas City
For most of the businesses in this post the right starting point is the Story Film at $4,500: a full shoot day with interviews, cut into a two-to-three-minute film. Every package is published on our brand film page, and the video production cost page explains what moves the number up or down. There is no travel fee anywhere in the metro, Overland Park to Lee's Summit to Lawrence.
How the shoot works
It is the same two people on every project, Josh and Brandon. We scope it on a call, write the shot list, show up with lights and a lav mic, and stay out of the way of your customers. A first cut lands in about two weeks with unlimited revisions after that, and you own every frame, including the raw footage on request.
If this is your business, the brand film page has the packages, the examples and the calendar link. If you are not sure which package fits, this is how we work and why the prices are on the site.