Every government service desk answers the same twelve questions two hundred times a month. A how-to video answers each one once, at two in the morning, in the resident's own language, and the call volume drops. It is the cheapest staff member a department will ever hire.
The Kansas City angle
Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas, Overland Park, Olathe, Lee's Summit, Independence, Johnson County, Jackson County: each runs its own permit desks, utility billing, court services and licensing, and each has a website built for the department rather than the resident. Residents cross the state line for work and get lost in the difference.
The local angle is specificity. A how-to about a KCMO business license is a different video from an Overland Park one, and residents can tell in the first five seconds which city they are watching.
The twelve most-asked questions, filmed in one day
We would start with the call log: the twelve questions that generate the most calls. Then one day at the department: a staff member walking through each process on screen and, where it matters, at the counter. Screen recording for the online steps, camera for the physical ones. Sixty to ninety seconds each, captioned, translated where the community needs it.
Twelve explainers for the website and the phone tree, and a format the department can repeat itself.
What to actually make
- Service explainers — sixty to ninety seconds per process, captioned, plain language.
- Counter walkthroughs — what to bring, where to park, what happens at the window.
- Translated cuts — Spanish and other community languages from the same footage.
- A department overview — ninety seconds on what the department does, for the homepage and new-resident materials.
What it costs in Kansas City
For most of the businesses in this post the right starting point is The Short at $2,000: a half-day shoot cut into one 60-to-90-second film plus vertical cut-downs. Every package is published on our corporate video 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 corporate video 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.