Music education video fails in two predictable ways: it is either a highlight reel of the recital with no context, or a slow montage of children looking earnest. The version that enrolls students and moves donors is about one lesson, one student and the eight months between the first squeak and the first real note.
The Kansas City angle
Kansas City has a deep bench: the Conservatory at UMKC, the youth orchestra and choir programs, the community music schools in Overland Park, Prairie Village and Liberty, the after-school programs on the east side, and hundreds of private studios. They compete for the same fall enrollment and the same arts-funding dollars, and most have nothing on video but a recital recording from a phone.
The local angle is the arc. A student who started in September and plays the spring recital at the Folly or the Kauffman Center is a Kansas City story a donor recognizes.
A lesson in October and the recital in May
We would film a regular lesson early in the year: the room, the teacher, the student working through something hard, ten minutes with the teacher about what they are trying to build. Then the recital or performance months later, two cameras and clean board audio, with the student interviewed backstage. The film cuts between the two.
A two-minute film for enrollment and the annual appeal; a sixty-second recital cut for the families; the lesson footage as an enrollment piece for the fall.
What to actually make
- A two-minute story film — one student across a season, the teacher's voice.
- An enrollment piece — the school on a weekday, what a lesson is like, for the fall push.
- A recital recording — multi-camera with board audio, for families and the archive.
- Donor and grant clips — the program explained by the director, for the foundations.
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 nonprofit 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 nonprofit 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.