What production costs.
Real numbers, scoped to what your project needs. No vague ranges, no "contact us for pricing" wall. Build an estimate below in about a minute, no email required.
Brand films, commercials, media days, social.
Photography select ▸ $2,500+Portraits, product, rosters, events.
Post-production select ▸ $800+Editing, color, sound, motion.
Run the numbers yourself
Build your estimate in about a minute. Real numbers, no surprises, and nobody asks for your email …unless you want to talk. Then we do.
Where projects usually land
Brand films, commercials, media days, and social content.
Portraits, product, roster shoots, and event coverage.
Film and stills from the same shoot day, same crew.
Editing, color, sound, and motion graphics.
Multi-day, multi-city, full-roster, or something new.
Detroit Picture Co. is a full-service film and photo production company at Library St. Studios, downtown Detroit. Pricing scales with what a project needs, scoped and quoted line by line before anything starts.
How we price, and what you're paying for
Q 01Why can a 30-second video cost $2,000 for one brand and $10,000 for another?+
Runtime isn't the price. What goes into those 30 seconds is. Two grand buys a single shooter, one location, and a clean straightforward edit. Ten grand can mean a multi-camera crew, a pre-lit stage, talent, hair and makeup, licensed music, motion graphics, and a full color and sound pass. Same length, completely different production. We price the work behind the frame, not the frame.
Q 02How do you calculate the price of a project?+
We scope it to what the project actually needs, then price from real costs: service type, crew size, shoot days, location and travel, post, turnaround, and how you plan to use the work. That's exactly what the builder above is doing. Nothing is charged per minute or pulled off a rate card that ignores your project. Once we talk specifics, the estimate becomes a quote with every line spelled out.
Q 03What's included in the price?+
Everything from idea to final files: pre-production and planning, the crew, the gear, shoot-day coverage, editing, color, sound, music, and deliverables in every spec you need. Talent, music and footage licensing, and permits are itemized on your quote, based on where the work runs. You own the final work with full usage rights. One team carries it start to finish, so you're not stitching together a separate shooter, editor, and colorist yourself.
Q 04Do you cap revisions?+
No hard cap. Revision rounds are built into every scope, but we don't run a stopwatch on your feedback. If something needs another pass to land, we talk about it and get it there. The goal is a final you'd put your name on, not an invoice for every note.
Q 05Does pricing account for gear, rentals, storage, and software?+
All of it is baked in: camera and lighting packages, specialized rentals like drones and cinema glass, plus the parts nobody sees: media storage, backups, edit software, and asset management. Rates on rentals and media move constantly; we account for that up front so it never lands as a surprise line on your invoice.
Q 06Why does professional production cost what it does?+
You're paying for a crew, time, gear, and judgment that make the work reliable, not a person with a camera. A lot of the cost is invisible: pre-production, insurance, licensing, post, and storage all cost real money before a single file goes out. Our prices are built from those numbers, which is why they hold up.
Q 07Will my final quote match the estimate?+
The builder gives you a real ballpark based on how we actually price, so it's a strong starting point. The final quote is scoped to your specifics and itemized line by line before you commit to anything. If scope changes along the way, we flag it before any cost does. No surprise invoices.
End of reel. Start of yours.
Send the picture in your head and the date it has to be ready. We come back with the plan and the number.