WholeAustin · Austin metro · Film & Video Production
The complete Austin guide to film & video production — the local businesses and the firms that shape the market, each read for how findable it is online, alongside the concepts, the news and the questions that define the field. Own one? See where you stand and exactly what to improve.
The firms, funds and institutions that set the terms in film & video production — context, not local listings; never scored.
Narrative features, series, documentary and unscripted work — development, packaging, line producing, physical production and delivery. The pillar that establishes a company can carry a scripted job end to end rather than shoot pretty footage.
Spots, campaign films, social cutdowns, product and case-study video for agencies and in-house brand teams. Highest-volume, fastest-turn work and where most independent production companies actually earn.
Conference capture, multicamera live streams, webinars, training libraries, sizzle reels and internal comms. Predictable, repeatable, and the revenue that smooths the gaps between campaigns.
Tracking, overdubs, mixing and mastering, session players, live-room versus box workflows, artist and label budgets, and the Austin studio scene. The audio buyer researches rooms, gear and engineer credits before price.
Offline and online editorial, conform, color grade, DI, titles and versioning. Explaining what happens between wrap and delivery is the content that keeps a client from assuming post is 'just editing'.
Dialogue edit, sound design, foley, ADR, music editorial and the mix stage, plus loudness targets and stems for broadcast, streaming and theatrical. Consistently the most undervalued line in a client budget.
Shot count and bidding, cleanup and invisible effects, CG elements, compositing, 2D and 3D animation, title design and brand motion systems. Buyers need help distinguishing a 40-shot cleanup pass from a hero CG sequence.
LED stages, in-camera VFX, previz-to-stage workflow, brain bar staffing, camera tracking and when a volume genuinely beats location or greenscreen — and when it does not. Credibility content for a market full of overclaiming.
Package building and sub-rental, camera bodies and lens sets, lighting and grip trucks, expendables, and how a kit fee, package rate and insurance certificate actually work on a bid.
Soundstages and cyc walls, location scouting and agreements, city and state permits, parking and basecamp, neighborhood notification, and the Austin and Central Texas locations pipeline.
Department structure, key hires, day players, casting and talent agreements, union versus non-union decisions, IATSE tiers and SAG-AFTRA agreement types — the choice that sets a budget's floor before a single frame is shot.
Bid specs and triple bidding, above-the-line versus below-the-line, day rates and kit fees, overtime and meal penalties, contingency and markup, change orders. The page a producer opens first.
Texas TMIIIP eligibility, qualified spend, resident hiring thresholds, application timing and audit documentation, plus sales-tax exemptions and local programs — the difference between a job that closes in Texas and one that leaves for Georgia or New Mexico.
Chain of title, work-for-hire and releases, music and footage licensing, E&O and general liability, certificates of insurance, usage and buyout terms, and residual exposure. The content that keeps a client's finished piece from being unusable.
Delivery specs and QC, broadcast and streamer requirements, aspect and loudness variants, captions and localization, master and mezzanine formats, LTO and cloud archive, and asset handoff to the client.
SXSW, Austin City Limits, Austin Studios, the Texas crew base, regional rate expectations, drive-time locations from Hill Country to the coast, and what actually gets produced in Central Texas versus what gets pitched here and shot elsewhere.
explain that above-the-line covers the creative principals negotiated individually and below-the-line covers the crew, gear and services priced from rate cards, and why the split exists on a budget top sheet
explain that the day rate pays the person and the kit or box rental pays for equipment they own and bring, that they are separate line items, and that they are reported differently
explain the standard day length most rate cards assume, overtime past it, the minimum rest period between wraps and calls, and that turnaround violations cost real money on union jobs
explain that it is the single operational document for a shoot day — times, locations, scenes, cast, crew, weather, hospital — and that it is the record everyone works from
explain cutting on proxies to lock the story versus conforming back to full-resolution media for finishing, and why the offline decides the schedule
explain relinking the locked cut to original camera media and the colour and finishing pass that follows, and that this is where delivery problems surface
explain separated dialogue, music and effects mixes, and that they are what makes localisation, versioning and future re-edits possible
explain that the spec dictates codec, resolution, frame rate, loudness, captions and metadata, and that a QC failure late is one of the most expensive avoidable costs in post
explain that log preserves dynamic range for grading and looks flat until a LUT is applied, and that a viewing LUT on set is not the final grade
explain that a buyout pays once for defined rights while usage pays by media, territory and term, and that the word buyout means nothing until the scope is written down
explain the documented trail proving the production owns or licensed everything in the film — script, music, footage, likenesses — and that gaps stop a delivery cold
explain errors and omissions coverage against rights and clearance claims versus a COI proving general liability and equipment coverage to a location or rental house
explain that the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program is administered by the Texas Film Commission as a cash grant on eligible Texas spend, and that recent legislation moved it onto a dedicated fund rather than a session-by-session appropriation
give the cost structure — pre-production, crew size, shoot days, talent and usage, gear package, post hours, music and deliverable count — and explain that these swing the total by an order of magnitude; do not publish a price
explain that finish level, talent and usage rights, and the number of people whose approval is needed drive cost far more than runtime does
explain that a kit fee pays for equipment the crew member owns and would otherwise have to be rented, that it is negotiable and should be itemised, and that refusing it usually means renting the same gear at a higher price
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