Beware this “budget black hole”

Creative development is one of those “budget black holes” in the production process. We don’t charge enough for it, clients don’t want to pay for it, and we spend way too much time doing it. 

Part of this is because building creative is fun. We play dress-up as a creative director, pulling inspiration images for our mood boards, scrawling strange notes all over our desk. This is the “fun part” we tell ourselves, before the real work begins. 

A bigger part of why we don’t charge for creative builds is because we don’t have a system for it. There are a few ways you can do it. You can either charge day rates for creative director work and copywriting work. Or, you can add on a creative development fee (maybe 10%) in to your budget, so it scales with the size of the budget. Or, if your client can’t stomach any of those, you can increase your production fee and add it in there. 

We fail to remember that creative development is one of the most important parts of the entire production process. We’ve all seen projects with bad creative. No mater how talented the actors are, or how good the DP or photographer is, the final product comes out boring, stale, and forgettable. We’ve also all seen lo-fi projects with amazing creative—in a way, this has been the thesis of TikTok since its inception. Great ideas, executed quickly, that go viral. 

Stop letting creative development be a “budget black hole” for you. Figure out how to charge for it and start doing so.