FAQ

Kaktus.studio offers a wide range of video formats, including commercials, corporate and training videos, employer branding videos, event reportages, and short social media videos, in both classic horizontal format and vertical reels.

The film production process begins with a discussion about the marketing and commercial objectives of the film or series, ideally based on a pre-completed brief. Next, according to the prepared script and moodboard, after location scouting and selection of appropriate artistic resources, the actual production begins. The final stage is, of course, postproduction, with a particular emphasis on sound correction and color grading.

Yes, absolutely. This is the best approach, where the script is created collaboratively, combining knowledge of the company, product, or service with the film’s expertise and vision. Kaktus.studio always offers at least one free preproduction meeting.

It depends on your needs and/or budget. Sometimes, for example, when producing a reportage or short social media videos, there’s only one person on set, but most often there are at least two or three people, for example, two camera operators and a sound technician. The team may also include a lighting technician, a makeup artist, actors, and, of course, you, the client!

This is a difficult question, not because the price is a secret, but because individual projects and their associated costs often vary significantly. However, to give you an idea, the main components of the final price might be as follows:

• One day of shooting with one camera operator (up to 300 km from Niepołomice): 1900 – 2500 PLN net
• Assistance of a second cameraman or sound technician during one day of shooting: 800 – 1500 PLN net
• Assistance of a make-up artist during one day of shooting: 600 – 1000 PLN net
• Typical cost of editing a 3-5-minute film with basic sound and color correction, motion design and infographics: 900 – 1500 PLN net
• Typical cost of editing of a reel with subtitles: 500 PLN net

Yes, as a rule, two rounds of corrections are included in the price, but they do not include a complete change of music, which is approved at an earlier stage. Of course, every rule has its exceptions, but these are determined individually.

The deadline for the submitting of a film is usually 1-2 weeks, although it is often agreed individually.

Yes, footage is archived free of charge for one month after the completed film is submitted and approved. Longer-term archiving is also available for a fee, subject to individual arrangements.

Yes, a film can be submitted in both the classic 16:9 horizontal and 9:16 vertical versions. Often, both versions are created simultaneously, i.e., a longer horizontal film is created with shorter vertical reels for promotion on social media. Films can also be supplemented with additional language versions thanks to subtitles and an AI voiceover, including lip-sync.

The original copyrights resulting from the production of film recordings and the use of legal music banks belong to Kaktus.studio, and then, in accordance with the agreement, they are transferred to you, enabling use in the agreed fields of exploitation.

Color grading is the process by which a film acquires its final look. A colorist first corrects exposure, white balance, contrast, and unifies images from different cameras, among other things. Then, he creates the final look, a visual style that both establishes the desired character for the entire film and, through the use of appropriate color schemes, directs and enhances the experience of individual scenes. Proper color correction will make your film stand out from the crowd of bland films, conveying the right message to the audience.

A colorist can often remedy problems that at first glance seem impossible, but only to a certain extent. Often, they can effectively remove unwanted elements from the frame and recover details from dark or light areas of the image, but if the shots are clearly underexposed (only black) or overexposed (only white), unfortunately, there’s nothing more that can be done.

It’s definitely easiest to submit a project if it’s also created in DaVinci Resolve (e.g., a .drp project file and separate source files, or a .dra archive file), then conforming is hassle-free. Projects from other editing programs, in the form of .xml or .edl files, can also be imported, but some effects may need to be manually rebuilt. A video file with the edited render is also required to check conformance, and visual references are welcome, such as a moodboard and information about the cameras used, along with the recorded image settings for proper color management.

Because color grading depends on many factors, including the length of the film and the number of necessary corrections, the price for a given project is determined individually and requires familiarization with the material. Another approach is an hourly rate – PLN 150 net. If the budget for color grading is known, the hourly rate can be used to calculate and control the total time, and therefore the level of detail the colorist can afford during a given grading.

Color grading is handled by Marek Frankiewicz, colorist, filmmaker, and DaVinci Resolve Certified Trainer.

Yes, at Kaktus.studio, in addition to a powerful workstation and a fast fiber optic connection, there is three monitors at disposal, including the Asus PA32UCDM reference monitor, calibrated for SDR and HDR. This monitor boasts a maximum brightness in HDR mode of over 1000 nits, and an average delta E of just around 0.5 (a value below 2 is considered imperceptible to the human eye). Additionally, to ensure a clean signal, the video image unaffected by the computer’s operating system, it is connected via a special Blackmagic Design Decklink card. If necessary, a calibration report from Colourspace software can also be included for color grading.