Can’t help but think the expenses were overboard. $3500 spent per video, including a producer, DP, food stylist, and editor? Surely videos of very similar quality could be made with a fraction of that budget if the fat was trimmed and it was approached more bootstrap-y instead of a full production.
You should give it a try. I do not think you will be able to do it for less at similar quality, especially with food.
>If I could reduce production costs, that would increase profits, which Omega and I talked about. They worked to tighten our post-production flow and shaved a full day of editing off each episode. Good! Beyond that, my options were to strip the videos of sound effects and graphics, publish them without color grading, find a new crew with lower day rates, or become a vlogger. I chose not to do any of that. I wanted the channel to grow and views to increase; achieving that while lowering quality didn’t seem like a solid strategy.
I watched one of her videos and the sound effects were annoying, so cut those. Skip the color grading. Stick to 1 or 2 stationary cameras. At least attempt to learn how to edit audio and video. No idea what a food stylist is, probably cut that out too.