most expensive arch-viz projects you heard about.

[Guest royterr]

I know that reputation/contact/highend work/prozes enables leading archviz companies to charge way more than other less known companies, but what's the limit for an archviz budget in that arena? I already heard companies investing 500K for a archviz products a few years ago, is that still the case today? do the kind of budgets exist? any good examples?

[Jeff Mottle]

Before the crash I heard rumors one company did a piece for a $1 million budget. I won't say which company as it was told to me in confidence, but most people would have seen the film as it was submitted to the 3dawards years ago. Not sure if they actually got paid that amount in the end. I think it's still fair to assume the larger companies can charge in the hundreds of K for larger scope visualization projects.

[John Dollus]

Here's one example:

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887774/

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/building_art_in_chicago_1_1_2_3_5_8/

[Jeff Mottle]

Here's one example:

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887774/

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/building_art_in_chicago_1_1_2_3_5_8/

 

Ahh yes, I forgot all about that overpriced disaster.

[Guest royterr]

Regarding the company factor, is it just the scale that is important? I mean how about avant guard small/mid-scale companies like "suint-opera" and secret location", they have small teams but innovative products, can they charge hundred of K for that? how much is innovation important in that "luxurious" area?

 

And when it comes to the project scale, what do you exactly mean by that? when we say big does this mean that we are speaking about urban projects, opposed to smaller but luxiourious 15 millions flat in soho? whcih is more relevant when determining budgets, qyality or quantity?

 

And is there a particular region where they spend more on arch viz? Is it the arab gulf or north America?

[Nils Norgren]

One thing to consider, is that many of the projects done by studios include: branding, brochures, stills (often in the dozens), films (sometimes more than one), interactive(s), website(s), trade show kiosks, Ipad/Iphone apps, dedicated deliverables (once had to load up dozens of Ipads with content, to give out to brokers). When you include directs, things like travel, helicopter - green screen and on location shoots, custom content, ipads, computers, stock imagery, music, voice over talent, outside contractors (script, casting, etc) can all be funneled through a project things can get out of hand.

 

Not all projects will have all this, but a few will have multiples, so the effort when saying "Large Arch-Viz" project is not always easy to boil down into one easy number.

 

I am not sure what project Jeff is referring to above, but it is important to remember it is possible to make NO profit on a 1M job if the scope/client/manpower is not managed. Now think about what happens if you do a project in that range, and the client goes belly up and can't pay.

 

Big numbers should be treated with respectful trepidation. Often many small jobs are far preferable to "the big one".

 

My 2¢

 

-Nils

[Scott Schroeder]

One company I worked for had a project for $350,000. Due to too many cooks trying to run the show, they spent over $400,000 on it.

 

The largest project I worked within that company on had about a $500,000 budget for something that never saw the light of day. The developer decided to hold the project when their funding ran out. This was roughly in early 2008 so right around the time of the bubble bursting. This was also they time after we were about 50% done and had only gotten 10-15% of the money owed to us. Needless to say, it was the start of that company laying off 95% of it's workforce. They went from around 95 employees in 2007 to 6 at the start of 2009. So as Nils pointed out, managing those large budgets is so important. Buy me a beer sometime and I can tell some real horror stories.

 

All too often when working on the larger budget projects for that old company, everyone wanted to have their hand in it. This, in turn, turned the project into a nightmare and often went over budget or completely killed your creativity.

[Guest royterr]

do these numbers still apply today?

And is innovation important in the arch-viz industry knowing that 90 percent of clients don't have have a CG/Art sensitivity/culture?

[artmaknev]

One company I worked at pre-2008 crash, had a project for Dubai development firm and spent a lot of money actually going to Dubai, renting really expensive concept cars, boats, filming real actors, and all that for a 1-2 minute animation trailer and a few renderings. So I guess the budget was sky high for that project, and by the way animation did come out really awesome.

Edited November 14, 2012 by artmaknev

[artmaknev]

Mostly likely not anymore, today projects are on extremely tight schedule to save every extra dollar, and unfortunately not enough cash on innovation.