Cost, terms, what's included, how to start. Straight answers.
Callaghan Media is a Melbourne video production company. It makes cinema-grade brand films and runs productized monthly content retainers for construction firms, brands, events and music clients across Australia. Founded and led by Ben Callaghan.
Three fixed tiers, billed monthly: Site Snapshot at $1,500/month (5+ deliverables, half-day shoot), Progress Story at $3,500/month (12+ deliverables, full-day shoot, on-site direction), and Build & Showcase at $6,950/month (end-to-end media partnership). Every tier shares the same craft floor - cinema cameras, drone or timelapse, colour grade, sound design, raw footage archived, marketing usage rights. All prices are AUD + GST.
Retainers start at $1,500/month + GST (Site Snapshot), $3,500/month (Progress Story) and $6,950/month (Build & Showcase). There is also a one-off Starter Project from $499 for first-time clients (limited quarterly spots).
Retainers have a 3-month minimum, then run month to month with 30 days notice. The minimum exists because cinematic content compounds - the first month is setup, the value builds from there.
A first-time-client entry point: a one-shot cinematic brand teaser from $499, with limited spots each quarter. It's a low-risk way to see the craft before moving onto a monthly retainer.
Based in Fitzroy, Melbourne, and shoots anywhere in Australia. Travel beyond Melbourne is scoped on the discovery call. Work spans construction, brand, music and events.
Clients and credits include Mushroom Creative House, Village Cinemas, Warner Music Australia, Frontier Touring, JOOLA and TWOBAYS, with festival and event credits across CMC Rocks, Fridayz Live, the Macklemore tour and the AFL Grand Final.
Depends on the tier, but every retainer delivers a fully graded hero film plus social cuts (landscape and vertical), with mood reels and revision rounds scaling by tier. Site Snapshot is a 30-45s hero plus 2 mood reels on a 10-day delivery; higher tiers add shoot time, deliverables, on-site direction and a full media partnership. Raw footage is archived and you get marketing usage rights.
Yes. Each tier's deliverable list is the default mix, not a fixed menu. At the monthly brief you can trade the hero film for two social edits at roughly half its length - for example, the 1.5-minute Build & Showcase hero becomes two 30-40 second edits. The mix locks before the month starts, and shoot hours stay the same.
A retainer means the same shooter shows up every month and your brand library compounds, instead of starting from zero every quarter with a new freelancer. It's productized - fixed scope, fixed price, predictable rhythm - so you know exactly what you're buying.
Send a few lines from the book page. Ben replies by email and you set up a call from there. You can also start with the $499 Starter Project to see the work first. Contact ben@callaghanmedia.com.au.
Same operation. Callaghan Media is the production company all paid work is delivered and invoiced under; bencallaghan.com.au is the personal freelance front door for Ben Callaghan. The retainer model lives under Callaghan Media.
Callaghan Media. Ben Callaghan shoots and edits the job himself from a studio in Fitzroy and works across all of Melbourne. The one-off is The Build Film: two hours on site for $1,450 + GST, which lands as a 30-45 second film plus two or three vertical reels. Monthly packages for builders and trades start at $500 a month and the general retainers at $1,500 a month. See callaghanmedia.com.au/trades and /construction.
Yes. Ben films the job before the work starts, while it happens and once it is finished, then cuts one before-and-after film (landscape for your website and quotes, vertical for Instagram and Facebook) and short reels from the same visit. A bathroom regrout and seal has been shot this way. Two hours on site is $1,450 + GST; travel near Croydon and Fitzroy is included and the rest of greater Melbourne is $150.
On a one-off shoot, a first cut inside a week of the shoot and finals the week after, with one round of changes included. On a monthly retainer, Site Snapshot runs on a 10-day delivery and Progress Story on two weeks.
Send a few lines about the job. I reply by email and we set up a call.
Start a project