How Long Does It Take to Edit a 30-Second Ad?
Answers how long to edit a 30 second ad
Thirty seconds is the shortest format most brand work comes in, and it is routinely estimated as though length were the measure of effort. It is not. A thirty-second cut from a planned shoot is a day and a half. A thirty-second cut from a launch shoot with no shot list is a week. The work is the same shape either way, and the shape has five stages.
Stage one: the assembly, which is not a draft
The first pass through the footage is not the first version of the ad. It is the process of finding out what was actually shot, which shots are usable, and where the sound and the picture disagree. On a thirty-second ad with two hours of footage this is half a day. With four hours and no shot list it is a full day, and no part of it is visible to the client.
Stage two: the structure
This is where the ad is decided, and it is the stage that gets skipped in estimates. A thirty-second ad has room for roughly four beats: a hook, a turn, a proof and a close. Which shot carries the hook, and whether the proof is a demonstration or an endorsement, are decisions that change the edit. Budget a day for a version you believe in.
Stage three: the cut itself
Once the structure holds, cutting it is the fast part. Half a day to a day for a thirty-second piece, assuming the structure is settled and nobody moves it. Trim, pace, land the beats, check it on a phone at arm's length, because that is where most of the audience will see it.
Stage four: graphics, sound and grade
Titles, end cards, a logo animation, any tracked element: each is a small job with its own review cycle. Sound is a pass of its own, and on a thirty-second ad it is worth the time, because a viewer forgives a soft image far more readily than a hard edit in the audio. Grade last, and quickly, on a calibrated reference.
Stage five: versions
Nobody runs one thirty-second ad. There is a cut-down for vertical, a version with a different close, a version with the price on screen and one without. Each is a re-cut rather than a new edit, but each still needs doing, checking and exporting in the delivery formats the media plan actually requires.
The number, with the assumption attached
A thirty-second ad, one hero version, one vertical cut-down, graphics for a lower third and an end card, one round of notes: four to five working days from locked footage to delivery.
Move any of these and the number moves:
- add a second stakeholder with notes: add a day
- no shot list and a four-to-one footage ratio: add a day and a half
- animation that has to be built rather than adapted: add one to three days
- delivery in six aspect ratios with per-platform captioning: add half a day
What to book, and when
Book the edit against a locked footage date, not a shoot date. Every schedule that slips does so at the handover, because the shoot overruns, the drive arrives late, or the selects are still being made. If the launch date is fixed, work backwards from delivery, put the locked-footage date in the calendar, and treat it as immovable.
If you have a launch with a date on it, send the five lines and the reply is a band with the assumptions listed under it.