Nonprofit & Gala Video • Since 1981
Your gala is on the calendar. The room is booked, the honoree has agreed, and the tribute video has to play on a ballroom screen between dinner and the ask. We are a for-profit production company and we charge for our work. We also start with your number and tell you plainly what it buys before you sign anything.
Plan Your Nonprofit VideoA gala runs on a clock. Cocktail hour, welcome, dinner, the award, the fund-a-need. Your video plays in one of those slots, and if the file will not open on the house system, the room watches you find out. We take the playback spec from your AV team early — aspect ratio, resolution, frame rate, and codec — and we lock the run of show with your events manager so the video lands where the program needs it and runs the length the program allows.
Mr. Camera has been in Las Vegas since 1981, and we have produced award shows and recognition events at every scale, from 200-person industry galas to multi-thousand-attendee conventions. Most gala nights are multi-camera nights, and that is the same multi-camera production we bring to any stage show.
Recent work includes the Tyler Robinson Foundation's gala films: the Believer Gala in 2017, the Rise Up Gala in 2018, and the Rise Up Gala in 2025.
Multi-camera coverage of the room, the program, and the fund-a-need. Every camera records ISO, so you get a highlight reel for your thank-you emails and next year’s save-the-date. We can also live stream the program to donors who could not travel.
Interviews with the honoree and the people who nominated them, cut together with the archival photos and footage your organization supplies. Built to play on a ballroom screen and hold a room that has just finished dinner, at three to five minutes.
The film that runs before the ask. One documentary interview, told plainly, in the words of someone your organization actually helped. Shot once, cut for the ballroom screen, then recut short for email, social, and your appeal page.
Board updates, staff and donor communications, volunteer recruitment, and the annual report video — the same corporate video production we do for any client, scheduled around your office and program hours. Worth stacking onto a gala shoot day, while the crew and the people are already there.
Mr. Camera is a for-profit video production company in Las Vegas, and we work with nonprofits here on galas, honoree videos, fundraising films, and the communications a board and a staff need. There is no separate nonprofit rate card and we are not going to pretend there is one. We have crew to pay and gear to maintain, and a nonprofit shoot takes the same camera package and the same people as any other job. The difference is whose money it is: the budget paying for a nonprofit video was given by someone who expected it to reach your programs.
So tell us the number on the first call. If it covers what you are describing, we will say so and put it in writing. If it does not, we will show you what it does cover — one strong three-to-five-minute film instead of five short ones, a third camera instead of a fifth, one shoot day feeding the gala film, the web cut, and the annual report instead of three separate productions. We will tell you when a second camera is not worth the money for your room. If the work has to spread across two fiscal years, say so on that first call and we will look at phasing it. Estimates come itemized, because you may have to hand ours to a board.
A straight answer about money is more useful to you than encouragement. When the number still does not reach, we will say so early, while you still have time to find the funding or wait a year, instead of spending what you have on something too thin to use.
What does a gala or honoree video cost?
There is no nonprofit rate card and no set price for a gala film. Cost follows the shoot and the edit: cameras, days, runtime, and how many versions you need — the same variables in our general pricing and turnaround FAQ. Tell us your budget on the first call and we will tell you what it buys, in a written, itemized estimate you can take to your board.
How far ahead of our gala should we call?
For an honoree or impact film, more lead time is always better, and we will tell you on the first call whether your date is workable. The constraint is rarely the edit. It is getting the honoree in a chair, chasing photographs from a family, and getting your board’s approval on a cut. Ask us about a remote interview if the honoree is not in Las Vegas. The gala date does not move, so we schedule backward from it.
What do you need from us?
A locked run of show, the AV company’s file spec for the ballroom screen, and one person who can approve a cut. For tribute and honoree pieces: photographs, old footage, a way to reach the honoree or the family, and the correct spelling of every name and title going on screen. Send photos at the highest resolution you have, since phone pictures of framed photos on a wall cost you edit time. Families usually hold the photographs and need to approve them before we use them. We coordinate on-camera releases, and anyone under eighteen needs a parent or guardian to sign.
What format do you deliver for the ballroom screen?
Whatever your venue’s AV team specifies. We ask for aspect ratio, resolution, frame rate, and codec before we start the edit, so the file is built to spec rather than converted the day of. We deliver a tested file built to that spec, we will agree with you how it gets to the room rather than relying on venue wifi, and we ask for a playback test during rehearsal rather than discovering a file problem during dinner.
Can we get more than one video out of one shoot day?
Usually. One shoot day typically yields the ballroom cut, a shorter version for your website, and vertical clips for social. Captions are available on request, and we recommend them for anything going on your site after the event — ask before the edit locks, since captioning is faster in the same pass than after delivery. If your video needs licensed music, we will tell you what the license costs before we use the track.
Send us your event date, what has to be on the screen, and what you have to spend, and we will come back with a written, itemized estimate.
Start the ConversationFrom Mr. Camera. Las Vegas video production since 1981.