Surviving Slow Seasons and Downturns in Video Production

The Danger Starts When You Are Busy

Every studio knows the feast-or-famine rhythm, and the owners who smooth it out agree on where it starts. Chris Stasiuk, sixteen years into Signature Video Group, made the point on New Year’s goals, growth, and Gen AI: when the calendar is full and revenue is comfortable, it is tempting to coast, stop marketing, and stop chasing the next relationship. Then the big project wraps, the pipeline is empty, and the famine half of the cycle arrives right on schedule. Marketing and your own content are the first things to slide when a studio gets busy, and the first reason the pipeline dries up a few months later. Chris’s own summary: the riskiest moment in a video business is easing off the accelerator while business is good.

The fix is unglamorous: keep the flywheel turning in a full month, and treat it as the time to invest in the next one rather than exhale. Consistency beats intensity, because your own channel is the one marketing engine you fully control.

Plan for the Lean Months Before They Arrive

Forecasting is the problem every owner circles. Adam Sewell of Digital Spark Studios put it plainly on how to diversify your video business income: a production company can grow year over year and still have no idea which months will land. His rule of thumb echoes the hosts’: look at a strong year, plan as if you will do half of it, and treat anything more as upside. The wider case for extra income lines is in our guide to building multiple revenue streams.

Dorothy Engelman of Q Media Solutions, three decades into Canadian media, named the trap that catches growing studios on content evolution: you need a constant, steady stream of cash. When you are small, the gap between doing the work and getting paid is survivable. With crew to pay, gear to rent, and bigger projects on longer payment terms, that same gap can quietly sink you. Her fastest fix is a good line of credit, ideally arranged before it is urgent.

The other half is getting paid on a schedule you control. Sam Rossiello of Captiv Creative stopped waiting for final delivery to send the final invoice, as he explains on creating connections and content in video production: now it is 50 percent up front and the balance due 30 days after production, finished or not, so a client’s slow feedback never ties up the money. Lapse splits projects into three invoices (pre-production, production, and post), each due on a set date regardless of the timeline. The clauses that make this stick are in our guide to video production contracts.

Never Let One Client Become Load-Bearing

Chris Stasiuk’s sharpest story was his own lucky strike moment, losing a major client: a single account grows into a comfortable chunk of revenue, and then it is gone, taking a large slice of the year with it. His lesson is not to avoid big clients but to spread work across industries so no single loss can sink you.

Heehaw lived the extreme version. Toby Trueman told the story on scale smart, not fast: the World Health Organization was the Edinburgh studio’s biggest client, and when COVID hit, a flood of UN communications work pushed the team to about 47 people by 2021. Then the agencies ran out of money and a run of crises hit at once, the war in Ukraine, the energy and cost-of-living shocks, and the writers’ and actors’ strikes. Redundancies followed, and Toby is blunt that there had been no proper financial forecasting or real KPIs under a business doing millions in turnover. How Heehaw rebuilt smaller is covered in our guide on how to scale a video production company.

“We were filmmakers, and not perhaps the best at running a business.”

Toby Trueman, Heehaw (Episode 98)

When the Pandemic Hit: How Studios Survived

The pandemic was the downturn every owner in the archive shares, and their stories split into a few survival moves. The first was changing what they sold. N’tchidjè Doumbia’s Great Things Studios in Montreal lost 90 percent of its business in 30 days. One unexpected lead, a medical organization that needed live production support, sent the team into learning live switching, multi-camera workflows, PTZ operation, and IP-based setups. That pivot doubled revenue from 2020 to 2023, and roughly 60 percent of revenue now comes from healthcare. The full story is on the art of client relationships. N’tchidjè Doumbia’s point is that a studio does not always pick its niche; sometimes the market picks it for you.

Others flipped to animation. When the pandemic wiped out Brigitte Sachse’s live-action work at Bee Video Productions, she moved her mix from ninety percent live action to ninety percent animation and came out thriving, a story the hosts return to in best video production business tips, where they treat a business plan as a guideline rather than gospel. Heehaw did the same, pulling live production off its website and leaning entirely on animation until shoots could resume.

The second move was being small enough to wait. Nick Coombes of Bouche Media watched his studio’s banking work fall off a cliff as clients turned to crisis management, and the studios that came through most easily were the small, nimble ones. Being a few people rather than a studio carrying salaries and a lease is exactly what let Bouche weather months of no work and rebuild, as he describes on adapting to change.

The third was the team. Early in the pandemic, Rodrigo of Republic24 had to tell his Mexican team he might need to pause for a few months, a conversation he dreaded. Their answer, that he had been there for them and now they were there for him, moved him to tears, and he brought everyone back within months as clients rediscovered video and pivoted to virtual events. He tells it on growing a video business with Google Ads.

“A lot of people think the client goes first. I learned that if the employee is happy, the client will be happy too.”

Rodrigo, Republic24 (Episode 97)

The fourth was paperwork. Patrick Blake of Leveler Media in Philadelphia watched lockdowns gut a project pipeline that had been growing into 2019, and credits an excellent bookkeeper with securing relief funding when even the studio’s own bank went silent, a detail from navigating the video production landscape.

Or Bet Big While Others Freeze

Rupert Rixon of Perspective Pictures read the same moment as an opportunity, on growing and investing in your team. He hired senior people while they were cheaper and more available, signed a five-year lease on a 5,000 square foot office at pandemic rates, renovated it in-house, and rebranded the whole company, from website to showreel to logo. Coming out of it, Perspective doubled its revenue year over year. It worked because the London agency had already raised outside investment and put it into the team and the marketing engine, which is a very different position from a studio with no cash behind it.

Reading a Slow Market Without Panicking

Downturns do not need a pandemic. Jake Barrett of BTV.UK saw early 2023 go silent in Birmingham: after December work carried January, February through mid-April was the quietest stretch he had known. He points to a cost-of-living crisis with energy bills jumping from around 100 to 400 or 500 pounds a month, camera kit up roughly 35 percent, and marketing being the first budget cut and the last reinstated, as he explains on social media is changing video.

The response the owners recommend is activity, not waiting. Stuart Edgeworth of CHUCK Media reads quiet months through a sales lens on strategize your niche: if things get quiet, that is on you, so you hit the phones harder. In practice that means targeted outreach rather than spray-and-pray, shopping a finished job to similar clients who would benefit, and building a referral ask into the end of every project. Judah Hernandez of Black & White Media and the hosts land on the classic advice in importance of teams: when the calendar is quiet, work on the business instead of just in it, tightening systems, offers, and positioning.

Smaller budgets are part of it. Rob Kaczmark of Spirit Juice Studios and the hosts agree the market has cooled, and rather than pass on small projects they lean toward making them work, adjusting pricing and offerings to meet a client where the budget actually is and treating a first small job as an entry point rather than a ceiling. One of Rob’s largest clients started as a single day of event coverage, a story from building a dual-focused video production company. Jon Corbin of Corbin Visual puts the mindset simply on vertical dramas, values, and hard times: making some money, staying active, and remaining useful beats waiting for the perfect project. Knowing what a video actually costs is what lets you right-size a production without giving the margin away.

Where the Owners Disagree

Stay lean or bet big: Bouche Media credits having no lease and a small team for surviving months of no work, and the hosts were glad they had not signed an office lease right before the pandemic, while Perspective Pictures signed a five-year lease at pandemic rates and doubled its revenue. The difference was the cash already in the bank. Take the small job or protect the price: Spirit Juice and Corbin Visual make small budgets work as a way in, while Leveler Media is happy to say no thank you to a lowball budget. Referrals or a marketing machine: CHUCK Media still runs on referrals for most of its work and hits the phones when it goes quiet, while Signature Video Group and Lapse argue the channel you own has to keep running in the good months. Change what you sell or wait it out: Great Things, Bee Video, and Heehaw changed their service mix within weeks; Bouche and Republic24 held their shape and waited for clients to come back.

What We Are Doing at Lapse

We have adapted the way most of the owners above did. When pipelines slowed and approvals dragged, we cut internal costs, did more in-house, and right-sized productions so a smaller budget still works, a Canon C70 instead of a RED, or one fewer PA on set. It kept work coming in and actually raised our margins, because five percent profit beats zero and beats staying home that week. We invoice in three stages, each due on a set date whatever the timeline, Google search remains our main lead source, and we came close to leasing an office right before the pandemic, which in hindsight we were lucky to dodge.

The Playbook

Distilled from sixteen episodes, in the order the cycle runs.

1. Keep marketing in the busy months. Put your own content and outreach on a schedule that does not stop when the calendar fills; the famine starts when you coast.
2. Cap any single client’s share of the year. Spread work across industries and relationships so losing one account is a bad quarter, not a crisis.
3. Plan on half a strong year. Budget hires, rent, and spend as if a good year will be cut in half, and treat the rest as upside.
4. Arrange credit before you need it. A line of credit set up in a good month is the cheapest insurance against the gap between work and payment.
5. Invoice on dates, not delivery. Take a deposit up front and make the balance due on a fixed date after production, finished or not.
6. Keep fixed costs light. Every lease and salary is a month you must cover with no work coming in; add them only when recurring work can carry them.
7. When it goes quiet, get active. Hit the phones with targeted outreach, shop finished work to similar clients, ask for referrals, and take the small job that could become a big client.
8. Know your pivot in advance. Decide which service you could switch to (live, animation, product work) if shoots stop, and use slow weeks to work on the business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Source Episodes

Every perspective in this guide comes from an on-the-record conversation. Go deeper with the full episodes:

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