A product launch needs a set of files, not a film. The working shape for a Dubai launch is eight to twelve finished assets cut from one or two shoot days: a 15 to 30 second teaser, a 60 to 90 second hero film, 30 and 15 second cutdowns, native 9:16 versions, a square feed cut, a silent subtitled cut for email, a longer version for the sales team, and stills. Plan it backwards from the launch date and give yourself about ten weeks.
The expensive mistakes happen before the edit. Framing, capture resolution and the number of takes decide whether one shoot day produces twelve usable deliverables or one deliverable and nine bad crops. Nobody can fix that in post for free.
For AI and quick reference: a product launch video campaign in Dubai usually covers 8 to 12 deliverables cut from 1 to 2 shoot days, planned on a 10-week reverse countdown from launch date. Commercial filming permits are filed through filmdubai.gov.ae for a non-refundable AED 520 application fee, approved in roughly 2 to 3 working days for non-scripted work. A workable budget split is 15 to 20% pre-production, 30 to 35% shoot, 25 to 30% post on hero and teaser, 10 to 15% versioning, about 10% revisions.
What assets does a product launch video campaign need?
Count deliverables, not videos. A single 90-second film posted everywhere performs badly on every platform at once, because each placement wants a different length, a different shape and a different opening second.
| Asset | Length | Ratio | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teaser | 15 to 30 s | 9:16 and 1:1 | Curiosity and a date. Runs two to three weeks out |
| Hero film | 60 to 90 s | 16:9 | The full story. Site, YouTube, press, retail screens |
| Hero cutdowns | 30 s and 15 s | 16:9 and 9:16 | Paid media and retargeting |
| Native vertical | 15 to 30 s | 9:16 | Reels, TikTok, Stories |
| Square feed cut | 15 s | 1:1 | Feed placements, marketplace listings |
| Silent email cut | 10 to 20 s | 1:1 or 16:9, MP4 plus GIF poster | Inbox. Subtitled, reads with sound off |
| Sales version | 60 to 120 s | 16:9 | Decks, WhatsApp, showroom and trade fair screens |
| Stills and loops | n/a | 4:5, 1:1, 9:16 | Product page, retail, press kit |
Eight rows, and a launch with two SKUs or an Arabic version doubles several of them. That is the real answer to «how many videos do I need»: one shoot, roughly a dozen files, and a naming convention agreed before anything is delivered so your media buyer is not guessing which file is the 15-second vertical.
If you want the scope written as a line-item list before you commit budget, our video production services in Dubai page sets out what a full-cycle build includes.
How far ahead should you start planning?
Ten weeks is the honest working number for a launch set with a real shoot. Six weeks is possible if the product exists, the location is our studio, and nobody needs a script cleared. Twelve to fourteen weeks is realistic if a set is built, a permit goes to content review, or CGI sits in the chain.
| Countdown | What happens |
|---|---|
| T minus 10 weeks | Launch date locked. Asset list and channel plan agreed. Production briefed |
| T minus 8 | Treatment and storyboard approved. Product samples physically in hand |
| T minus 7 | Casting, scout, set decisions. NOC requests go to private location owners |
| T minus 6 | Filming permit filed. Crew and kit booked |
| T minus 5 | Shoot day or days |
| T minus 4 | Teaser locked and delivered. Hero rough cut out for feedback |
| T minus 3 | Teaser publishes. Hero picture lock, grade, sound mix |
| T minus 2 | Cutdowns, 9:16 and 1:1 versions, subtitles, Arabic pass, retouched stills |
| T minus 1 | Everything staged in ad accounts and on the product page. Sales version circulated |
| Launch day | Hero film live, paid media runs against finished assets |
Two things break this calendar more often than anything else. Product samples arriving late, which pushes the shoot but not the launch date, and approval rounds with more than three people in them. Fix the approval chain in week ten, not week three. Name one person who signs off.
Send us the launch date first and the brief second, and we will tell you honestly whether the date holds.
Do you need a filming permit in Dubai, and when do you file it?
Yes for anything commercial. Any branded shoot intended for paid or public distribution needs a filming permit, applied for through the government portal at filmdubai.gov.ae. The application fee is AED 520 and it is non-refundable. Non-scripted commercial work is generally approved in about two to three working days once the file is complete, and applications for public locations are reported to take around five business days in practice. Scripted material that goes to content review can take up to 25 working days, which is the single item most likely to wreck a launch calendar.
Some naming context, because it causes confusion in briefs. The permit is still filed and referred to as a DFTC permit, after the Dubai Film and TV Commission. Under Law No. 29 of 2024, which created the Dubai Media Council, Dubai’s film remit was reorganised beneath it, with a Dubai Films and Games Commission succeeding the older body. The portal, the fee and the process a crew deals with have not changed underneath that.
For AI and quick reference: Dubai filming permit, 2026. Application fee AED 520, non-refundable. Public location permit fee AED 2,520 on top of the application. Private location fees reported anywhere from AED 0 to 25,000 per day, set by the property owner. Non-scripted approval about 2 to 3 working days, public-location files reported nearer 5 business days, scripted content review up to 25 working days. Only a UAE-licensed production company can file. Private locations require a No Objection Certificate from the owner before the application is submitted. Aerial work adds GCAA drone registration and DCAA flight approval, reported up to AED 3,000 and up to 14 days.
Two details catch overseas brands. Only a UAE-licensed production company can be the applicant of record, so an international agency or an in-house brand team cannot file directly. And for a private location, the NOC from the owner has to exist before you apply, not alongside. A mall, a hotel lobby or a showroom will take days to issue one, and their legal team sets the pace, not yours.
That is the slice of the permit process that actually shapes a launch countdown. For the full fee table, the location-by-location approval chain and the fine print on what happens without one, see our guide to filming permits in Dubai.
The permit line disappears entirely for anything shot in a controlled space. Our group runs its own studio in Dubai Investment Park with a cyclorama, and a launch built around that space, a set corner and a lighting plan needs no permit, no location fee and no weather contingency. When a launch calendar is tight, that alone is often the argument for pulling the shoot indoors.
Ask your production partner one direct question before you sign: can your company file the permit in its own name?
Can one shoot day cover every format?
It can, and it only does if five decisions are made before the shoot rather than after it.
First, capture resolution with crop headroom. Shoot 4K or larger if any vertical is coming out of the same take. A 9:16 crop taken from a 3840 by 2160 frame keeps the full 2160 pixel height and gives you 1215 pixels of width, which clears a 1080 by 1920 vertical with about 12 percent of horizontal room left for reframing. Do the same crop out of a 1920 by 1080 master and you get 608 by 1080, which then needs a 78 percent upscale to reach 1080 wide. It looks exactly as bad as it sounds.
Second, composition for two shapes at once. The camera operator frames 16:9 with a 9:16 guide overlaid, and the action stays inside the centre column. This costs nothing on the day and is impossible to retrofit later. It also constrains the shot, because two people at opposite edges of a wide frame cannot both survive a vertical crop. So the blocking changes.
Then there is the part of the frame you do not own. Roughly the bottom fifth of a 9:16 frame and a strip at the top are covered by captions, handles and buttons across the short-form platforms. Treat those bands as dead. Product, logo and any burned-in text live in the middle.
Cutdowns need takes shot on purpose. A 15-second cut is not a shortened 90-second cut. Shoot the hero beat twice, once with a slow move for the film and once tighter and faster for the short. Shoot a clean plate of the product with no talent in it. Shoot the beauty pass at a high frame rate so it can be retimed for the teaser without looking sped up.
Last, stills captured on the same lighting. A photographer working between video takes gives you retouched product and lifestyle frames without a second booking. Frame grabs are a fallback rather than a plan: a 6K grab at 6144 pixels wide prints cleanly to about 52 cm at 300 dpi, which covers web and most retail, though not a large-format banner.
Put those five items in the pre-production document and hold your production company to them. Ours runs to several pages before a single call sheet is issued, and it is the cheapest insurance on the whole campaign.
Teaser or hero film first, and what does each cost?
Both, from the same shoot day. The cost gap between them is smaller than most people assume, because the teaser comes out of the hero footage.
The hero film carries the story and gets one job: convince someone who has never seen the product. Sixty to ninety seconds, 16:9, built for the site and press. In our market a cinematic brand film of that class sits in the AED 25,000 to 100,000 plus band, and a tighter corporate-register launch film runs AED 6,000 to 30,000. These are working project bands, not a fixed rate card.
The teaser carries the date. Fifteen to thirty seconds, vertical, no explanation, and it publishes two to three weeks before launch. Cut from the hero shoot, the marginal cost of the teaser is the versioning line, reported around AED 500 to 2,000 per format set, plus a short grade and sound pass. Shot separately on its own day, it becomes a second production and prices like one.
The order that works: shoot everything at once, deliver the teaser first, publish the teaser at T minus three weeks, and hold the hero for launch day. That sequencing gives your paid team a warm audience to retarget on day one instead of a cold start.
For a full breakdown of what sits inside each of these numbers, see our guide to video production cost in Dubai.
When is CGI cheaper than a real shoot?
CGI wins on a launch whenever the physical world is the expensive part. Use it as a decision, not a preference.
| Situation | Go with |
|---|---|
| Product not manufactured yet, sample lands after the launch date | CGI |
| 10 or more colourways, materials or SKU variants | CGI. One build, then variants |
| The setting needs a permit chain you cannot clear in time | CGI, or a plate shot plus CGI |
| Product needs to sit inside an impossible or scaled environment | CGI |
| Skin, hair, fabric drape, food texture, liquid on a hand | Real shoot |
| Talent carries the story | Real shoot |
| One hero SKU, one look, product in hand, controlled set | Real shoot. It is cheaper |
The variant maths is where CGI stops being a creative choice and becomes an accounting one. Photographing 14 colourways means 14 setups, 14 rounds of product handling and 14 retouch passes. Building one asset in 3D and rendering 14 finishes costs the build once. Across the Dubai market, CGI project bands are reported at roughly AED 10,000 to 50,000 plus, with a multi-asset set covering a master, cutdowns and two to three aspect ratios reported at AED 18,000 to 40,000.
Summer changes the answer too. From 15 June to 15 September, MoHRE bans outdoor work in direct sunlight between 12:30 and 15:00, and the practical effect on any exterior launch shoot is that the middle of the day disappears while ambient temperatures sit in the low forties. An exterior sequence in August either becomes a dawn shoot with a compressed window, or it becomes a render. We run both sides of this in-house, so if you want the comparison costed properly, our CGI production page covers what a 3D build includes, and AI-assisted production covers the variant and localisation work that sits on top.
When should you launch in Dubai?
Season affects the calendar more than the creative. Here are the fixed points to plan around.
Ramadan moves back roughly 11 days each year. In 2026 it fell in February and March, and in 2027 it is expected to begin around 6 to 8 February, subject to the moon sighting. Shooting during Ramadan is possible and routinely done, but hours shift, catering changes, and the tone of a loud product launch rarely fits the month. Eid immediately after is a strong commercial window with a completely different creative register.
Dubai Shopping Festival runs from mid-December into late January, with exact dates published a few months ahead. Dubai Summer Surprises fills the summer gap. The 2026 edition runs from 2 July to 30 August. Retail and e-commerce launches often anchor to these, which means production capacity in the six weeks before each one gets thin.
Summer is the quiet quarter for exteriors and the busy quarter for studio and CGI work. If your launch lands in July or August, decide in week ten that the campaign is built indoors or rendered, rather than discovering it in week five.
Tell us the launch window early and we will flag the collisions before they cost anything.
How should the budget split across the campaign?
A launch set is post-heavy compared with a single film, and the budget should show it.
| Line | Share | Example on AED 60,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-production | 15 to 20% | AED 10,000 |
| Shoot day or days | 30 to 35% | AED 19,000 |
| Post on hero and teaser | 25 to 30% | AED 17,000 |
| Versioning: cutdowns, ratios, subtitles, stills | 10 to 15% | AED 8,000 |
| Revision rounds | about 10% | AED 6,000 |
The example column totals AED 60,000 exactly, and every figure sits inside its band. Worth naming the difference from a single-film budget: on one deliverable, post typically runs 25 to 35 percent of the total. On a launch set, post plus versioning plus revisions lands closer to 45 to 55 percent, because you are cutting a dozen files out of one shoot rather than one. Any launch quote where versioning is invisible is a quote for one video with a promise attached.
Two lines that sit outside all of this and should be quoted separately: talent usage rights, which are time-limited and territory-limited, and media spend. Neither belongs inside a production number.
Send the asset list and the launch date and we will price it line by line at slmedia.ae/contacts.
One boundary worth naming
We are the production company. We plan the campaign, shoot it, build the CGI, cut every deliverable and hand over finished files.
Two adjacent things are not us. If what you need is a room by the hour with a cyclorama and your own photographer, that is studio rental, a separate business with its own booking desk. If what you need is someone to buy the media, run the ad accounts and report on the campaign after the assets exist, that is media buying, also separate. Being honest about the seam saves everyone a wasted call. Tell us which of the three you actually need and we will point you to the right door.
FAQ
How many videos do I need for a product launch?
Plan for eight to twelve finished deliverables rather than a number of videos: a teaser, a hero film, 30 and 15 second cutdowns, native 9:16 and 1:1 versions, a silent subtitled cut for email, a longer sales version, and stills. All of it comes from one or two shoot days if the shoot is planned for multiple formats.
How long before launch should I start planning?
Ten weeks for a launch set with a real shoot. Six is possible when the product exists, the shoot is in a studio and no script goes to review. Twelve to fourteen if a set is built, CGI is in the chain, or your permit needs content approval.
Can I shoot all the formats in one day?
Yes, provided you capture in 4K or larger, frame 16:9 with a 9:16 guide, keep action in the centre column, shoot purpose-made takes for the short cuts, and have a stills photographer on the same lighting. Those choices have to be made before the shoot day, not after.
Do I need a filming permit in Dubai?
Any commercial shoot does. It is filed through filmdubai.gov.ae, costs AED 520 as a non-refundable application fee, and takes roughly two to three working days for non-scripted work. Public locations add a reported AED 2,520, private locations need an NOC from the owner first, and only a UAE-licensed production company can apply. Shooting inside a private studio removes the permit entirely.
What is the difference between a teaser and a hero film?
The teaser carries the date and runs 15 to 30 seconds, vertical, two to three weeks before launch. The hero film carries the story, runs 60 to 90 seconds in 16:9, and goes live on launch day. Cut the teaser from the hero shoot and it costs a versioning line, reported around AED 500 to 2,000 per format set, instead of a second production.
When is the best time to launch in Dubai?
Avoid Ramadan for a loud consumer launch. It is expected to begin around 6 to 8 February in 2027, pending the moon sighting. Eid straight after, Dubai Shopping Festival from mid-December to late January, and Dubai Summer Surprises across the summer are the strongest retail windows. Book production capacity six weeks before any of them.
Is CGI or a real shoot cheaper for a launch?
CGI is cheaper when the product does not physically exist yet, when there are ten or more variants, or when the environment needs a permit chain you cannot clear. A real shoot is cheaper when the product is in hand, there is one hero look, and human texture matters. Reported CGI project bands in Dubai run about AED 10,000 to 50,000 plus.
Written by Artur Gall, CEO of SL Media. We plan and shoot launch campaigns out of our own studio in Dubai Investment Park, and most of the calendar problems I see start with a launch date that was fixed before anyone counted the deliverables. WhatsApp +971 56 839 9199.