San Diego video production company for life sciences and healthcare

Yes. Healthcare and life sciences is our deepest sector. We have produced more than 200 videos for Kaiser Permanente, patient and product work for Abbott and Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, a brand and investor film for the spine surgery robotics company Carevature, and long-form documentary and podcast series for Desert Oasis Healthcare. The recurring problem is always the same: the subject is clinical, regulated and often invisible, and the film still has to move a patient, a physician candidate or an investor.

7 Hills Productions is headquartered in Irvine, California, with home bases in Los Angeles and San Diego. San Diego is roughly a ninety-minute drive from our Irvine base, which matters more than it sounds: the crew, the cameras and the producer who scoped your project arrive together as one team rather than being assembled from local freelancers, and most San Diego estimates carry no flight or hotel line at all.

We sign your Business Associate Agreement when one is required, and we film only under your own patient consent and authorization forms rather than our own. On set we clear identifiable patient information, charts and screens from frame before a take. After the shoot, raw footage access is limited to named people, and we will return or delete material on request. We do not describe ourselves as HIPAA-certified, because that is not a status a production vendor can hold; the obligations that bind us come from the agreement we sign with you.

Yes, and it is most of what we do in this sector. We work to a small crew footprint, schedule around clinic sessions and operating lists rather than against them, and supply crew names, equipment lists and certificates of insurance early enough to clear facilities and security review. In laboratory and cleanroom environments we follow your gowning, no-go and safety rules, and we walk the space with your team before the shoot day so the plan accounts for what a camera is not allowed to see.

Yes. The Torrey Pines mesa, UTC and Sorrento Valley hold most of San Diego life sciences activity, from clinical-stage biotechs and diagnostics companies to research institutes. The work is usually a brand or investor film, a scientific explainer, a leadership or founder story, or a recruitment film for a team that is hiring faster than it can explain itself. We plan these around your publication, clearance or funding timeline rather than a generic shoot date.

Most 7 Hills projects run between $3,500 and $50,000. A single patient or customer testimonial starts at $3,500, a corporate or interview video starts around $6,000, and brand films, product launches and commercials start around $9,000 and scale with crew size, locations and deliverables. Most quotes include captions, colour grading, licensed music and social cutdowns. Because San Diego is a drive rather than a flight for us, most estimates carry no travel and accommodation line.

For filming inside a private office, clinic, lab or studio, generally no. Filming on public property in the City of San Diego does require authorization, and the city asks for requests at least three full business days before the first production date, with separate applications for the public right of way and for parks, beaches and open spaces. Filming on Port of San Diego tidelands, on a university campus or inside a hospital is governed by that property owner instead. We handle the applications and the certificates of insurance as part of pre-production.

Yes, with a licensed remote pilot operating under FAA Part 107. San Diego has a lot of controlled airspace, including the approaches to San Diego International, Montgomery-Gibbs, Miramar and North Island, so a great many locations need an airspace authorization before we can launch. We check the airspace and request authorization during pre-production, and we tell you honestly when a location is not going to clear in time.

Yes. Large venues come with load-in windows, house power, in-house AV and their own rules about where a camera can stand. Tell us the venue and the run of show and we handle the logistics, the multi-camera coverage, the speaker and booth interviews and the recap edit, usually delivered within the same week so the footage is still useful while the event is fresh.

Three to four weeks from kickoff to final delivery is typical, and twenty-eight days is our average. Interview-led films move faster than animation, and multi-location or multi-language projects take longer. When a launch, a conference or a funding announcement sets the date, we plan backwards from that date and build the review rounds into the schedule rather than hoping they fit at the end.

We can do either. Most clients bring a goal and an audience rather than a script, and we handle the messaging, the interview questions, the shot list and the structure. If you have a script or an internal communications team with a strong view, we will work to it and flag anything that will not survive the edit. Scripting and pre-production are included in the estimate, not billed as an extra afterwards.

You do. On delivery you receive the finished masters, the social cutdowns and the raw footage, colour graded at no extra cost. There is no retainer, no licence that expires and no charge to get your own material back later. Music is licensed for the use we agree, and we tell you up front if a track is limited to a particular platform or term.