Yes, if you want it. It is a separate line item, and most companies who ask for it do not actually want it once they know what it is.
Here is what is in it, why it costs something, and what people usually mean when they ask.
What a shoot day actually contains
One day of filming produces somewhere between two hundred and five hundred gigabytes of files.
Inside that is every take, including the ones where somebody lost their train of thought. Every angle of every shot. Audio from two or three sources running the whole time. The eleven versions of the same sentence where the fourth one was the good one.
There is no folder in there labeled the good stuff. That folder is the thing you hired somebody to build.
Why it is a line item
Three reasons, and none of them are about being difficult.
Storage and transfer. Half a terabyte does not go in an email. It goes on a drive that somebody buys, loads, and hands over, or it goes to a cloud transfer that takes hours and costs money to host.
Organizing it. Raw camera files off a professional body are often in a format your computer will not play without specific software. Handing over an unusable pile is worse than handing over nothing, so it gets organized, converted where needed, and labeled.
It is a real asset. The decisions about what to shoot, where to stand, what to ask, and what to keep are the work. The footage is the record of that work.
What people usually mean when they ask
Almost every time, the real request is one of three things.
They want more than one video out of the day. Fair, and much easier to give. Ask for more cuts instead of more files.
They are worried about being locked in. Also fair. The answer is that a good production relationship should not depend on holding your footage hostage, and it should be spelled out in the agreement either way.
They want it for their records. Everybody says this. In practice it goes on a drive nobody opens.
If any of those is the actual concern, there is a better solution than four hundred gigs of files.
What you get without asking
A single shoot day usually produces the main video plus twelve to fifteen shorter cuts sized for social and email. On one project a handful of shoot days produced over fifty finished pieces.
That is what most companies are actually after when they ask about raw footage. They want the day to keep paying off. It should, and it does not require the files to do it.
When raw footage genuinely makes sense
Some situations where it is the right call.
You have an in house editor who will actually use it. You are building a library for a product line that will be updated for years. Legal or compliance requires you to retain source material. You are documenting something that will never happen again.
In all four cases, say so up front. It changes how the day gets shot, not just what gets delivered.
Short version
Yes, raw footage is available. It is a separate line item.
One shoot day is two hundred to five hundred gigs, mostly unusable takes, in formats most computers will not play.
Storage, transfer, and organizing all cost real time and money, which is why it is priced separately.
Most people asking for raw footage actually want more finished pieces out of the day, and that is easier to give them.
If you have a real reason to need the source files, say so before the shoot. It changes how we film.
We make documentary style video for manufacturing and construction companies across Greensboro and the Triad. Happy to come to you. Get in touch.