Planning is cheap. Not in absolute terms, perhaps. The rough videos Pixar produces require a director leading a small team of writers and artists. Keeping them all working for years is a significant cost. But compared to the cost of producing digital animation ready for theaters, which requires hundreds of highly skilled people using the most advanced technology in the world, movie stars doing voices, and leading composers creating the score, it is so minor that even making experimental videos over and over again is relatively inexpensive.
