A global manager communicates with various local managers to receive and process video queries. The video queries identify components that process live video streams, placement options for where the components of the video query may be executed, and various video query plans. The video query plans include options such as framerate and video quality. As the global manager processes the video queries, the global manager determines an initial set of video query configurations that identify a video query plan and placement option for each component of a given video query. Using the initial set of video query configurations, the global manager then determines an optimal set of video query configurations for the received set of video queries. The global manager communications instructions to the local managers to execute the components of the video queries using the video query plans and placement options from the optimal set of video query configurations.