Video production process

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Everybody knows that creating professional video is an extremely labour intensive process. Even if you have been through this process many times before it can be daunting. It is all the more frightening if you are not sure what exactly is involved in the process.

1. First up – Discovery!

Each project is special, so keep in mind some elements may change. Planning isn’t life or death, but it is the bedrock of a perfect video!

Video production projects run for around 6 – 8 weeks. At the start of each stage, we’ll let you know when you can expect the next deliverable. Most projects are signed off on the second edit review. The quicker you give us feedback, the closer we’ll be to your shiny new video.

The following questions should help you decide.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A VIDEO?

Video is an excellent way to make an impact on your audience, to tell a story, to make them care about an issue, to make them aware of a product, to show them something new or how to do something, or to stimulate interest in a subject. It is definitely not a good way of getting across details, giving a lot of analysis.

WHAT OUTCOMES DO YOU WANT?

What is the exact effect you want the film to have on the audience? Do you want them to immediately

go out and buy your product? Change their behaviour in a certain way? Be entertained and come back next week to watch more?

WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE?

When you know what effect you want the film to have you should be able to very clearly define the ‘message’ of the film. You might want to tell the audience about all the wonderful things your organisation does, but is that the most effective way of using those precious minutes when you have their attention? How much information did you retain from the last film you watched on TV? You should have one key message, and no more than a few secondary messages.

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

By clearly defining your message and outcomes you will also clearly define who exactly you want to reach with that message. You may find that there are several messages and each has a different target audience. These days this it is easier, and cheaper, than ever to reach the audience you want thanks to the internet. It may be cost effective to create slightly different films to talk to the different audiences. It is vital to remember, nothing can make somebody engage with a film that tells them things they already know or that are irrelevant to them.

HOW WILL YOUR AUDIENCE WATCH THE FILM?

Once you know who your audience(s) is/are you can decide how you are going to get them to watch the film. Providing that you have a clearly defined audience, the producer can help you devise a distribution strategy, which today will almost always involve an online element. Remember making the film is just one part of the process, if you don’t have a realistic plan, and a probably a budget, for distributing your film how are people going to watch it?

WHEN IS MY DEADLINE?

There is probably an ideal time for you to release the finished video. Maybe it is a product launch, an annual meeting, a conference, an exhibition, the publication of a report, a film festival deadline, the release of another film. It helps everyone to have a realistic deadline to aim for. If you can tie it in with some related news event then maybe you can get some free publicity?

WHAT IS MY BUDGET?

There are always many different ways to make a film or video, your budget is one of the major factors determining the way to try and communicate your message. Everyone wants to get the lowest quote for the work. As in all fields, the cheapest quote will not always be the best value for money.

REMEMBER The budget for filming MUST be accompanied by a budget for distribution. The work involved getting people to watch your film is often much more than in making it. When working on a very limited budget, it is useful to give the producer a rough idea of your budget – between $X and $Y, or below $X. There are many different ways to do most things and they will be able to tell you clearly what they can do for that amount rather than giving you irrelevant quotes.

WHICH PRODUCER?

When you have the answers to the questions above you are ready to

approach producers. Standard practice is to compile the answers into a “brief” or “tender” document, which you should submitted to a number of production companies (generally 3 to 5). A good producer should respond to your enquiry with a written film proposal, a draft budget and some examples of previous work, before being invited in for a meeting.

2. Pre production Stage

Once you have chosen the producer, the client and the producer meet to finalise all the elements from the proposal to produce an itemised budget and suggested shooting schedule.

The production schedule will be created in consultation with all the people involved. This will translate all of the elements in the desired final programme into days of production and post-production.

The schedule covers research and scripting needs, detailing the “look” for the video, the selection of those people and locations to appear in the video, identifying special graphical elements such as animation, determining the need for narration and music, any travel needs, and overall programme length.

Once these are agreed a contract will be signed, and it is normal to pay a deposit of up to half the total budget up front. During the shoot the client should sign off any additions to the initial budget – though it is normal that costs for transport and courier fees will be additional.

Once we’ve wrangled the information we need, we’ll write a video script that crystallizes your business’s core message. Before we meddle with visuals, we must make sure your offer is communicated clearly. While writing, we ask ourselves “Would this script work for radio?” If the answer is yes, we’re on our way to creating a video with real purpose.

Once the script is approved, the producer will reach out to your key stakeholders to make sure that we’re all up to speed.

3. Production. Making Movies.

The production phase is often the most exciting phase of the process. All the pre-production ideas have to be translated into actual moving images.

The actual recording of the programme elements may take place over a day, a period of days, weeks or months and can be done locally or in another city, another country or countries, in a studio, office or outside on location.

All of these variables having been determined in the pre-production phase.

It is important to bear in mind that film-making is not an exact science, especially if filming ‘on location’, rather than in the controlled environment of a studio. There are always factors – like the weather, the behaviour of children or their adult equivalents, actors, that are outside the director’s control.

The client should be available, or at least contactable, for some, if not all, of the production phase in case any last minute problems arise that will mean changes to the agreed script.

4. Post-production. Editing Graphics Grading and Music.

In the post-production phase all of your footage is then copied, edited and ‘shaped’ into its final form in a series of stages, which may take several weeks, or even months. These steps include:

LOGGING AND CAPTURING THE FOOTAGE This will inform us of exactly what has been recorded and putting all elements into digital format, or these days more likely transferring from one digital device to another.

ROUGH EDIT This is usually the longest single phase of assembling your programme. It may take a few days, weeks or even a few months.

CONSULTATION It is essential that the client has adequate time built into the schedule to show a rough edit to everybody involved in their decision making process, so that a comprehensive list of changes can be drawn up before the film is finalised.

FINE CUT In the rough stage time consuming ‘fiddly’ elements can’t be fully completed until the overall structure of the film has been finalized

MUSIC – depending on your budget you can choose to have music especially composed, or use library music tracks. It is generally better to choose the kind of track your audience will like, and then commission music that will be appropriate – which could even be a ‘soundalike’ track. Often the large online music libraries will have tracks which are appropriate.

ONLINE EDIT In the rough stage time consuming ‘fiddly’ elements can’t be fully completed until the overall structure of the film has been finalized– production of the final ‘master’ copy of the video in a format that can then be duplicated as many times and in whatever formats, as required.

5. Tadah! – Delivery

Simply put this is simply maximising the impact of your video.

You will have already decided, and budgeted for, a number of copies of your video in various formats, to be duplicated from the ‘master’ copy supplied by the producer.

The formats will depend on the intended audience, these days demand for an encoded clip of the video for use on a website.