What's Your Video Production Process?
In this episode of How to Shoot Video for Your Business, we’re talking about the filming process - what we run through on each of our commercial video projects and what that could mean for your business if you’re looking at shooting video.
So if you’ve been struggling to have some structure to your videos, then this is going to be of interest for you.
The first thing to mention is that this form of structure, process and strategy needs to be scaleable. There is no point in having pages and pages of 'to-dos’ to if you’re running a very short and simple video. Conversely, if we skimp the process on our large commercial projects, then we’re likely to have a lot of problems.
So what’s our 6 step process?
Step 1. Develop the Scope
We need to understand the scope of the video.
We question whether this is a one-off or part of a series?
We need to consider where we’re going to use this video - for example, a website video is likely to be longer than an introduction to social (as visitors to your website are more engaged than those on social).
We need to consider what our key messages are - so that we can effectively communicate them during the video… and making sure that we’re not trying to communicate too much in one video.
And, the often the most overlooked point - what are the logistics of shooting - so do we need talent? Where are we shooting? Do we need props?
What we need to do at this stage of planning is to move the video from a concept to a full and comprehensively understood planned idea.
The level of this will be scaleable to your business. So if you’re a sole trader - it’s likely that your plans are going to be a lot smaller than if you’re part of a team.
Step 2. Paperwork
In the second step we move into planning paperwork. This is completely scaleable depending on the size and complexity of the project.
For small simple videos, it might just be a series of bullet points that you’re going to talk around. For larger projects this may be writing a script and/or shot list - planning out the full shoot - so that you know exactly what is going to be shot, what is going to be presented.
Your plan should be enough that you don’t need to be thinking on your feet whilst shooting.
Planning cannot be underemphasised. The foundations of a house are the most important, and for filming having a plan is the foundations of a house. 99% of the time when productions run into trouble, the route cause is not having clear or detailed enough planning.
Step 3. Production
This is where everyone gets excited. So excited in fact that most skip straight to this part… and the result is usually an overly-long production or missing elements. So please, please, please…. make sure you have completed your planning prior to shooting.
The aim of your shoot is to follow any plans you’ve made 95% of the time. This will help ensure you stay on time, on budget and that you get everything you need for editing.
So what’s with that 5% - well, any form of planning needs some adaptation. Nothing on set ever runs 100% to plan - and that’s where you need to have some flexibility. Locations may change, talent may not be able to attend at exactly the time specified, sometimes, what you had planned goes completely out the window for various reasons on the day. So try and stick to the plan, but be flexible.
Step 4. Post Production
This is where we start to edit. And normally what happens is that people start pulling together bits and pieces and it becomes a frustrating and lengthy process.
But what will help you, is to have a plan…. and use this plan to edit by.
Again, sure you need some flexibility, but the plan you’ve made should be your starting point and then build from there. Piece in what you know and leave space for the problems.
You have spent time and effort on your plan, so recognise that, and don’t leave it gathering dust when you go to edit.
Step 5. Review & Changes
For us, we’d normally send out our videos to our clients - making sure we capture and action any changes that they might have.
But for your business this likely to be different. You may have a team or manager that needs to review and approve the work. Even if you don’t have this, it would be worth getting someone familiar and that you trust to review your video before you use it.
Trust us when we say - when you’ve been working on a project for hours and hours, it’s easy to miss simple things that need correction. Simple spelling mistakes, even checking that the video communicates what you need it to will help you maintain a professional look for your business.
Step 6. Delivery and Use
This is the time you’ve been waiting for - your video is ready to go. And here we have a couple of thoughts.
Don’t rush the launch. Congratulations, you finished your video at 11pm, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be posted to social straight away. Yes, you’re excited to get it out, but wait until it’ll have maximum impact.
Make sure you have backups. You’ve put in a lot of time and effort into this - make sure you keep backups of your files and the video. You might want to make changes down the road, and it would be good to be able to re-open files - so don’t just keep the final video file, make sure you also have all your editing files.
Keep your files organised. Putting your videos to use more than once is going to make sure you get value from them - so by having organised files means you can find and repost this asset more easily.
Let’s wrap this up
So there you have it - that’s our typical production process. Yours is likely to look like a scaled-down version, but the 6 steps can still apply. As ever, I hope this has been of use and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Until next time,
Beard Out
