You need a video, but maybe you haven’t walked through the entire video production process. Or, maybe you need more information on how we work with you to produce your video. Here are your video production expectations:
Initial Meeting
During our initial meeting-either on the phone or in person-we will ask you a variety of questions about your video: length, type, audience, schedule, etc. These questions will help us better understand your production needs. You can expect to spend about 20 to 30 minutes answering each of our questions.
Estimate and Proposal
Once we know your video requirements, we start creating a budget based on all the production elements involved with your project. Occasionally, we may follow up with some additional clarifying questions. We then create a short proposal outlining our understanding of the video and the goals for the project. Included in this proposal is our estimate of what it’ll cost to produce the video. This phase of the process typically takes 1 to 3 days.
Start the Project
Once you approve the proposal, we start the pre-production process working closely with you and your team to make sure we meet all your expectations.
Create Production Plan
Our first step in the pre-production phase is to create a production plan. To have a strategy in place before shooting any footage is essential to having a smooth production. This plan will include our steps along the way and the timing of those steps.
Story Creative
The foundation for your video will be the story. Everything will center around this core aspect of your video. Actors, makeup, wardrobe, locations, camera movements, and even editing styles are all based on the story. If you need help crafting the story, we have professional scriptwriters who can help. Or, if you have a script already, we can work with you to make sure it captures what you need at the budget we agreed upon.
For corporate productions that don’t require scripting, it’s good to work through the messages that need to be captured and conveyed in the video. This will determine the interview questions that will be asked during production.
Visual Design
Along with the story comes the visual strategy for that story. The “look and feel” of the video will emerge during production, but by having a strategy in place for the visual design, we’ll be able to manage the creative for effectively.
Client Creative Approval
To avoid any delays or additional costs, we must have the story creative approved before any cameras roll. Whether it’s a polished script or a list of management interviews, the story creative must be locked.
Shooting
On the first day of shooting, our team will arrive with the approved shooting schedule, crew and production equipment. As with most productions, we will have a very specific timeline for the shoot day(s). While there may be some slight flexibility in the schedule, our goal will be to get in and capture all of the needed footage according to our timeline.
Editing the Video
Once all of the footage is captured, it’s time to move into post-production. There are many levels to post-production. How this process flows depends on the delivery requirements. If there is a tight timeline, then some of the building of the video will happen concurrently. When there is time to work through the edit, then the following steps are typically handled sequentially:
- Review footage to find key message points
- Create a “rough cut” and get feedback
- Make revisions, create a “first cut” and get feedback
- Make final revisions and create a “final cut”
- Approve “final cut”
Polishing the Video
Once the “final cut” is approved, then we move into polishing of the video. This entails a variety of steps like:
- Clean up and balance the audio
- Drop in background music and mix all audio
- Color correct and color balance the clips
- Add any graphics, lower thirds or animations
Approve
Once the video has been polished, we present it to you for the final approval. It’s our goal to reach this stage of the production process with no more revisions or changes. Upon approval, we will then create a video master.
Distribute
Whether it’s broadcast, online or DVD, we will then use the video master to create a video for your distribution medium.