How is a Professional Video Put Together?
The quality of a video doesn’t simply depend on the cost but also the production values that go into it. If you are looking to create a professional video that will have the desired impact on your highly valued customers, there are a number of factors that need to come together.
Whether you are making a 30-second promo video or a longer 3-minute explainer, your process should always follow the same, important steps:
- Planning
It is important that you create a video that will meet your objectives and outcomes. Our methodology is to look at the beginning .This is where we define your video content strategy. We’ll ask you plenty of questions to gain crucial insight into your business and market.
- Understand your key audience
- Define your message
- Work out what you’d like to achieve
- Confirm how video will support your existing marketing mix
- Agree what success looks like for you
Working out ‘the who’, ‘the what’ and ‘the why’ from the start will save you both time and money.
- Pre-Production
This is the period where you need to get all your ducks in a row and tick quite a few boxes. Pre-production is essentially the planning stage of your video. Here, you’ll decide what you want your professional video to do and how you are going to achieve this.
- Meetings: You’ll work with your video production company to nail down the specifics about your project and how it’s going to be carried out.
- Scripting and Storyboarding: You may want to put together a firm script and plan each scene of your video so that you have control of what happens from beginning to end.
- Personnel and Equipment: Another important factor of pre-production is how many staff you are going to need, what equipment and props require and how much all these will cost. For example, you could require specialist cameras such as drones or underwater equipment for your shoot. This is where you really begin to see where your video production money is being spent.
- Locations: Choice here can prove expensive so picking the right ones is important. Don’t forget, if you are looking to film somewhere exotic, you have to get film crews and equipment there too. The cheapest options are either on site where your business is or in a studio.
- Time and Scheduling: The complexity of your video and what you want to achieve is also going to affect how long it’s going to take and the cost of doing it. Obviously, a shoot that can be completed in one day will be cheaper than four or five days.
This is the actual shooting of the video and, if your pre-production has been done properly, it should run fairly smoothly. Where you are filming, and the type of video is going to determine what sort of crew you have on board. For example, if you are filming outdoors and there is plenty of noise, you might include an audio operator to help control things in addition to the standard camera operator and director.
- Post-Production
Once your video is in the can, so to speak, there’s one more vitally important stage and that’s post-production. This is where your professional video is finally put together using all the filming during the production stage.
This stage can include adding further audio or voiceovers, putting in graphics or animation and subtitles as well as making a range of editorial decisions that help meet the needs of your video. You might have additional costs if you want to use certain music, for example, or stock footage that helps get your message across.
- Distribution and marketing
There’s no point in making an excellent video if no one is going to watch it. You can measure the videos impact from both an audience and business perspective. We can provide the tools and analysis so, you will l be able to tangibly measure your return on investment.
During this stage we’ll:
- Identify your campaign goals
- Put together metrics to measure their performance
- Provide you with reports and statistics on how your video is performing
- Help you understand the results to make better commercial decisions
All five stages of the video creation process are important in their own right and creating a professional finish depends on getting each right.
Working with a video production company should give you a clear route for your project, from initial concept through to final completion and distribution. It ensures you end up with a professional video that is fit for your audience, engages them fully and provides a clear return on investment that benefits your marketing strategy. Talk to us about your video strategy today.