Pro Motion Media Blog

So what are the ele­ments that make up a good video shoot for you as a client of a video pro­duc­tion com­pany? I would like to share my opin­ion as to what you should look for when you con­tract to have your video pro­duc­tion done by a pro­fes­sional video com­pany.

Bud­get­ing

A client will ide­ally first deter­mine their bud­get for the project, so that the pro­duc­tion com­pany can work back­wards from there to pro­pose an approach. For instance, if the bud­get is lim­ited it may mean restrict­ing film­ing to a sin­gle day, whereas if the bud­get is quite high then ‘pro­duc­tion value’ (by way of mul­ti­ple cam­era angles, ani­ma­tion, etc.) may be added in pro­duc­tion or post-production. Inversely, if given a script or a detailed scope of the project, a pro­ducer should be able to esti­mate costs with rea­son­able accu­racy. That will ensure that the project is com­pleted in the time frame and bud­get that you planned.

Rep

After bud­get has been deter­mined, the num­ber one thing to ensure regard­ing a video pro­duc­tion com­pany is rep­u­ta­tion and reli­a­bil­ity. When you decide to invest in a video pro­duc­tion, you need to know that your hopes and aspi­ra­tions are in the hands of a com­pany who knows how to deliver your idea to fruition. That includes, most impor­tantly, lis­ten­ing; to you, to your call to action or your mes­sage, and to what you would like the end result to be. Look for client tes­ti­mo­ni­als on the video pro­duc­tion company’s web­site.  Here’s one from ours:

“I have found their exper­tise, cre­ative flair, and abil­ity to turn a project from its con­cep­tual stage to the fin­ished arti­cle, a stim­u­lat­ing and above all, enjoy­able process. In terms of qual­ity, ben­e­fi­cial out­comes, and value for money, I can thor­oughly rec­om­mend Pro Motion Media.” John Nor­wood, Part­ner, St. James Place

Plan­ning

Sec­ondly is prepa­ra­tion and plan­ning. A video shoot has three main parts. Detailed thought should be given to each of these por­tions equally.

Pre-production is project man­age­ment and includes, but is not lim­ited to sto­ry­board­ing, scriptwrit­ing, cast­ing, loca­tion of shoot, per­mit acqui­si­tion, recon­nais­sance to plan the shoot or any other con­tin­gen­cies that may arise.

The next is pro­duc­tion, which is the shoot itself, with all nec­es­sary crew and sup­port per­son­nel. Occa­sion­ally, projects don’t require pro­duc­tion at all, when exist­ing footage, stock footage, pho­tos, or even just graph­ics are being used to tell a story.

And finally there is post-production which entails edit­ing, pic­ture grad­ing, motion graph­ics, and any ani­ma­tion, music and /or voiceover. That all leads to a rough cut, cor­rec­tions and a final cut ready for dis­tri­b­u­tion to pre­de­ter­mined out­lets or media.

The Team

The final key ele­ment of a good video shoot I want to address in this blog is a friendly, ener­getic, and cre­ative video crew. The cre­ative input of the video pro­fes­sion­als can be very ben­e­fi­cial in pre-production, on the day of the shoot or in the edit­ing process. Even the most tightly scripted shoots can ben­e­fit from the cre­ative input of your video pro­fes­sion­als at the right time and place. Then there’s the direc­tor who, if
good, can relax and coach novices (and some­times the expe­ri­enced) in front of the cam­era to give note­wor­thy per­for­mances! We have had tremen­dous expe­ri­ence over the years and know how to make things hap­pen. You never want your crew to be over­bear­ing with regard to cre­ative input but if they can add to the shoot then by all means they should add their input to makes things better.

Always reme­ber; you are pay­ing for their time and you should expect them to be a plea­sure to work with and hope­fully be able and will­ing to write a rave review for them and bet­ter yet, refer them to some­one else!