With video production, things are never boring. Read about all that is needed to create a two-minute or longer video.
Table of contents:
- Video production, part 1: The scope of the project
- Video production, part 2: Breaking down the tasks
- Video production, part 3: The bigger picture of the process
In video and especially film production, it is largely about finding compromises and solving problems.
The work of a marketing agency is exceptionally varied, creative, and colourful, and above all, full of challenges. This time we are sharing with you an insight into the video production process. About it wrote our Rok Štupar, the company’s director, graphic designer, photographer, and the creative engine of all the processes that run at the Pakt agency.
Video production, part 1: The scope of the project
I love working in the area of creative visual communications. But at the same time, I face many challenges. One of them is certainly that, in most cases, people are unaware of all that is hidden behind multimedia production.
Take the example of video production. How does it work?
1) Creating the script. What do we even want to communicate, how, and in what way?
2) Pre-production, or the organisation of the shoot, is a chaotic process in itself.
3) Filming the video, which may end up being less than two minutes long, can take a whole day (or more).
4) Depending on the project, but usually, filming the video is only 1/3 of the entire process.
5) Next comes the selection of materials suitable for use in the final product.
6) The editing itself is a story of its own, and for a high-quality final product it requires an enormous amount of invested time, effort, and energy.
7) This is followed by the final export, the render, which can drag on after the client’s revisions.
But the time invested always pays off, in personal satisfaction and also in the satisfaction of the clients.
Video production, part 2: Breaking down the tasks
The biggest challenge in this is the quantity of materials. An enormous amount of recorded material, shots, clips, and audio tracks that I am faced with at the end of the shoot. From these, a dynamic, rounded whole has to emerge.
All the work in front of me can quickly stop me and paralyse me. That is why my solution is, again and again, to divide the project into small tasks:
Part 1: Separating the wheat from the chaff
Going through all the recordings (2x, 3x), then removing the bad, unusable shots and marking the good ones.
Part 2: Segmenting
To make it easier to continue, I create in my head a flow of the final product with an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion, and, depending on suitability, I group the recordings into individual groups. You are spared this if you are editing according to a script or shot list.
Part 3: The home stretch
Since the two points above are exceptionally time-consuming and mentally demanding, I most look forward to the final tasks. Transitions, colour grading, effects, intro-outro, audio gain, and so on. At this point, everything finally starts to come together.
This kind of approach makes my work easier. I can take the project to the finish line as quickly and as well as possible.
Video production, part 3: The bigger picture of the process
If I take a step back, to the beginning of the creative process, what is above all key is how to even approach the video production process. On one side are the customers, who want a particular result, on the other side is the idea, which is born in your head as the ideal version of the execution, and in between is, the limited budget.
The picture of the final product that you create in your head is always limited by the budget that is available for the execution.
How to align both sides and create the best result?
1) Something will always go wrong
Video production is an area in which something always goes wrong. Despite the fact that it is the producer’s job to go into the details before the start of the shoot and plan or organise as much as possible, the execution is unpredictable. There are an enormous number of factors that are difficult to control.
So in the worst case, like now in Hollywood, it can happen that someone is shot on set. In more everyday cases, the power goes out on set, or the shooting process is disturbed by church bells, cars driving past, or other unexpected factors.
2) Constant problem-solving
When I am preparing the script, I have the ideal final product in my head. Since the budget is limited, I look for solutions throughout the production process to the problems that arise. In 99% of projects, adjustments to the process, the equipment used, and the script are necessary in order to achieve a satisfactory result with what is available.
So it is, above all, about solving problems. Even in film production, it is true that a really large percentage of the work is dedicated to solving problems.
3) Compromises and resourcefulness
In the video production process, resourcefulness is key. Step by step:
- At the start, good organisation is important, since if it isn’t there, the process will be chaotic and additionally burdened.
- Next comes resourcefulness on the ground, during the production itself, when faced with unpredictable situations.
- And when post-production is up, that is about adjustment. Because the materials I get at the end of the shoot are different from how I imagined them at the beginning.
Sometimes during this comes that magical moment when things turn out even better than they were planned at the start. Why? More creative people in one place, the energy that flows, the enthusiasm during the work, and the new opportunities that show themselves when we don’t stick to the plan 100%. With larger productions, this leads to smaller deviations, since everything is more set. With small projects, the deviation is greater, and with it sometimes also the opportunities, and the final result.
If you need video production services or services from other areas of marketing, don’t hesitate. Get in touch with us.
To sum up
An insight into the work of our marketing agency, how video content is created, what challenges we face during it, and how we solve them for the best result.
