You’ve traversed internet time and space to make it to this blog post, so the odds are you’re considering a corporate video production company to help you market your business, brand, company, product — or absolutely anything else.
A wise move: studies show a consistent demand and preference for video now more than ever (Hubspot, 2017). It’s a vast and exciting creative process, but it can also be a looming, twisting tunnel, with no known end in sight.
There’s no denying the prevalence of video in the 2020s. So, how is your video content performing in this over-saturated market? If you’re struggling to see results, need to clarify your video marketing goals, or just want to know more about what’s involved, then stick around; we’re doing a video production deep-dive, breaking down seven steps essential to a successful video production endeavour.
Perhaps you’ve heard something to the effect of the Five P’s before: Proper Planning Promotes Phenomenal Production.
It’s true. Before any video ventures are taken onboard, it’s important to plan ahead, and the best way to do so is by having a sound understanding of each of these seven steps, taking your video content marketing to the next level.
Step one: Strategy
It is essential you have a solid Strategy in place. An effective strategy is crucial in setting up the video production process for success from the beginning. The strategy stage looks at identifying SMART goals and the diverse subsets of your target audience, so that you may address each of them and their pain points, with you as their solution.
Step two: Scripting
The script describes the audio and visual aspects that the video will contain. This serves as both the creative and practical framework for your finished video, the part of the process where the storytelling begins and the concept is planned. Be it an information-heavy training video or a sharp and exciting TV commercial, a good video script will serve as the foundation for effectively translating the video ideas in your head to an as-realistic-as-possible fruition.
Step three: Pre-production
Akin to planning an event, the Pre-production stage covers the organisation of the people, places and things involved in the execution of Production. Director, producer, cast, production and camera crew, location, gear (cameras, lighting, green screen), props, wardrobe, catering. Anything that needs to be present in the video on the day must be organised in the pre-production stage.
Step four: Production
Production is where the rubber hits the road. The strategy sets up the script, the script sets up the video idea, the pre-production organises the production. With the strategy in place and the script front-and-centre in the production team’s mind, the filming process becomes painless.
Step Five: Editing and Animation
Depending on what needs to be done, this could be completed in a day, or take weeks – every video is different. Editing is where all the raw material is put into the edit suite to create the video detailed in the script. The Animation part of this step can be as simple as text graphics aesthetically superimposed over the footage in your brand font, or it can be complex 3D animation. Once the Editing and Animation stage is complete, we achieve ‘picture lock’, the cut of the video you approve of for the finished product. But it doesn’t end there.
Step six: Finishing and Delivering
Finishing is all about polishing the video. While the visual aspects of the video may be complete, it may require sound design, sound mixing, and colour grading, the importance of which we look into in this blog series. It is the step that takes your video to the next level as it gets closer to publishing. Delivering is where you get to see the changes made to the video since picture lock, before it is called the “finished product”. Changes can be made until you are satisfied with it, and then it’s ready for the last (and definitely not least) important step.
Step Seven: Distribution
Distribution is concerned with getting your polished video in front of the audience that you uncovered back in step one, Strategy. There’s little point investing in all those steps with a corporate video production company if no one is going to see your video. Organic traffic is your free audience, garnered through hard work, creativity, and your time, but an unreliable audience for ROI. Paid advertising optimises the placement of your content for your target audience, advancing your ROI for your video and driving the results you are going after by investing in video production. We look more at the merit of paid distribution in the final blog post of this series.
As we move through this blog series, we will unpack those seven steps essential to video production success even further. That is, Strategy; Scripting; Pre-Production; Production; Editing and Animation; Finishing and Delivery; and Distribution. If you want to unpack the anatomy of successful video content, learn more about your audience and how to make your video perform, then the secrets within this blog series await you.
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