How To Build an Effective Video Production Workflow
Video is everywhere these days. It dominates social media, people are absorbing it like it’s going out of fashion (trust us, it’s not) and it’s also a huge component in almost every modern business’s content marketing plan. Check out just a few stats that Wyzowl dug up from a 2022 study:
71% of marketers created social media videos
91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool
66% of video marketers created live action video
70% of ‘non-video-marketers’ plan to start online video marketing
And it’s that last bullet that’s the kicker. There’s a yearning out there, both commercially and for personal use, to get to know the scary world of video production for themselves. And the good thing is, it isn’t scary at all.
Three Steps to Video Heaven - Pre Production, Production, and Post Production.
All the p’s make what is known in the industry as the “video production workflow.” But what exactly is it? Well, think of one of those put together pieces of furniture from Ikea, or a Lego kit. You follow a series of sequential steps based on a set of criteria established at the start of the process. Follow them in order, you get a result. Skip a step, or mix up the order, and you’ve likely got a mess on your hands.
At Cinebody, we not only started out of a traditional video production agency, but we’ve also spent years refining our own video production workflow to make it easy-peasy to create stunning video with little to no knowledge required beforehand. Now, the level of effort in each of the three p’s will entirely depend on what you’re creating and where it will live. But, this outline should provide you with a solid guide to begin wrapping your head around everything that you need to take into consideration to execute your video project successfully.
Ready to learn the step-by-step method? Let’s dive in:
Pre Production
Don’t touch that camera yet. There’s work to be done planning your video out before you get into production (i.e. filming). In this phase, you’ll need the following:
A solid creative brief including your core messaging, the objective, tonality, target audience, the overall “big” idea, a timeline, a budget and any other key considerations. In other words, an initial outline of what you’re trying to achieve with your video.
A script (and storyboard for bigger productions). If it’s going to be ad-libbed, any points the talent needs to cover should be listed or key questions that they need to answer. You can establish a look and feel here too. This is going to be used from filming all the way through to the final edit, so get it right and make sure everyone who needs to see it actually sees it.
Logistics. This can eat up a lot of time, but it’s your foundation. Once the script & creative are approved (i.e. locked), you should start working with the crew on locations and scouting, budgeting, talent, props, the order in which footage is being shot, call times, and equipment. All of these things are key details to formulate your production plan for your day (or days) of filming.)
If it’s a remote production, which so many are these days, include the technology or the process that you will use to get the footage quickly from your selected filmers to you and your team.
Production
For almost everyone involved, this is the fun part. If you’ve done your pre production and preparation correctly, this process should be rather smooth. But, don’t take your eye off the ball - the more you understand and know the logistics & plan for filming, the better prepared you’ll be if pivots in your production day occur.
A great line producer or production manager is worth his or her weight in gold here. They’ll keep you on schedule, on budget, and can wrangle talent, crew, craft services, continuity, and anything else the production needs to go well. Essentially, they’re the individual who puts the whole project together.
You and your team (your crew) will be responsible for the execution of your production. Based on what you’re filming, this can apply to setting up all the lighting and equipment, filming the A-roll and B-roll, directing the talent, and basically checking all the boxes of your plan.
Post Production
Now it’s time to assemble the footage you worked so hard to get.
First up, check you actually got everything you set out to film. You don’t want to be 80% of the way through the edit and realize key scenes weren’t captured or weren’t transferred to you after production.
Make backups of everything. We can’t stress this enough. Hard drives, cloud storage, just as long as you have duplicates. Technology fails. Human error creeps in. Did you know Toy Story 2 was deleted from Pixar’s servers by accident? Luckily, an employee had a copy at home.
Work tightly with your editor to assemble your masterpiece, add music and graphics, clean up sound, and make everything perfect.
Speaking of sound, a separate sound engineer may be needed here for the final mix. You may also need a color corrector.
Everything looks awesome? It’s time to finalize, export, and get ready to share your masterpiece.
Release The Kraken!
Finally, it’s time to share your hard work with the world. And it’s just as important to have a plan in place for this too. Where will the video live? Is it being shared by influencers and/or celebrities, or come straight from you? Are you posting to social media? Which sites? When? Who’s being tagged, and what hashtags will help get eyes on it? You’ve just spent a lot of time and effort making this baby, you want to make sure the world gets to see it. And as 90% of ads go unnoticed, you’ll want to put serious effort into being in that 10% that works.
And that’s it. The video production workflow. It makes it easy to put together great video content than assembling the aforementioned Swedish coffee table. And it’s way more fun, too.
