Video Production Breakdown: Pre-Production

Posted on December 23, 2011 in Marketing, Video Marketing, Video SEO, VSEO

If you’re looking to incorporate online video for your company’s marketing campaign, you may be curious as to what exactly goes into video production. Very simply, it can be broken down into 3 main parts: Pre-production, Production, and Post Production, also known as editing. Today, we will focus on a basic breakdown of the Pre-production process.

This phase essentially consists of organizing and planning for the Production phase to ensure it will run as efficiently as possible. It is almost impossible to guarantee a problem-free production, which is why proper planning is so essential. Pre-production begins with establishing the purpose of the video and the target audience. From here, the style of your video and the elements you want to include based on that audience are determined. Who will be seen in the video? What are the key points that need to be made? What will the tone be? Will there be music? How long will the video be? These are some examples of the types of questions that need to be acknowledged and addressed when choosing the target audience.

The next item to evaluate in Pre-production is the budget. Whether big or small, online video is a worthwhile investment being made for the purpose of advertising your business. Everyone has heard the saying, “You need to spend money to make money,” which is exactly the case here. If the video is low quality, the audience will most likely view the business being advertised as low quality, and will search elsewhere to get what they are looking for. In order to successfully generate business for your company, your video needs to illustrate you as the top choice to your audience. In the long run, a high-quality video will be worth it for you and your company.

After the audience and budget has been determined, a Production outline is created. All the points to be made in the video need to be clearly identified, analyzed and organized. You work off this plan to create a script. The script is a detailed document of all that will be said and concurrently seen in an itemized order. This should be as precise and specific as possible, as this is the master plan that the production will run off of. From here, the script is then broken down by scene, then by shot, with the accompanying audio going with each shot, whether it be spoken words, music, or a combination of both. Also included are the locations of each shot, the direction of each shot (i.e. wide, medium or close-up) and any camera movements (i.e. pan across, dolly up or down, or zoom in or out). Lighting and audio recording factors are taken into consideration for quality assurance. It is critical for these details to be decided on and thought out prior to the actual shoot, not during. This way, any problems that may arise during the shoot can quickly be resolved.

Pre-production is the most important part of the process. Without proper planning, there won’t be a proper execution. And if your video is important to you, you should focus on making sure every possible, specific element is covered. It’s all about the planning and the details!